Lived difference

Abstract

Debates about normalisation and the changing meaning of difference in LGBT youth studies usually do not consider the 'misfit' character of disabled LGBT young people. For disabledLGBT youth, difference can indicate not only expressions of gender and sexuality that depart from the expectations of heterosexuality, but a way of being that disrupts ableist norms of the body. An expanded awareness of the interplay of ableism and heteronormativity, and the different possibilities for fitting in and standing out that these create, can therefore unsettle emerging narratives about LGBT youth identities and their relation to what it means to be an 'ordinary' person. By exploring one young man's story of fitting in and standing out in terms of both disability and sexuality, this chapter reconsiders debates about LGBT youth, identity and 'normality'. It asks how the lived experience of difference expressed in the stories of disabled LGBT youth may offer deeper insight into the processes of fitting and misfitting that are not usually identified, but are often implicit in, new narratives of normalisation.

Introduction to special issue: New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies

“…In the 1970s, Illich (1974) and Zola (1972) recognised medicine as an institution of social control, especially so for chronically ill and disabled people. More recently, scholars like Mauldin (2016), Sheppard (2020) and Coleman-Fountain (2020) provide productive approaches for intermeshing approaches, tropes, and outlooks from medical sociology and disability studies.…”

Disability and the sociology of health and illness

“…This includes recent scholarship drawing on ideas from both disciplines along with principles and concepts from feminist theory, gender studies, sexuality studies, critical race theory, and queer theory (e.g. Bailey and Mobley 2019;Campbell 2008;Coleman-Fountain 2020;Goodley 2014;Jones et al 2019;Kafer 2013;Schalk and Kim 2020;Shildrick 2009;Slater et al 2019).…”