Putting Lesbians in Their Place: Deconstructing Ex-Gay Discourses of Female Homosexuality in a Global Context

Christine M. Robinson and Sue E. Spivey
Additional contact information
Christine M. Robinson: Department of Justice Studies, James Madison University, MSC 1205, 90 Bluestone Drive, Moody Hall 213, Harrisonburg, VA 22807, USA
Sue E. Spivey: Department of Justice Studies, James Madison University, MSC 1205, 90 Bluestone Drive, Moody Hall 213, Harrisonburg, VA 22807, USA

Social Sciences, 2015, vol. 4, issue 3, 1-30

Abstract: The transnational ex-gay movement is an important context affecting lesbians and sexual minority women around the world. In 2015, the UN Human Rights Commissioner called for all nations to ban conversion therapies. This research investigates a neglected area of scholarship on the ex-gay movement by deconstructing and analyzing the implications of ex-gay discourses of female homosexuality in a global context. The ex-gay movement originated in the United States and has proliferated to nearly every continent. We argue that it is the main purveyor of public, anti-lesbian rhetoric today, constructing lesbianism as sinful and sick to control women’s sexuality, enforce rigid gender roles and inequality, and oppress sexual minority women. Guided by Adrienne Rich’s theory of compulsory heterosexuality and Barbara Risman’s gender structure theory, we analyze how, in ex-gay discourse, lesbianism is demeaned and demonized in the individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions of the gender structure. Finally, we examine the impact of ex-gay discourse on sexual minority women in global context.

Keywords: lesbian; gender; global studies; rights; social movements; reparative therapy; religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/4/3/879/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/4/3/879/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:4:y:2015:i:3:p:879-908:d:56304

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().