Setting the Context: Definitions and Terminology

Abstract

In recognition of the complexity and dynamics of the evolving field of LGBT studies, this chapter identifies and draws out some of the terminology, definitions and language used. A significant part of the chapter is a glossary of current terms. These are not offered as definitive answers to problems of definition, but rather as a starting point for debate. It is acknowledged that minority and oppressed communities create their own language to define themselves and it is recommended that current opinions are sought and updated from local LGBT groups and activists about preferred terminology. Care should also be taken with individual service users to ensure that they feel the language and approach taken is acceptable and appropriate for them. Readers are urged to find ways to break the on-going silence on LGBT issues in the CJS: using appropriate language and presentation is a key way forward.

Glossary of Terms

Biphobia

An aversion towards bisexuality and bisexual people.

Bisexuality

Bisexuality generally refers to those individuals who can be sexually and emotionally attracted to either men or women. This group tends to suffer discrimination from the general public who perceive them as ‘promiscuous’ and from some lesbian/feminist groups who have regarded them as ‘sleeping with the enemy’ and being ‘wishy washy’ in their affiliations (van Wormer, Wells, & Boes, 2000:18). Little direct or specific consideration has been given to bisexual concerns. Bisexuals are sometimes seen as able to embody both heterosexual privilege and queer marginalisation (Clarke & Peel, 2007). More recently there have been significant strides in incorporating bisexuals within the LGBT framework, although it is often omitted within research and assumptions are made that people are either heterosexual or lesbian/gay (Fish & Karban, 2015).

Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) LGBT People

It is suggested that this category of people is probably the most under-researched field in queer studies (Fish, 2012). This is despite the work from the mid-1980s of Audrey Lorde who identified issues of class, race, gender and health. She argued that black women’s experiences are different from those of white women, being doubly invisible as black and female and triply invisible as black, lesbian and female (Lorde, 1984). It is perhaps unsurprising that BME people find it even more difficult to come out in a gay community when there has been racism exhibited. The current limited literature has been taken by some as proof that the numbers of BME LGBT people are comparatively small or even as an indication that homosexuality is a white problem or ‘white disease’ (Smith, 1993) (see Chap. 9 for a development of this concept). In a critique that challenged the unexamined assumptions of researchers, Green proposed that studies have largely been conducted among people who are the most easily accessed in bars or clubs who are ‘overwhelmingly white, middle class, young, able-bodied participants, most often urban, college student or well educated populations’ (Green, 2003:378).

Fish (2012) argues that BME LGBT people have fallen between the gaps in research disciplines and that different sampling strategies may be required to recruit them to studies. Fish suggests that studies conducted among BME populations have generally overlooked LGBT experiences by presuming the heterosexuality of participants and failing to ask a question about sexual orientation.

‘Causes’ of Sexual Orientation

Theories about the origins of sexual orientation range from nature (people are born this way) to nurture (family upbringing) (Fish, 2008, 2012). Theories of causation include the ‘gay gene’, biology or hormonal differences. Fish (2012) identifies a number of researchers as having come up with some surprising claims that an increase in male hormones in the womb leads to differences in the length of lesbians’ fingers (Williams et al., 2000), their cerebral functioning (Rahman & Wilson, 2003) or inner ears, leading to hearing loss in comparison to heterosexual women (McFadden & Pasanen, 1998).

There does not appear to be any consensus about why a person develops a particular sexual orientation, although biologically based theories are generally identified, which point to genetic factors as the causation. Some people, having embarked on heterosexual relationships in younger years, may make a positive choice to have a same-sex relationship in later years. This could be indicative of sexuality as a continuum, and could also reflect the person’s growing discomfort with heterosexual relationships and, with increasing knowledge and confidence, a willingness to explore their sexuality. There does not appear to be any strong evidence that suggests that parenting or early childhood experiences play a role in determining sexual orientation and, despite the widespread historical negativity towards homosexuality, research has shown that it is a normal and natural variation in human sexuality and not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects. Contrary to popular assumption about ‘lifestyle choices’, most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation. It is not something that can be ‘caught’ or ‘taught’ or ‘learnt’ and/or changed either by individual choice or by ‘training’ or regression therapy (Richardson & Seidman, 2002).

Cisgender

This is a term that describes people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

‘Coming Out’

This is the term generally used to describe the process of identifying first to oneself and then to others a sexual orientation different from the heterosexual ‘norm’. It is seen as a crucial step in establishing an identity that, in the face of widespread assumptions of heterosexuality, has to be announced and repeated in many different circumstances. Coming out is seen as the quintessential experience of being lesbian, gay or bisexual; conversely, hiding one’s sexual identify from others implies that the individual is not being true to themselves. It is not a one-off event but a life-long process (Fish, 2012). It is of particular significance in the field of criminal justice because of the implications of being ‘out’ or remaining invisible in a number of potentially punitive and restrictive settings. A gay offender whose experience of homophobic bullying has led him to a violent response may find his offence is somewhat mitigated by his experience of homophobia when his case is presented to court. His silence on the matter of his bullying may lead to a harsher sentence. However, if he chooses to be, or is obviously, ‘out’, he risks being treated differently within a prison setting, for example being identified as either a ‘vulnerable’ prisoner or a risk to other prisoners, hence being potentially detained in a more secure setting.

