Queer erasure (also known as LGBTQIA+ erasure) refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove LGBTQ groups or people from record, or downplay their significance, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people.[1][2] This erasure can be found in a number of written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts.
In academia and media
editQueer historian Gregory Samantha Rosenthal refers to queer erasure in describing the exclusion of LGBTQ history from public history that can occur in urban contexts via gentrification.[3] Rosenthal says this results in the "displacement of queer peoples from public view".[4] Cáel Keegan describes the lack of appropriate and realistic representation of queer people, HIV-positive people, and queer people of color as being a type of aesthetic gentrification, where space is being appropriated from queer people's communities where queer people are not given any cultural representation.[5]
Erasure of LGBTQ people has taken place in medical research and schools as well, such as in the case of AIDS research that does not include lesbian populations.[citation needed] Medicine and academia can be places where visibility is produced or erased, such as the exclusion of gay and bisexual women in HIV discourses and studies or the lack of attention to LGBTQ identities in dealing with anti-bullying discourse in schools.[citation needed]
Straightwashing
editStraightwashing is a form of queer erasure that refers to the portrayal of LGBTQ people, fictional characters, or historical figures as heterosexual.[6] It is most prominently seen in works of fiction, whereby characters who were originally portrayed as or intended to be homosexual, bisexual, or asexual are misrepresented as heterosexual.[7][8]
Bisexual erasure
edit
Bisexual erasure (or bi erasure), also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality (or similar identities, such as pansexuality) in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.[9][10][11]
In its most extreme form, bisexual erasure can include the belief that bisexuality itself does not exist, and that individuals who identify as bisexual are either heterosexual or homosexual.[9][11][12] People who believe that bisexuality doesn't exist typically claim that bisexuals are simply confused, or in denial, about their own sexuality. In the case of bisexual men, this commonly manifests in a stereotype that bisexual men are simply closeted gay men.[13] Bisexual individuals are also sometimes dismissed or stereotyped as hypersexual.[14]
Bisexual erasure is often a manifestation of biphobia,[9][10][11] although it does not necessarily involve overt antagonism. Erasure frequently results in bisexual-identifying individuals experiencing a variety of adverse social encounters, as they not only have to struggle with finding acceptance within general society but also within the LGBTQ community.[15] Bisexual erasure is a form of stigma and leads to adverse mental health consequences for people who identify as bisexual, or similar.[16][17]Homosexuality erasure
editGay erasure
editThis section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2023) |
Lesbian erasure
editTrans erasure
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In 2007, Julia Serano discusses trans-erasure in the transfeminist book Whipping Girl. Serano says that transgender people are "effectively erased from public awareness" due to the assumption that everyone is cisgender (non-transgender) or that transgender identification is rare.[21] The notion of transgender erasure has been backed up by later studies.[22]
In 2025, transgender erasure has intensified, particularly in the United States, due to significant policy shifts and executive actions. On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14168, titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." This order mandates federal agencies to recognize only two sexes, male and female, as determined at conception, effectively disregarding the existence of transgender and nonbinary identities.[23]
Following this directive, numerous federal agencies have removed references to transgender individuals from their materials. For instance, the National Park Service eliminated mentions of transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument's website, altering the acronym "LGBTQ+" to "LGB."[24] Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expunged information related to transgender health from its resources and withdrew funding from research projects that promoted what the administration called "gender ideology."[25]
Aspec erasure
editAromantic erasure
editAromantic people are often erased due to the societal expectation that everyone prospers with an exclusive romantic relationship, something that Elizabeth Brake has coined as the term amatonormativity. Aromantic people face continued pressure and prejudice to conform to the "social norms" and form a permanent romantic relationship such as marriage.[26][27]
Asexual erasure
editThis section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2023) |
Intersex erasure
editIntersex and transgender individuals are often erased in public health research which conflates sex and gender (see sex–gender distinction).[28] The narrow and inflexible definitions of sex and gender in some countries means some intersex and non-binary people are unable to obtain accurate legal documents or identification, preventing their access to public spaces, jobs, housing, education and basic services.[29] It is only recently that the concept of legal rights for intersex people has been considered,[30] even in LGBTI activist circles. However, there is a growing intersex activist community which campaigns for intersex human rights, and against intersex medical interventions which they see as unnecessary and mistreatment.[31]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Scot, Jamie (2014). "A revisionist history: How archives are used to reverse the erasure of queer people in contemporary history". QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. 1 (2): 205–209. doi:10.14321/qed.1.2.0205. S2CID 154539718.
- ^ Mayernick, Jason; Hutt, Ethan (June 2017). "US Public Schools and the Politics of Queer Erasure". Educational Theory. 67 (3): 343–349. doi:10.1111/edth.12249. ISSN 0013-2004.
- ^ Rosenthal, Gregory Samantha (1 February 2017). "Make Roanoke Queer Again". The Public Historian. 39 (1): 35–60. doi:10.1525/tph.2017.39.1.35. ISSN 0272-3433.
- ^ Rosenthal, Gregory Samantha (February 2017). "Make Roanoke Queer Again". The Public Historian. 39 (1): 35–60. doi:10.1525/tph.2017.39.1.35. S2CID 151792218.
