Hi folks. it's been a nasty few weeks, as the semester ended. I had several papers due, and the Darkness slammed me hard at the same time. I learned that several friends have Covid, including one of my dearest friends.
In any case, this is one of the papers I wrote for a course called "Psychology of Gender/Sex." Got an A on the paper. This is an example of a "literature review" which means I read a bunch of articles and synthesized their meanings. Usually such things are used in introductions to scholarly articles and dissertations and such. Oh, and for classes.
So here for your dining and dancing pleasure is a sample of my academic writing. If it doesn't put you to sleep, see a doctor.
Did I mentioned it snowed? It snowed.
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Masculinity
and Violence Against LGBTQI
Introduction
Each
of the last four years, violence against LGBTQI
(Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Intersex/Queer) people in the United States
increased. In particular, violence against
transgender people increased dramatically, with both number of incidents and
deaths sharply higher. One of my
research goals for this course of study is to determine possible causes for the
violence and murder of transgender women in particular. For this paper, I examine the role of
masculinity in anti-LGBTQI violence, and review what the literature
states. This review is not
comprehensive, as every time I researched a citation, I found many more
citations which led deeper. For the sake
of time, I limited the scope of my search.
I
write this paper acknowledging the limitation of possible bias, as I am a
transgender woman. I also acknowledge my
privilege as a person of white, western European ancestry, and that the land
where I wrote this was once home to the Susquehannock people.
Violence
Homophobia/Transphobia
When
discussing violence against LGBTQI people, one must first define some
terms. The first is Homophobia, defined as “fear, aversion, or discrimination against
homosexuals” (Definition of HOMOPHOBIA, para.1). A
subset of this is Homophobic Masculinity, which is heteromasculinity centered
within homophobia, “especially pervasive in contexts where men share close
proximity with other men and feel the need to prove that they are heterosexual,
as in the case of both male athletes and fraternity members. (Worthen, 2014, p. 185) Transphobia
is defined as “emotional disgust toward individuals who do not conform to
society’s gender expectations” (Hill, 2002, as cited by Nagoshi et al, 2008, p.
521).
Buck &
Nedvin (2017) write:
“…transgender
identity is not defined by sexual or romantic behavior… however, because of their
association with LGB individuals, and because they challenge traditional views
on the nature of sex and gender, they may pose similar social threats” (p.
642).
Violence
against LGBTQI
Homophobia and transphobia can lead to violence. In 2019, the FBI reported 1,395 hate crime
offenses based on sexual-orientation bias. There were 224 based on Gender
identity. (2019, table 1). In the USA
during 2019, there were 21 known murders of transgender people. (“Violence Against the Transgender Community
in 2019,” para.2) I write known, because
transgender victims are often misgendered in death by newspapers and the
police. (“Violence Against the Transgender
Community in 2019”) Also in the USA,
there have been 42 murders so far (“Violence Against the Transgender Community
in 2020,” para.1) That’s a 95% increase in one year. Between the time of my presentation of this
paper, and the final submission, another transgender woman was found murdered.
Violence against
Transgender
Stotzer
(2008) writes “In the case of hate crimes against transgender individuals,
violence based on people’s gender identity sends a clear message about the perceived
worth and status of the victims as human beings” (p. 47). This leads to many psychological problems
among transgender people, but that topic is outside of the scope of this paper.
According
to a landmark survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality
(NCTE),
“nearly
half (48%) of all respondents in the sample reported being denied equal
treatment, verbally harassed, and/or physically attacked in the past year
because of being transgender. Nearly
half (46%) of respondents reported that they were verbally harassed in the past
year because of being transgender. Nearly
one in ten (9%) respondents reported that they were physically attacked in the
past year because of being transgender. Nearly
half (47%) of respondents have been sexually assaulted at some point in their
lifetime (James, et al, 2016, p. 197).
Disclosure: I was one
of the 27, 715 people who answered this survey.
Masculinity Defined
Like most phenomena in nature, masculinity defies a
simple explanation. The term masculine
means “pertaining to or characteristic of a man or men” (“Definition of
Masculine | Dictionary.Com,” para.1).
However, many varieties of masculinity exist. For this paper, I use four definitions.
• Normative Masculinity:
“the behaviors and expectations culturally associated with boys and men” (Rubin
et al, 2020, p. 1). Normative
masculinity is the baseline of how men see themselves and conduct
themselves.
• Hegemonic
Masculinity: “a specific form of masculinity in a
given historical and society-wide social setting that legitimates unequal
gender relations between men and women, between masculinity and femininity, and
among masculinities” (Messerschmidt, 2019, p. 86).