A lesbian criminal justice practitioner may fear the responses of other criminal justice agencies such as the judiciary and magistracy to her being ‘out’ and visibly different from her colleagues. However, her ‘silence’ on her identity may lead her to fear being ‘outed’ or pressured by lesbian women offenders who may recognise her from social activities in local LGBT communities. She may have to make decisions that restrict her social life in order to avoid this risk of being ‘outed’.

People tend to choose places where they feel safe before they share aspects of themselves, and they may experience other places where they need to be more guarded and self-protective (Seidler, 2010). For many it is a complex journey of telling close family and friends, with potentially mixed results, and telling or not telling work colleagues and service providers. All of this is dependent on the context, the potential ‘risks’ and the emotional resources of the person on any given date and time. For example, when accessing CJSs, the LGBT person may need to consider the relevance of their sexual orientation to the offence, how comfortable or uncomfortable they might feel about ‘outing’ themselves and whether they need a service that is tailored to their needs as an LGBT person.

There are particular issues for black and Asian LGBT people in making decisions about disclosure. They may risk alienation from their ‘black’ community if they acknowledge their gay identity and risk losing the support that offers resistance to racism. The decision to adopt an overtly gay identity may be viewed as a repudiation of one’s ethnicity (Green, 2003). They may also experience racism within the LGBT community.

Gay

Gay is generally a term that refers to men who identify as having a same-sex sexual orientation, sometimes being used more loosely to include women. Over the last decade the term ‘gay’ has become embedded in popular usage, particularly among adolescents, as a term of insult or as a reference for things deemed ‘rubbish’ or ‘lame’ (Johnson, Faulkner, Jones, & Welsh, 2007:37). Such misuse of the term can damage the self-worth of gay people and has been a significant factor in low educational achievement or truanting among LGB pupils (Johnson et al., 2007; Cull, Platzer, & Balloch, 2006).

Gender Dysphoria or Gender Identity Disorder

Gender dysphoria is recognised within the NHS as a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity. Biological sex is assigned at birth from the appearance of the genitals. Gender identity is how the person feels him or herself to be (NHS Choices, 2015). It is also sometimes referred to as gender identity disorder (GID), although this is largely now replaced by the term ‘gender non-conformity’. Gender dysphoria is not the same as transvestism or cross-dressing and is not related to sexual orientation (see Chap. 7 for further discussion on this).

Hate Crime

The concept of ‘hate’ crime is a relatively new phenomenon, which, whilst coined in the mid-1980s, only really emerged in the UK following the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the emergence of an understanding that some violent crime was motivated by hate towards individuals belonging to marginalised or ‘minority’ communities (Hall, 2005) (see Chap. 4 for more information on this).

Hegemonic Masculinity

This term is often used in gender studies to identify, in a broad-brush way, the dominant social position of men and the subordinate social position of women within particular contexts or institutions. This is discussed in more detail in Chap. 6, with reference to prison culture.

Heterocentric or Heterosexism

This is a term used to express the phenomenon of viewing the world through the eyes of the dominant, heterosexual group. It is evidenced everywhere in advertisements, conversations, the media, workshops and lectures. It is a concept that has been developed within queer theory and asserts that heterosexuality is natural and normal and refers to the social privilege afforded to it which heterosexuals take for granted (van Wormer et al., 2000; Fish, 2012). It is also generally viewed as both the overt and covert mistreatment of lesbians and gay males. It is an activity based on, and enforced by, judgements and statements about lesbians and gay men arising from prejudice and homophobia and the assumption that heterosexuality is the only appropriate and morally acceptable way of exercising sexual choice: ‘the effect of such discrimination is to deprive lesbians and gay men of their rights and dignity’ (Canton & Hancock, 2007:35).

Heteronormativity

A similar term to heterosexism, it refers to the social and cultural worldview that constructs heterosexuality as the norm (Fish, 2012). Its effects are so all encompassing that many people do not even consider that they or others might be anything but heterosexual.