- ^ Keegan, Cáel (2016). "History, Disrupted: The Aesthetic Gentrification of Queer and Trans Cinema". Social Alternatives. 35: 50–56 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Petrow, Steven (20 June 2016). "The LGBT community feels the effects of 'straightwashing.' They're angry about it". Washington Post. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
- ^ Mueller, Hannah (April 2018). "Queer TV in the 21st Century: Essays on Broadcasting from Taboo to Acceptance. Ed. Kylo-Patrick R.Hart. McFarland, 2016. 232 pp. $35.00 paperback". The Journal of Popular Culture. 51 (2): 550–553. doi:10.1111/jpcu.12662. ISSN 0022-3840.
- ^ Smith, Lydia (20 April 2018). "What is straightwashing? When Hollywood erases gay characters from films". Pink News. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
- ^ a b c Mary Zeiss Stange; Carol K. Oyster; Jane E. Sloan (2011). Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World. Sage Pubns. pp. 158–161. ISBN 978-1-4129-7685-5. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
- ^ a b Dworkin, SH (2001). "Treating the bisexual client". Journal of Clinical Psychology. 57 (5): 671–80. doi:10.1002/jclp.1036. PMID 11304706.
- ^ a b c Hutchins, Loraine. "Sexual Prejudice – The erasure of bisexuals in academia and the media". American Sexuality Magazine. San Francisco, CA: National Sexuality Resource Center, San Francisco State University. Archived from the original on 16 December 2007. Retrieved 19 July 2007.
- ^ Klesse, Christian (2011). "Shady Characters, Untrustworthy Partners, and Promiscuous Sluts: Creating Bisexual Intimacies in the Face of Heteronormativity and Biphobia". Journal of Bisexuality. 11 (2–3): 227–244. doi:10.1080/15299716.2011.571987. S2CID 144102905.
- ^ "No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist". The New York Times, August 22, 2011.
- ^ Rodriguez, JM (1 January 2016). "Queer Politics, Bisexual Erasure: Sexuality at the Nexus of Race, Gender, and Statistics". Lambda Nordica. 21 (1–2): 169–182. ISSN 2001-7286.
- ^ Berbary, Lisbeth A.; Guzman, Coco (21 November 2017). "We Exist: Combating Erasure Through Creative Analytic Comix about Bisexuality". Qualitative Inquiry. 24 (7): 478–498. doi:10.1177/1077800417735628. ISSN 1077-8004. S2CID 148705390.
- ^ Ross, Lori E.; Salway, Travis; Tarasoff, Lesley A.; MacKay, Jenna M.; Hawkins, Blake W.; Fehr, Charles P. (13 June 2018). "Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety Among Bisexual People Compared to Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Individuals:A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis". The Journal of Sex Research. 55 (4–5): 435–456. doi:10.1080/00224499.2017.1387755. ISSN 0022-4499. PMID 29099625.
- ^ Migdon, Brooke (1 December 2021). "New online LGBTQ+ glossary fails to include 'bisexual' and 'pansexual'". The Hill. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
- ^ a b Wilton T (2002). Lesbian Studies: Setting an Agenda. Routledge. pp. 60–65. ISBN 1134883447.
- ^ a b Morris, Bonnie J. (2016). The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture (1st ed.). Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. pp. 1–203. ISBN 978-1438461779.
- ^ Eloit, Ilana (21 October 2019). "American lesbians are not French women: heterosexual French feminism and the Americanisation of lesbianism in the 1970s". Feminist Theory. 20 (4): 381–404. doi:10.1177/1464700119871852. S2CID 210443044 – via SAGE Publishing.
- ^ Serano, Julia (8 March 2016). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Basic Books. ISBN 978-1-58005-623-6.
- ^ Norman, Kate (1 June 2017). Socialising Transgender: Support for Transition. Dunedin Academic Press Ltd. ISBN 978-1-78046-571-5.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government". The White House. 20 January 2025. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
- ^ Cecilia Nowell (13 February 2025). "US park service erases references to trans people from Stonewall Inn website". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
- ^ Apoorva Mandavilli and Roni Caryn Rabin (3 February 2025). "Trump Administration Orders CDC to Remove Transgender Health Information". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
- ^ "Aphobia, understanding the discrimination and effects". 29 January 2023. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
- ^ Brown, Sherronda J. (26 December 2017). "Romance is Not Universal, Nor is it Necessary". Wear Your Voice. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
- ^ Morrison, Tessalyn; Dinno, Alexis; Salmon, Taurica (19 August 2021). "The Erasure of Intersex, Transgender, Nonbinary, and Agender Experiences by Misusing Sex and Gender in Health Research". American Journal of Epidemiology. 190 (12): 2712–2717. doi:10.1093/aje/kwab221. ISSN 0002-9262. PMID 34409983.
- ^ Levin, Sam (25 October 2018). "'Erasure of an entire group': intersex people fear Trump anti-trans memo". The Guardian.
- ^ Bird, Jo (2005–2006). "Outside the Law: Intersex, Medicine and the Discourse Rights". Cardozo Journal of Law & Gender. 12: 65.
- ^ Khanna, Niki (2021). "Invisibility and Trauma in the Intersex Community". Violence Against LGBTQ+ Persons: Research, Practice, and Advocacy. Springer International Publishing. pp. 185–194. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-52612-2_14. ISBN 978-3-030-52611-5. S2CID 228845383.