Hostname: page-component-857557d7f7-zntvd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-11-21T14:15:09.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Sexual Orientation/Identity Distinction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2021

Matthew Andler
Matthew Andler*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Lafayette College, 324 Pardee Hall, Easton, PA 18042
*
Corresponding author. andlerm@lafayette.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article I explicate the sexual orientation/identity distinction: sexual orientation is “natural,” involving dispositions to sexual behavior, while sexual identity is the “social meaning” of sexual orientation, and argue that the sexual orientation/identity distinction is indispensable to normative explanations regarding LGBTQIA+ oppression and resistance.

Information

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , Spring 2021 , pp. 259 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ásta, . 2018. Categories we live by: The construction of sex, gender, race, and other social categories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlant, Lauren, and Warner, Michael. 1998. Sex in public. Critical Inquiry 24 (2): 547–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browne, Natalie. 2017. Nails. In Butch is not a dirty word 1. https://www.butchisnotadirtyword.com/product/butch-is-not-a-dirty-word-issue-1.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Cheshire. 2000. Feminism, the family, and the politics of the closet: Lesbian and gay displacement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dembroff, Robin. 2016. What is sexual orientation? Philosophers’ Imprint 16 (3): 1–27.Google Scholar
Dembroff, Robin. 2020. Beyond binary: Genderqueer as critical gender kind. Philosophers’ Imprint 20 (9): 1–23.Google Scholar
Díaz-León, Esa. Forthcoming. Sexual orientations: The desire view. In Feminist philosophy of mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. The five sexes, revisited. The Sciences (July/August): 18–23.Google Scholar
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2012. Sex/gender: Biology in a social world. New York and London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2017. Against dichotomy. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture 1 (1): 63–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghaziani, Amin. 2014. There goes the gayborhood? Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghaziani, Amin. 2017. Sex cultures. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Godoy, Esther. 2017. Editor note. Butch is Not a Dirty Word 1. https://www.butchisnotadirtyword.com/product/butch-is-not-a-dirty-word-issue-1.Google Scholar
Halperin, David M. 2000. How to do the history of male homosexuality. Gay and Lesbian Quarterly 6 (1): 87–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012a. Ontology and social construction. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012b. Future genders? Future races? In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012c. A social constructionist analysis of race. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012d. Gender and race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be? In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012e. Oppressions: Racial and other. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2016. What is a (social) structural explanation? Philosophical Studies 173 (1): 113–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). 2008a. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). https://isna.org/directory/14/.Google Scholar
Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). 2008b. Ovo-testes (formerly called true hermaphroditism). https://isna.org/faq/conditions/ovo-testes/.Google Scholar
James, Scott. 2017. There goes the gayborhood. New York Times, June 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/gay-pride-lgbtq-gayborhood.html.Google Scholar
Jay, Casey. 2014. On the streets of the Capitol Hill arts district, “contemporary artists” and the woo! girl creator. Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/11/the-woo-girl/.Google Scholar
Mallon, Ron. 2016. The construction of human kinds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Maggie. 2015. The argonauts. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2017. The partisan divide on political values grows even wider: Sharp shifts among democrats on aid to needy, race immigration. Pew Research Center, October 5. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/05/the-partisan-divide-on-political-values-grows-even-wider/.Google Scholar
Romano, Tricia. 2015. Cultures clash as gentrification engulfs Capitol Hill. Seattle Times, March 13. https://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/culture-clash-on-capitol-hill/.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of the United States. 2019. Brief of philosophy professors as amici curiae in support of the employees. https://tinyurl.com/y62orgwd.Google Scholar
Suresha, Ron Jackson. 2018. Bears as subcultural subversives: An interview with Eric Rhofes. In Bears on bears: Interviews and discussions. New Milford, Conn.: Bear Bones Books.Google Scholar
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. 2019. 725 Eatery Corp v. City of New York.Google Scholar
Wilkerson, William S. 2009. Is it a choice? Sexual orientation as interpretation. Journal of Social Philosophy 40 (1): 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar