Specificity without identity: Articulating post-gender sexuality through the “non-binary lesbian”

Abstract

This paper uses the paradigmatic pairing of non-binary and lesbian as identity labels to investigate changes in conceptualizations of sexual specificity as gender becomes divorced from its founding binaries. Contrary to the belief that lesbian is threatened by movement away from binary gender, this analysis postulates that it is not individual identities that are becoming problematic as gender identity becomes less binary; rather, it is the fundamental structure of identity which, for decades, has sanctioned identities built on exclusions. This cultural shift has the potential to liberate structures of desire, giving way to a model in which sexuality without gender is more redemptive than contentious.

Keywords

Non-binary gender lesbian gender identity binary desire

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