Sexual Citizenship and Queer Post-Feminism: Young Women’s Health and Identity Politics

159 Pages·2021·1.542 MB·English

by  Ruby Grant

Routledge Advances in Critical Diversities
SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP AND

QUEER POST-FEMINISM

YOUNG WOMEN’S HEALTH AND IDENTITY POLITICS

Ruby Grant
Sexual Citizenship and Queer
Post-Feminism
Sexual Citizenship and Queer Post-Feminism makes new connections
between post-feminism and queer theory to explore the complexities of
contemporary gender and sexuality. In a wide-ranging examination of sex
education, safe sex, and sexual healthcare, this book demonstrates how
queer post-feminist discourses practically shape young women’s lives.
Bisexual, pansexual, non-binary, queer. With the ever-expanding scope of
gender and sexuality categories, some feminists have bemoaned a “shrinking
of the lesbian world.” But how do young women understand these identity
politics? Drawing on extensive interviews with queer young people, this
book offers a timely exploration of the links between identity, sex, and
health.
Utilising cross-disciplinary perspectives grounded in international social
science research, this book will appeal to students and scholars with interests
in sexuality and sexual health and those in the fields of gender and sexuality
studies, public health, social work, and sociology. The book also offers
implications for practice, suitable for policy-makers, health practitioners,
and activist audiences.
Ruby Grant is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Tasmania.
Informed by intersectional feminist philosophies and queer theory, Grant’s
research focuses on queer identity politics, sexual citizenship, and gender
equity and diversity.
Routledge Advances in Critical Diversities
Series Editors: Yvette Taylor and Sally Hines
7 Sexualities Research
Critical Interjections, Diverse Methodologies, and Practical
Applications
Edited by Andrew King, Ana Cristina Santos and Isabel Crowhurst
8 Queer Business
Queering Organization Sexualities
Nick Rumens
9 Queer in Africa
LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship, and Activism
Edited by Zethu Matebeni, Surya Monro and Vasu Reddy
10 Gender Verification and the Making of the Female Body in Sport
A History of the Present
Sonja Erikainen
11 Colonialism and Animality
Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies
Edited by Kelly Struthers Montford and Chloë Taylor
12 Disability and Animality
Crip Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies
Edited by Chloë Taylor, Kelly Struthers Montford, and Stephanie Jenkins
13 Sexual Citizenship and Queer Post-Feminism
Young Women’s Health and Identity Politics
Ruby Grant
For more information go to https://www.routledge.com/sociology/series/RACD
Sexual Citizenship and
Queer Post-Feminism
Young Women’s Health and
Identity Politics
Ruby Grant
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Ruby Grant
The right of Ruby Grant to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Grant, Ruby, author.
Title: Sexual citizenship and queer post-feminism : young women’s health
and identity politics / Ruby Grant.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. | Series:
Routledge advances in critical diversities | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020013921 (print) | LCCN 2020013922 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367341794 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429324321 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sexual minorities–Identity. | Identity politics. | Young
women–Sexual behavior. | Sexual health. | Feminist theory. | Queer
theory.
Classification: LCC HQ73 .G73 2021 (print) | LCC HQ73 (ebook) |
DDC 306.76–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013921
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013922
ISBN: 978-0-367-34179-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-32432-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
List of abbreviations viii
Introduction 1
1 Identity politics: Queer women’s negotiations of
sexual labels 16
2 Not like other girls: Post-feminism and
understanding non-binary genders 42
3 Sex education and queer post-feminist sexual citizenship 65
4 Safety, risk, and trust: Negotiating ‘good’ sexual
citizenship 89
5 The politics of queer sexual health 113
Conclusion 141
Index 146
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the people who agreed to
participate in this inquiry. Their willingness to share their stories and the
trust they put in me were truly humbling. Not only did they provide me with
a snapshot into their intimate lives but they also helped me make sense of
my own identity politics along the way.
Associate Professor Meredith Nash, my PhD supervisor, inspired me to
undertake this project. I am grateful for her years of mentorship, tough love,