• Hypermasculinity:
“an overemphasis and exaggerated adherence to the traditional male gender roles
established by an outdated societal view… often associated with aggression
towards women and other men who violate the traditional gender norm” (Zernechel
& Perry, 2017, p. 3). Many transgender
women practice this while in denial of their identity, including myself (Brown,
1988).
• Fragile/Precarious
Masculinity: the idea that “that manhood, in
contrast to womanhood, is seen as a precarious state requiring continual social
proof and validation” (Rubin et al, 2020) (Vandello et al, 2008, p. 1325).
Masculine Violence
The
reason for this paper’s focus on violence perpetrated by men is that males
between 18-30 commit most of the anti-LGBTQI violence. (Conlin et al, 2020)
(Jakupcak, 2008) (Parrot et al, 2011) (Parrot et al, 2011)(Stotzer, 2008)
(Tebbe & Moradi, 2012). These ages
were determined by survey data of perpetrators (Dunbar, 2003), statistics of
the crimes (Stotzer, 2008), or self-reported (Jakupcak, 2008). Due to time limitations, I was unable to
determine the reason why men of that specific age range commit the most
crimes. Instead, I focus on possible reasons
that men attack LGBTQI people.
The
literature focuses on three possible masculinity threats which lead to
violence:
·
Challenge
to Status/ Toughness/ Anti-femininity (Cheryan et al, 2015)
(Parrot et al 2008) (Parrot et al, 2011) (Vandello, et al, 2008) (Worthen,
2014);
·
Defending
the Gender Binary (Nagoshi, et al, 2008) )(Parrot et al 2008)
·
Gender
Role Stress. (Jakupcak, 2003) (Rubin et al, 2020)
(Worthen, 2014)
Challenge to Status/Toughness/Anti-femininity.
Men
feel that their manhood is challenged by other men who don’t conform to the
social norm of masculinity (Cheryan et al, 2015) (Parrot et al 2008) (Parrot et
al 2011) (Vandello, et al, 2008) (Worthen, 2014). This is especially prevalent in situations
where men are in close knit groups like sports teams and fraternities (Worthen,
2014). Many men feel that manhood is the
opposite of femininity and that homosexual men / transgender women violate this
(Harrison & Michelson, 2018) (Parrot et al, 2008) (Parrot et al, 2011)
(Woodford et al, 2012). Parrot et al
(2011) write that this is the “the most critical component of one’s masculine
identity” and “because men equate homosexuality with femininity… men’s
rejection of femininity is synonymous with their rejection of homosexuality
(regardless of the sexual-minority person’s gender)” (p.42). Stotzer (2008) writes that the most common
slurs said by perpetrators of anti-LGBTQI violence are “homosexual slurs or
pejoratives”, while second most common insult are “gender based slurs”
(p.47).
Another aspect of this challenge may be
that men see LGBT as threats to the possibility of successful mating (Buck
& Nedvin, 2017). In other words, if
a man doesn’t have a chance to procreate with a person, that person may be a threat,
or is useless to him.
Defending the Gender Binary
Morgenroth et al (2020) define the gender
binary as “the
belief that sex is binary and directly determines gender” (p. 1). They also write “Individuals who violate these
expectations… are often harshly punished” (pp. 1-2). Men who assault LGBTQI people share many
traits, including a strong belief in the gender binary, strong religious
beliefs, high identification with masculine traits (Nagoshi, et al, 2008)
)(Parrot et al 2008), as well as “right-wing authoritarianism… and hostile
sexism” (Nagoshi et al, 2008, p. 521).
These men also wish to preserve their societal position of dominance
over women (Conlin et al, 2020) (Morgenroth et al, 2020) (Tebbe & Moradi,
2012) (Worthen, 2014). This is where
hypermasculinity often plays a role (Zernechel & Perry, 2017), as the
challenge to the gender binary is seen as a person challenge to their
manhood. They seek closure and the
re-establishment of the separation of genders that is a major part of their
psychological underpinning (Morgenroth et al, 2020) (Tebbe & Moradi, 2012),
which leads to violence (Jakupcak, 2003) (Parrott et al, 2008) (Parrott et al,
2011). Hypermasculinity is common with
athletes and fraternity members, which I saw personally during my undergraduate
years as a member of a fraternity (Corprew III & Mitchell, 2014) (Worthen,
2014). In my case, hypermasculinity is
the main reason I joined a fraternity. I
thought that by joining, my ‘dark secret” of femininity would be further
obscured from view.
