Mismatched Lovers: Exploring the Compatibility Between LGBTQ+ Identity Theories and Gender and Sexual Plurality in Sri Lanka

Sexual and gender identity development theories in psychology and sociology exert considerable influence over discourse on gender and sexuality, shaping key domains such as counseling, education, and social work, as well as public policy and advocacy. While a robust body of literature has developed in critique of such theories and models, they continue to be applied in the Global South without much thought for their relevance to various non-Western cultural contexts. The current study explores the fit of these identity development theories to the experiences of 15 non-heterosexual and transgender individuals in Sri Lanka, gathered through a qualitative study of the question in 2016. These participants articulated gender and sexual self-conceptions that were incongruent with major identity development theories in significant ways. A broad majority failed to endorse central or salient sexual identities, while demonstrating a fluidity in object choice, sex roles, and sex acts, thus rupturing the theoretical notion of stable and coherent identities. Transgender participants did not demonstrate identity synthesis or pride and complicated theoretical understandings of sexual intimacy. These findings highlight the necessity of considering individual differences and cultural contexts when studying gender and sexuality and the dangers of universalizing theories across cultural differences.     

Queering gender: anima/animus and the paradigm of emergence

An exploration into the world of the queer others of gender and sexuality moves us beyond the binary opposition of male/masculinity and female/femininity in our understanding of gender and expands the meaning of gender and sexuality for all humans. A revision of Jungian gender theory that embraces all genders and sexualities is needed not only to inform our clinical work but also to allow us to bring Jungian thought to contemporary gender theory and to cultural struggles such as gay marriage. The cognitive and developmental neurosciences are increasingly focused on the importance of body biology and embodied experience to the emergence of mind. In my exploration of gender I ask how gender comes to be experienced in a developing body and how those embodied gender feelings elaborate into a conscious category in the mind, a gender position. My understanding of emergent mind theory suggests that one's sense of gender, like other aspects of the mind, emerges very early in development from a self-organizing process involving an individual's particular body biology, the brain, and cultural environment. Gendered feeling, from this perspective, would be an emergent aspect of mind and not an archetypal inheritance, and the experiencing body would be key to gender emergence. A revised Jungian gender theory would transcend some of the limitations of Jung's anima/animus (A/A) gender thinking allowing us to contribute to contemporary gender theory in the spirit of another Jung; the Jung of the symbolic, the mythic, and the subtle body. This is the Jung who invites us to the medial place of the soul, bridging the realm of the physical body and the realm of the spirit.     

Addressing a Divide in the Conceptualization of the Gender-Crime Relationship: A Comparative Test of Gender and Sex Using General Strain Theory

While criminology has long recognized the impact of gender on crime, many criminological theories continue to measure sex rather than socially constructed gender identities. Research has also struggled to directly compare these measures within a theoretical context. This study examines the impact of sex and gender identity variables using the framework of General Strain Theory. A total of 1,457 college students were surveyed on measures of General Strain Theory, biological sex, gender identity, and a range of deviant behaviors. Findings indicate that gender identity produced a stronger predictive model of deviance than biological sex, and suggest a means for research to account for gender when studying deviance.     

Queer ethics and fostering positive mindsets toward non-binary gender,genderqueer, and gender ambiguity

Abstract

Background: Alongside the growth in visibility of gender identities and presentations such as genderqueer, non-binary and gender neutral, there is ridicule and backlash in wider culture, as well as more subtle invisibility and misgendering. While there exists social psychology research about negative and positive attitudes to trans people, this is restricted to those whose gender identity is at odds with their sex assigned at birth, and who identify with binary gender. Social psychology has extended to the more subtle workings of transphobia, but there is little consideration of the distinctiveness of attitudes and responses to those whose genders cannot be attributed in binary ways, and thus how these may be challenged.

