Kathleen E. Hull

The Political Limits of the Rights Frame: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage in Hawaii:

This article uses public debates over same-sex marriage in Hawaii to address gaps in the framing perspective on social movements. Drawing on both elite and nonelite discourses in the debates over same-sex marriage, the analysis demonstrates the dominance of the civil rights frame among supporters of same-sex marriage but finds that alternative discourses emerged among nonelite actors in response to evolving political conditions. Nonelite actors increasingly framed the issue as a question of tolerance and acceptance rather than rights. Opponents of same-sex marriage explicitly rejected the rights frame and countered with discourses of democracy and morality. This case highlights the impact of activist frames on broader public debates, but also the possibility of significant alternative frames that can only be discovered through attention to nonelite discourses. The case also suggests that dominant master frames that inform the discourses of social movements may constrain the framing efforts of activists within specific issue domains.

The Changing Landscape of Love and Marriage

Celebrities breaking up, making up, and having kids out of wedlock. Politicians confessing to extramarital affairs and visits to prostitutes. Same-sex couples pushing for, and sometimes getting, legal recognitionfor their committed relationships. Todays news provides a steady stream of stories that seem to suggest that lifelong love and (heterosexual)marriage are about as dated as a horse and carriage. Social conservatives continue sounding the alarm about the consequences of the decline ofmarriage and the rise of unwed parenting for children and for society at large. Are we really leaving behind the old model of intimacy, or are these changes significant but not radical? And what are the driving forces behind the changes?

Coming Out as Transgender: Navigating the Social Implications of a Transgender Identity

ABSTRACT This study examines transgender coming-out narratives. Most previous studies of coming out as transgender have relied on psychological stage models of identity development, with little empirical verification. This study uses identity theory to reframe transgender coming out as a primarily external, ongoing, and socially situated process. The data were collected from 20 transgender people residing in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota metro area through interviews and focus groups. The analyses reveal that coming out as transgender requires navigating others’ gender expectations, others’ reactions, and the threat of violence. The results indicate that transgender individuals do not simply decide to “come out of the closet” and then stay out. Rather, they make strategic decisions regarding the enactment of gender and gender identity disclosure based on specific social contexts. Coming out as transgender is best conceptualized as an ongoing, socially embedded, skilled management of one’s gender identity.

Whither LGBT Rights in the Post-Marriage Era?:

In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, extending government recognition of same-sex marriages nationwide, a casual observer might have been tempted to conclude that the work of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement was all but finished. Marriage equality had long appeared to be the central goal of this increasingly powerful movement, and the Supreme Court victory capped a dramatic shift in public opinion toward support for marriage equality, a shift that occurred relatively quickly and for a complex mix of reasons. But two recent books on LGBT rights and policies make the case that there is a great deal of unfinished business in this domain and, further, that the lessons of recent history within the United States and around the world should temper overly optimistic readings of the significance of the marriage win. In Fragmented Citizens: The Changing Landscape of Gay and Lesbian Lives, political scientist Stephen Engel applies the framework of American political development to the case of gay and lesbian rights. Engel’s basic argument is that the development of the American state and the social construction of sexuality are interlocking processes and, more specifically, that we can identify distinct modalities of recognition of sexuality that correspond to distinct sites of authority at different points in time, revealing a picture of social change that is partial, contradictory, and nonlinear. Recognition is central to Engel’s conception of citizenship and is prior to the enactment of specific rights and responsibilities; he defines a citizen as ‘‘a person subject to the state’s sight or recognition, identification, and classification’’ (p. 7). One of the basic insights of the American political development framework is that the normal condition of the polity is fracture and fragmentation. Thus, the state fails to see some citizens in a unified, coherent way. ‘‘In short,’’ Engel writes, ‘‘the fragmented state creates a fragmented citizen’’ (p. 20). Taken together, these notions of citizenship as recognition and polity fragmentation form the basis for an account of how inequalities persist for gay and lesbian citizens despite signs of progress and formal mandates of equality in some areas. Engel describes five distinct modalities of recognition of sexual minorities since the late nineteenth century in the U.S. context: 1) threat to national community; 2) people defined by their sexual acts, which endanger national security and morality; 3) people subject to unjust discrimination; 4) a decriminalized and privatized group without state recognition; and, 5) people dignified through equal recognition of their relationships. These modalities of recognition span both public and private authorities and do not unfold in a strictly chronological order; the book details many examples of inconsistency across government branches or the public versus private sector in terms of which modality dominated in a given time period. Still, there is a rough chronological narrative that structures the book, identifying broad shifts over historical time. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sexual and gender nonconformity was framed as a threat to national community; in the mid-twentieth century, this modality was gradually replaced by moral panic Fragmented Citizens: The Changing Landscape of Gay and Lesbian Lives, by Stephen M. Engel. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 413 pp.

Assimilation, Choice, or Constraint? Testing Theories of Gender Differences in the Careers of Lawyers

35.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781479809127.