Gender
Role Stress
Manhood in western culture is not an
absolute. Vandello et al (2008) writes “It
might be said that womanhood happens to girls, via a series of inevitable
physical and biological changes, but manhood is something that boys must make
happen, by passing certain social milestones” (p. 1325). As manhood isn’t a given and is “earned”, it
can therefore be lost (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2001) (Jakupcak, 2003)
(Vandello et al, 2008). This was one of
my greatest fears growing up, and what caused me to overcompensate with
hypermasculine behavior. One of the
social milestones I completed was being initiated into a fraternity, which
signaled that I endured the rigors of hazing during my “pledging”, and was
entitled to be seen as a man among my peers: part of the brotherhood. (Corprew III & Mitchell, 2014) (Schmitt
& Branscombe, 2001) (Worthen, 2014)
Jakupcak (2003) writes that
“Masculine gender role stress can result from situational demands or global self-appraisals
in which culturally defined schemas of masculinity are violated” (p. 533). This is where fragile/precarious masculinity plays a major role. Rubin et al (2020) write that “not living up
to masculinity norms has consequences for self-esteem and as a result, some men
experience discrepancy stress when they fail to behave in accordance with what
it means to be a man” (p. 2). In
addition, gender role stress “can result from situational demands or global
self-appraisals in which culturally defined schemas of masculinity are
violated” (Eisler & Skidmore, 1987, as cited in Jakupack, 2003, p. 251).
Harrison
& Michelson (2018) write that how much a person’s identification as
masculine is a strong indicator of how they’ll think and act toward transgender
people. These people may be insecure in
their status among their peers, and respond violently (Jakupcak, 2003) (Parrott
et al, 2008) (Parrott et al, 2011). They
believe this aggression will lead to acceptance by their peer group (Corpew III
& Mitchell, 2014) (Rubin et al, 2020) (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2001) in
addition to satisfying their inner cognitive dissonance (Morgenroth et al,
2020).
Conclusion
The literature shows what is obvious to any person who is
socialized as a male: that normative masculinity is a narrow and complex
process which begins at birth, and one which must be re-affirmed constantly (Parrott
et al, 2008) (Rubin et al, 2020) (Vandello et al, 2008, p. 1325). Failure means that the person isn’t a “real
man” and could lead to being ostracized or worse (Morgenroth et al, 2020). Men aren’t permitted to show emotion or
weakness, and to do so is perceived as “feminine” (Cheryan et al, 2015)
(Jakupcak, 2003) (Morgenroth et al, 2020).
While I was growing up, the worst insult that a boy could give another
boy was anti-feminine (‘runs like a girl,” “wuss,” “pussy”, etc.) or to call
them a homosexual (one of the many anti-gay slurs), which was seen as the same
thing (Parrot et al, 2011). A boy was
expected to instantly retort or fight physically, therefore proving his
manhood. As a side note, I remember
hearing somewhere that men insult each other by insinuating that other guys are
feminine, while women insult each other using feminine slurs. Therefore, the worst insult is to be a
woman. Hegemonic masculinity writ large!
Not all men subscribe to
this narrow view of masculinity (Vandello et al, 2008) (Woodford et al, 2012)
and have the confidence to live their lives not caring what other people think
of them. Also, the majority of men does
not react violently to LGBTQI people, nor react to them as a threat. One of the key factors here is actually
knowing an LGBTQI person (Woodford et al, 2011).
However, enough men feel
the pressure of their manhood as gender role stress, and feel that they must
maintain their social standing as men: normative masculinity. From this subset of men arise those who
attack LGBTQI people. These are the hegemonic
and hypermasculine, who’s fragile self-view of their masculinity lead them to
over-compensate and lash out violently.
LGBTQI people are often the victims, especially transgender people. Historically, such violence may or may not have
been punished, due to such concepts of “gay panic defense” and “trans-panic
defense” which are still legal in some states, and due to the outsider status
of LGBTQI people.
With the rise of gay rights, many more people now
know someone who is gay/lesbian, and these people are more tolerant. Society still isn’t at that point with
transgender people, especially transgender women. Perhaps this is why so many transgender
people experience violence.
With this paper, I described different possible
explanations for anti-LGBTQI violence.
Hundreds, if not thousands of studies were performed and continue to be
done trying to illuminate the causes of this phenomenon, determining the three
major “masculinity threats” I’ve detailed.
More studies about anti-transgender violence emerge all the time, which
fills a gap in the literature. My next
step is to review that literature, and hopefully someday add to it with my own
work. I dream of a day when transgender
women are seen as just women, and that women are seen as the equals of
men. If my struggles and sacrifices help
toward that goal, I will consider them worthwhile.
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