Methods: In keeping with the methods of social theory, this article brings together a diverse and complementary range of conceptual fields in new ways to diagnose a novel cause and solution to these negative attitudes. Using queer theory, feminist ethics, and empirical studies in post-tolerance sociology and social psychology, it argues that negative social responses to genderqueerness stem not only from overt prejudice in the form of transphobia but from binary genderism, the conviction that there are only two genders.

Results and conclusion: This article proposes fostering greater diversity-literacy and empathy for difference as a more effective approach than minority identity-based ‘prejudice reduction’ approaches. A norm-critical approach to deconstructing gender norms is proposed, thus fostering positive attitudes to genderqueerness. It is therefore demonstrated how best to foster enabling social contexts for genderqueerness, with positive implications for the physical and social health and wellbeing of gender variant people. This approach can be applied in organizations, institutions, and by service providers who interact with genderqueer individuals, in that it can inform a shift to approaching diversity positively in ways that are not restricted to pre-determined and binary identity categories.     

From Social to Political Identity: A Critical Examination of Social Identity Theory

Interest in the concept of identity has grown exponentially within both the humanities and social sciences, but the discussion of identity has had less impact than might be expected on the quantitative study of political behavior in general and on political psychology more specifically. One of the approaches that holds the most promise for political psychologists is social identity theory, as reflected in the thinking of Henri Tajfel, John Turner, and colleagues. Although the theory addresses the kinds of problems of interest to political psychologists, it has had limited impact on political psychology because of social identity theorists' disinclination to examine the sources of social identity in a real world complicated by history and culture. In this review, four key issues are examined that hinder the successful application of social identity theory to political phenomena. These key issues are the existence of identity choice, the subjective meaning of identities, gradations in identity strength, and the considerable stability of many social and political identities.     

The Intersections of Sexuality, Gender, and Race: Identity Research at the Crossroads

Psychology’s engagement with an intersectional perspective on social identities continues to grow. This special issue is significant in its use of intersectionality to complicate thinking about sexual orientation as a singular, homogenous category. Furthermore, it spotlights how intersectional positions within the range of sexual minority identities articulate with multiple other dimensions of identity, including gender, racial ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and age. In addition to recognizing the important contributions of this issue’s authors, in this commentary we relate their efforts to current trends in intersectionality research, including the contrasting ways intersectionality is applied in psychology. We observe that the authors portray intersectionality as either primarily concerned with multiple marginalized identities or as a more generalized theory of identity, and the authors use intersectionality as a framework, a theory, and an approach to social justice. We then address critiques of intersectionality theory that appear in the field of feminist/gender studies, showing how articles in this special issue both exemplify and challenge those critiques. Last, we focus on next steps in intersectionality research, focusing especially on the question of how intersectionality can best inform theory and methods in psychology.     

When Darwin flopped: The rejection of sexual selection

Charles Darwin considered sexual selection as integral to evolution as natural selection, but the theory of sexual selection was rejected by most scientific and lay audiences. This article argues that sexual selection theory clashed with biases prevalent in the 19th-century—about culture and nature, mind and body, male and female—in ways that Darwin’s first sketch of evolution did not. Whereas the 1859 The Origin of Species tracked the development of bodily structures, the 1871 The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex focused not on form but function—on behavior. In Darwin’s view, “mind is function of body,” and the mind was the seat not of reason but of sex. Also, when he postulated that female choice sculpted the male form, he conflicted with the long-standing cultural assumption that men controlled women. And, in discussing female beauty, Darwin showed a fascinating ambivalence about its implications for human gender relations. Finally, he was at odds with his culture in the premium he placed on desire. In short, his theory landed on a cultural fault line, causing upheaval and mayhem, and then it fell into an abyss it had helped to create.     