Homophobia

This term has come to mean the oppression and discrimination experienced by LGB people and often relates to extreme acts of anti-gay violence such as hate crimes (Fish, 2012). It is sometimes described as an irrational or deep-rooted fear and hatred of homosexuals (van Wormer et al., 2000). This suggests that it is an involuntary and irrational fear, though this view can deny a role for the wider societal causes for bias-related harassment faced by LGBT people (Chakraborti & Garland, 2009). There is disagreement over the use of the term, with objection to the notion of an ‘irrational fear’ and more emphasis placed on prejudice comparable to racism (van Wormer et al., 2000). It has become the accepted term used by statutory and voluntary agencies to express this prejudice.

Homosexuality

The term ‘homosexuality’ comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning ‘same’ and the Latin ‘sexus’ meaning sex and refers to a romantic attraction, a sexual attraction or sexual behaviour between members of the same-sex or gender (Wikipedia, 2015). It has also come to represent an individual’s sense of their personal and social identity based on those attractions and a membership of a community of others who share them. Homosexuality is generally now represented as one of three orientations along a continuum of heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality (Hein & Scharer, 2013a).

The term ‘homosexual’ is generally not accepted as a legitimate definition of identity within LGBT communities because of its association with a medical model of illness. As recently as 2008 in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph reported on MP Iris Robinson, wife of the First Minister Peter Robinson, stating live on a national breakfast radio interview that homosexuality was an ‘abomination’ which ‘nauseated’ her, suggesting that homosexuals could be ‘cured’ with psychiatric treatment, while promoting the services of a ‘very nice’ psychiatrist who helped to ‘reorientate’ homosexuals back to heterosexuality. (Young, 2008).

It is, occasionally, used as a term in this book when citing or making reference to research or policy documents that use this term.

Identity Politics

Identity politics questions the settled nature of gay and lesbian identities and suggests there should be greater flexibility and ambivalence in queer identities in relation to issues of sexuality (Seidler, 2010).

Institutional Heterosexism

Similar to concepts of institutionalised racism and sexism, institutional heterosexism refers to a general obliviousness to the needs and concerns and even the very existence of non-heterosexual members of society. School forms that assume there is a mother and father, insurance policies with no coverage for same-sex partners, and health care providers who presuppose that ‘sexual’ means ‘heterosexual’. Pellegrini argues that institutional heterosexism shifts the responsibility for the hostility away from the recipients of the mistreatment onto the collective violators. This includes the power to enforce a particular worldview, to deny access to services and to remove difference (Pellegrini, 1992).

Internalised Homophobia and Transphobia

This concept refers to the way in which LGBT people can take within themselves the fears and prejudices of society and turn them on themselves, leading them to feel shame, self-loathing and despair about their identities. It is a frequent cause of LGBT people denying their identities to themselves as well as others, and/or being willing to accept enforced ‘treatment’ in the hope of gaining a ‘cure’ and becoming more ‘acceptable’.

Intersectionality

This term refers to the fact that people may occupy more than one and sometimes multiple identities; for example being female, black and a mother, or being a gay man and disabled. An intersectional approach recognises that people’s experiences of discrimination and privilege are affected by the different identities and social positions they occupy (Fish, 2012).

Lesbian

This refers to women who have a same-sex sexual orientation.

LGBT

The acronym ‘LGBT’ refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and is used as an umbrella definition by activist organisations and increasingly in governmental and policy documents to describe the groupings and communities of people included in the discussion. It was developed in the late 1990s as a means of identifying a social and political alliance campaigning for social and legal change (Fish, 2012). It is the term used in the title of this book, although it is acknowledged that it does not represent any form of homogeneity and that within these letters exist a wide range of differences and experiences. Some literature chooses the acronym LGBTQ to include ‘queer’ in the discussions, or LGBTI to include ‘intersex’.

Medical Model

This model identifies gay and lesbian orientations as perverse and abnormal, and open to ‘treatment’ that would guide the person back to a heterosexual orientation (Haddeman, 1994). If homosexuality was an illness it would mean that people could be ‘cured’, either by aversion therapy, psychiatric treatment or by religious conversion with the casting out of the ‘sinfulness’ of the orientation.

Men Who Have Sex with Men

This term is used to refer to men who have sexual relationships with other men but do not necessarily identify themselves as gay or bisexual.

Minority Stress

This concept has evolved to describe the increased levels of psychological and mental stress, both overt and covert, experienced by members of minority groups as a result of the oppression and discrimination they face (Brooks, 1981). Fish describes this as dislocation from social structures, norms and institutions (Fish, 2012). There is evidence that gay and bisexual men are more likely to have attempted suicide (King, Mckeown, & Warner, 2003). Some studies suggest that black and minority ethnic (BME) communities may be particularly affected by homophobic violence and experiences of discrimination associated with poor mental health, whilst others suggest that BME people grow up in self-enhancing social environments and learn strategies to deal with racism, in particular (Meyer, 2003). This may not extend to helping them learn strategies to deal with homophobia. In Diaz et al.’s study of the mental health of gay and bisexual men, many men reported experiences of racism within the gay community, discomfort in spaces primarily attended by whites and being sexually objectified owing to their race/ethnicity (Diaz, Ayala, Bein, Henne, & Marin, 2001).