and unwavering support. I would also like to thank Dr Louise Richardson-
Self, Professor Imelda Whelehan, and Dr Emily Hansen for their advice and
feedback on earlier drafts of this work. Thanks also to the staff and students
in the University of Tasmania School of Social Sciences for the collegiality
and support. I also acknowledge my thesis examiners Professor Mary Lou
Rasmussen and Associate Professor Deb Dempsey for their generous
comments and advice that have helped develop this book.
Special thanks to Professor Yvette Taylor and all at Routledge for their
patience and support for my work.
The 2016–2017 associates at the Five College Women’s Studies Research
Center, Verónica Zebadúa, Dr Diana Sierra Becerra, Dr Julie de Chantal,
Dr Rachel Brown, and Dr Helena Tolvhed, provided essential advice and
new perspectives that helped me develop what became this book. Thanks
also to Dr Banu Subramaniam and Nayiree Roubinian at the Center for the
amazing opportunity to join the Five Colleges community and for your
practical support during my time in the United States.
I am indebted to Carl and Bonnie Vigeland for opening their beautiful
home in Amherst to me and providing me with an ideal space to think and
write.
Special thanks to Susan Ditter, Liv Hogarth, and Lucy Shannon at
Working It Out, Dr Bec Dorgelo, and TasPride for the practical assistance in
recruitment.
I also wish to thank the healthcare practitioners who took time out of
their busy schedules to speak to me for my research. It isn’t always easy to
Acknowledgements vii
prioritise LGBTIQ-inclusive professional practice and your efforts do not
go unnoticed.
The research underpinning this book was conducted with the support of
an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. I am
also incredibly grateful to Mrs Janet Cretan for her generous Elite Research
Scholarship, and also to the University of Tasmania Institute for the Study
of Social Change PhD Writing Fellowship.
After all my years of study, I want to thank my family for their support –
to my parents for always inspiring me to fuck the system, to Dorrie for being
the bad-arse lesbian role model I didn’t know I needed, and to my partner,
Mick, and our kids, Jasper and Billie, for the love, laughs, and shade.
Abbreviations
ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics
AFAB Assigned female at birth
HCP Health care practitioner
LGBTIQ Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer
SRE Sex and relationships education
SSC Safe Schools Coalition
STI Sexually transmitted infections
TGLRG Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group
Introduction
I was sitting in a doctor’s office when I noticed it. Among the various
crumpled ephemera pinned to the notice board was a laminated poster
loudly proclaiming: LESBIANS NEED PAP TESTS TOO! The graphic
design looked a little dated, so I could tell it had been there a while. The
plastic was beginning to peel up at the edges and other pamphlets obscured
it in parts, but it was there. It featured a quaint, retro nurse, beaming while
brandishing a clipboard. It was at this moment that I realised I had never
seen any sexual health promotion targeting lesbians. The other women’s
health posters and pamphlets in that clinic waiting room made no mention
of women’s sexuality. But heterosexuality was certainly ambient: ‘safe sex’
meant not getting pregnant and STIs were ailments resulting from not using
a condom. While heterosexual women and girls receive fairly clear messages
about sexual health, the same cannot always be said for lesbians. So how do
young lesbians understand and experience sexuality and sexual health
today? What does ‘safe sex’ mean to them when the broader messages we
receive are so centred on heterosexuality? To address these questions, I
planned to interview Australian lesbians in their 20s about their experiences.
It was only when I started speaking to women that the story became much
more complex …
In short, no lesbians participated in my study. When I put the call out on
social media and through my own networks in my home state of Tasmania, I
said I was looking to speak to women of all gender histories (cisgender and
transgender) who were same-sex attracted. Once I started interviewing
people, I found that most described their sexuality with terms such as bi-
sexual, pansexual, and queer. Not only did this particular group of young
people experience sexuality in much more fluid terms than I initially con-
sidered, but many also saw gender this way as well. Everyone I spoke to was
assigned female at birth, but just under half described their gender as non-
binary. At this point it became apparent that this project was about much
more than lesbian sexual health. I found myself needing a new way to make
sense of this complex web of identities, sex, and health politics.