中文语境下的“心理”和“心理学”

“心”或“心理”等词语在汉语中有相当长的历史,对这些词语的理解反映了中国人关于“心理”的认识。中文的“心”往往不是指一种身体器官而是指人的思想、意念、情感、性情等,故“心理学”这三个汉字有极大的包容性。任何学科都摆脱不了社会文化的作用,中国心理学亦曾受到意识形态、科学主义和大众常识等方面的影响。近年中国学者对心理学自身的问题进行了反思。从某种意义上说,中国人对“心理”和“心理学”的理解或许有助于心理学的整合,并与其他国家的心理学一道发展出真正的人类心理学     

Where sex was, there shall gender be? The dialectics of psychoanalytic gender theory

Psychoanalytic theories of gender identity have come a long way since Freud. The author reviews two dialectics that have shaped psychoanalytic gender theory thus far: first, the tension between theories that emphasize biological versus sociocultural influences on gender, and second, the dialectic between nomothetic (i.e., universalizing) and idiographic (i.e., focusing on individual variation) approaches. The author argues that psychoanalytic gender theory could be further enriched with more attention to two additional dialectics. One involves the so-called gender binary and the relative focus on cultural versus developmental aspects of the binary; a second involves the relationship between gender identity and desire. Attention to these dialectics can help better integrate theoretical and clinical perspectives on gender identity.     

Towards an ontogenesis of queerness and divinity: Queer political theology and Terrorist Assemblages

The presumed categorical stability of sexual and national identities fuels a biopolitical phenomenon that Jasbir Puar has termed homonationalism. Critical responses to homonationalism must necessarily challenge the priority of ontological stasis that often characterises scholarly approaches to theorising both god and identity. This essay argues that a monotheistic political theology provides a basis for assuming notions of identity that are ontologically static. Post-secularity is put forth as an analytic for examining the intertwining of theological and cultural logics in the emergence of homonationalisms. Within that post-secular framework, affect theory is applied to analyse religion, nationalism and sexuality not as discrete social positions but as an assemblage of dynamic and interrelated multiplicities. This post-secular, affective approach allows for an expanded field of political and cultural analysis in queer theory and queer theology alike.     

THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE OF SEX AND GENDER

Abstract: Several decades ago, feminists differentiated between the biologically given basis of sex identity (sex) and the socially constructed cultural practices anchored by sex identity (gender). In recent years, many feminists have challenged that distinction, arguing that biological sex is as much a social construct as are the practices comprising gender. I survey two examples from biological studies of sex identity that, by contrast (I maintain), warrant saving the concept of biologically given sex identity. The result is not antithetical to feminism, however, since these studies also suggest that sex identity proliferates beyond the rigid female/male dichotomy. If articulated carefully, this view can avoid metaphysically essentialist baggage while enriching feminist conceptions of sex identity.     

The Many Faces of SocialIdentity: Implications for Political Psychology

Social identity is a concept that has been invented and reinvented across the social and behavioral science disciplines to provide a critical link between the psychology of the individual and the structure and function of social groups. This paper reviews the various definitions of social identity as it is used in different theoretical frameworks, drawing distinctions among person-based identities, relational (role-based) identities, group-based identities, and collective identities. The implications of these different conceptualizations of social identity for political psychology are discussed, with a call for integrative theory that draws on all four definitions interactively.     

Migrants straddling the “here” and “there”: Explorations of habitus and hybrid identities among Sri Lankan migrants in New Zealand

Migrant settlement is of particular interest to the field of psychology due to a notable increase in the movement of people over the past few decades. This article explores the ways in which Sri Lankan migrants in New Zealand establish a sense of continuity between the host nation and country of origin. The theoretical framework for this research is informed by elements of ethnographic and indigenous research. We provide a rich understanding of migrant experiences that foregrounds the agency and resilience of migrants, and acknowledges the complexities of the notion of identity and migrant settlement. We explore complex, fluid, and hybrid cultural identities as experienced by Sri Lankan migrants and their negotiations of space and place, material practices, and objects of significance, such as an educational institution, antique dinnerware, and furniture with colonial origins. The present research thereby, argues for the need to acknowledge both the historical and current contexts that shape migrants' sense of habitus and cultural identities.     