Misogyny and Homophobia

Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women, which, at its most extreme, is demonstrated through violence, but it can also be seen through sexual discrimination, objectification and the general belittling of women. It is likely that some forms of homophobia can be associated with misogyny. A man who demonstrates ‘softer’ or more ‘feminine’ characteristics could find himself ridiculed by other men who equate these characteristics with ‘weakness’ and as a target for abuse. It may be one of the reasons why men in general find it harder to express affection openly towards other men, regardless of sexual orientation, than do women.

Queer Theory

This is a field of critical theory that emerged in the 1990s from the fields of queer studies and women’s studies. It was influenced by the work of Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1976). It expanded the growing body of literature on gay and lesbian studies to include any kind of sexual activity or identity that falls into normative and deviant categories. The word ‘queer’ was initially used as slang for homosexual and for homophobic abuse. The writers of LGBT experiences have reclaimed it as a positive term.

Religion and LGBT

Some faith leaders in the UK have identified a tension between religion and equality for gay people, suggesting the two are incompatible (Hunt & Valentine, 2008). ‘Living Together’, a YouGov survey of more than 2000 people commissioned by Stonewall in 2006, found that more than half of British adults felt that religious attitudes were a prevalent cause of public prejudice against gay people. However, that polling also revealed that people of faith in modern Britain are no more likely to be prejudiced against gay people than anyone else: 84 % of people identified as religious disagreed with the statement ‘homosexuality is morally unacceptable in all circumstances’ (Hunt & Valentine, 2008).

Sexual Continuum

The idea of a sexual continuum refers to the potential fluidity of sexual orientation, with some people feeling themselves to be at one end or the other and some moving along the continuum. Kinsey argued that it is less a fixed identity than a general human desire. He developed a seven-point rating scale for measuring sexual orientation from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. Those who were exclusively heterosexual had no experience or desire of same-sex sexual activity, while those who were exclusively homosexual had no history of attraction or sexual activity with opposite-sex partners (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953:470). Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels talked about overlapping circles of identity, desire and behaviour. They identified desire as about attraction to a person of the same sex, which may include only socialisation, and such people may not refer to themselves as LGBT. Behaviour could include sexual relationships with people of the same sex, though with them still not necessarily describing themselves as LGBT; and identity could include people who described themselves as LGBT but who may not necessarily have sexual relationships with people of the same sex (Laumann et al., 1994).

Sexuality

This generally refers to the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. It may be expressed in a variety of ways including through thoughts, fantasies, attitudes, values, behaviours, practices, roles and relationships.

Sexual Orientation

Sexual orientation is generally used to describe a person’s romantic, emotional or sexual attraction to another person (van Wormer et al., 2000). The term ‘sexual orientation’ is generally favoured over ‘sexual preference’ because the latter denotes a choice about their orientation, which most LGBT would deny. The public frequently makes the assumption that a person’s sexual orientation is heterosexual if there are not indications otherwise (Fish, 2012).

Straight

A term used generally, but not exclusively, by LGBT people to define those with a heterosexual orientation.

Transgender or Trans People

‘Trans’ describes a group of people who are gender variant in behaviour and preference, which includes people who are transgender, transsexual and people who cross-dress, and is the preferred term of use in the UK for people with gender non-conforming behaviour or presentation (Fish, 2012). Clarke and Peele suggest that trans people occupy a position of even greater marginality within lesbian and gay studies, and that arguably there is less public acceptance of trans people than of lesbians and gay men (Clarke & Peel, 2007:24). Historically there has been some reluctance from some LGB communities to understand and welcome trans people who consider they would be better represented under the terms of gender oppression (Clarke & Peel, 2007). However, increasingly they are now included as part of the umbrella grouping of LGBT (Stonewall, 2015b).

Transitioning

This refers to the process of changing one’s gender presentation from the sex assigned at birth to the acquired gender. This may relate to any part of, or the whole process of, changing gender (Fish, 2012).

Transphobia

This refers to the discrimination and oppression experienced by trans people, hence it concerns gender reassignment, not sexuality or sexual orientation.

Conclusion

This chapter has provided an overview of the terms most frequently used in the rest of the book and has offered some definitions and explanations of these terms. The limitations of this are acknowledged, as is the fact that the debate is evolving and language will change. However, it is hoped that practitioners working in the criminal justice field will use some of this terminology as a means of opening up discussion and taking the risk that they may not always get it ‘right’ but that their speaking out will enable and support their LGBT colleagues and a great many LGBT victims and offenders who have been silenced by the prevailing heteronormativity of British society and of the CJS.