Gender and Sexuality Studies

The theory that gender categories and the behaviors associated with them are not biologically determined but are created and maintained through social interactions, cultural norms, institutions, and language. While biological sex refers to physiological characteristics, gender is understood as a set of socially produced roles, expectations, and identities.

A theoretical framework coined by legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 that examines how overlapping social identities such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability create unique and compounded experiences of discrimination and privilege that cannot be understood by examining any single category in isolation.

A concept developed by philosopher Judith Butler arguing that gender is not an innate identity but is constituted through the repeated performance of gendered acts, gestures, speech patterns, and behaviors. Gender exists only insofar as it is continually enacted and reinforced.

A social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control over property. Feminist scholars analyze how patriarchal structures are maintained through laws, cultural norms, family structures, religious institutions, and economic arrangements.

An approach to literary and cultural studies that rejects fixed categories of sexual identity and challenges heteronormativity. Emerging in the early 1990s from the work of scholars like Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Michael Warner, queer theory interrogates how norms around sexuality and gender are produced and policed.

The assumption, embedded in social institutions, cultural practices, and everyday interactions, that heterosexuality is the natural, normal, or preferred sexual orientation. Heteronormativity marginalizes non-heterosexual identities by treating them as deviant, invisible, or secondary.

A broad body of scholarship and political thought concerned with understanding and challenging gender inequality. Feminist theory encompasses multiple traditions including liberal, radical, socialist, postcolonial, and Black feminism, each offering different analyses of the sources of gender oppression and strategies for change.

Cisgender describes a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth, while transgender describes a person whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex. These terms highlight that alignment between sex assignment and gender identity is not universal and that both cisgender and transgender are equally valid identity categories.

A foundational analytical framework in gender studies that differentiates between sex (biological and physiological characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive anatomy) and gender (the socially constructed roles, behaviors, and expectations associated with being masculine or feminine).

A concept articulated by poet and essayist Adrienne Rich in her 1980 essay, arguing that heterosexuality is not simply a natural orientation but a political institution enforced through social pressure, economic dependence, and cultural idealization. It renders lesbian existence invisible and constrains all women's autonomy.