Transgenderism and transformation: an attempt at a Jungian understanding

While transgenderism as a cultural phenomenon seems to be based on a collective taste for the sensational, its emergence represents a collective shift towards a new or more differentiated way of experiencing and expressing sex and gender, a movement of world soul. This paper attempts to explore that emergence from a Jungian perspective. The paper utilizes clinical examples which illustrate how dissociated aspects of the personality are seeking assimilation and expression in order to move the personality towards greater wholeness. In that sense, it attempts to understand the teleology of transgenderism on an individual and collective level. The paper is intended as a starting‐off point for discussion and explores gender as fantasy, anima/animus dynamics, the psyche/soma relationship, the role of hormones/biochemistry in our experience of ourselves and what transgender people carry and suffer for our culture.     

汉字:国人释梦实践的本土化面向

汉字释梦是根据梦像的视觉形象构造,寻找书写结构与其相对应的汉字,再依于汉字的本义把握梦的意义。首先依据现代心理学探讨传统梦学中汉字释梦的思想;然后对汉字释梦的可行性进行深入分析,认为梦和汉字都以表意为首要目的,都采取象形的表达方式,进而提出汉字释梦的操作思路;最后结合案例展现了汉字释梦在实践中的应用。     

文化心理学的基本内涵辨析

由于文化心理学刚刚兴起,概念尚未十分清晰,不同的学者对之有不同的看法。不过,不同学者看法中也有一些共同之处。他们基本上都认为文化心理学研究的是意义;心理与文化相互建构;文化心理学的研究方法与主流心理学不同,主要采用客位研究策略。综合各家之言和文化心理学的基本特点,可以把文化心理学界定为研究文化心理或文化行为的具有边缘或交叉性质的独立学科。     

Beyond Male and Female: Poststructuralism and the Spectrum of Gender

ABSTRACT

Transgender explodes the notion that male and female are discrete categories. Transgender people change sex or inhabit third (or multiple) sex, androgynous, or fluid identities. I theorize this by developing and then critiquing poststructuralist transgender theory. A poststructuralist theory of transgender disassociates sex and gender, models both as constructed, and emphasizes the technologisation and commodification of the body. Poststructuralist accounts can, however, entail denial of bodily limitations, erase transgender people's subjective experience, and overlook social and political factors, such as the importance of gender categories as a basis for identity politics. I argue for the deconstruction of gender binaries to be combined with the development of a gender-pluralist, flexible, model of gender. This points to the replacement of bipolar models of gender with a gender spectrum, with important implications for conceptualizing gender. My analysis is based on empirical research with a range of transgender people.     

Identity,Culture and Contestation: Social Identity as Cross-Cultural Theory

In this paper we explore the logic and implications of the social identity approach to group processes. The theory argues that the consequences of social identification for behaviour are not simple givens. Rather than making generalisations about the behaviour that flows from social identification, the theory makes the point that behaviour depends upon the way in which identities are defined. This emphasis upon the contents of social identities draws our attention to their construction and we pay particular attention to how group identities are made and remade in and through argument and social practice. We argue that attention to the dynamics of identity construction means that this perspective is respectful of culture and cultural difference and that the social identity approach therefore has considerable value in exploring the politics and practice of identity wherever group behaviour may be found. Moreover, we argue that the ubiquity of identity-related argument across cultures and contexts reflects the fact that group identity is a basis for social power.     

The Emergence of Narrative Identity

This paper reviews the current research on narrative identity. Narrative identity is quickly becoming accepted as a promising process approach to self‐development in a variety of fields, including developmental, clinical, cultural, personality, and social psychology. This paper reviews factors surrounding the emergence of narrative identity in adolescence, relations between narrative patterns and age and personality, as well as factors that are important to developing a coherent narrative identity, such as the emotional valence of experience, storytelling, and culture. Finally, new and emerging issues are raised for those interested in the study of narrative identity, with a particular focus on narratives that are difficult to tell and may violate cultural norms.