The Effects of Gender Trouble: An Integrative Theoretical Framework of the Perpetuation and Disruption of the Gender/Sex Binary

Abstract

In the Western world, gender has traditionally been viewed in the Western world as binary and as following directly from biological sex. This view is slowly changing among both experts and the general public, a change that has been met with strong opposition. In this article, we explore the psychological processes underlying these dynamics. Drawing on previous work on gender performativity as well as gender as a performance, we develop a psychological framework of the perpetuation and disruption of the gender/sex binary on a stage that facilitates and foregrounds binary gender/sex performance. Whenever character, costume, and script are not aligned the gender/sex binary is disrupted and gender trouble ensues. We integrate various strands of the psychological literature into this framework and explain the processes underlying these reactions. We propose that gender trouble can elicit threat—personal threat, group-based and identity threat, and system threat—which in turn leads to efforts to alleviate this threat through the reinforcement of the gender/sex binary. Our framework challenges the way psychologists have traditionally treated gender/sex in theory and empirical work and proposes new avenues and implications for future research.

The management of LGBTQ+ identities on social media: A student perspective

“…Consequently, the same social norms that governed offline performances also limited performances on Facebook. These findings develop contemporary frameworks for understanding gender and sexuality (Morgenroth and Ryan, 2020) by applying them to online performances.…”

“…From the narratives presented in this section, we can see that the 'stage' (Morgenroth and Ryan, 2020) of Facebook does not always facilitate LGBTQ+ identity performances among students. In fact, participants' performances appear to be bound by the same social norms that govern their offline performances and are further complicated by the design of Facebook's stage, where social and temporal boundaries collapse and information is public by default (boyd, 2011;Cho, 2018).…”

Gender inequalities during COVID-19

“…Gender roles offer clear scripts for how people can and should behave. Consequently, defying gender role expectations can elicit personal, identity, and systemic threat (Morgenroth & Ryan, 2020). The reverse is also true.…”

“…The time may be ripe for challenging binary conceptualizations of gender and gender roles, especially those responsible for maintaining gender inequalities in care work and domestic labour. Encouragingly, social psychologists are already leading the charge in reconceptualizing theories of gender beyond the binary (e.g., Hyde et al, 2019; Morgenroth & Ryan, 2020), as well as developing more inclusive ways of measuring sex/gender (Bauer et al, 2017; Cameron & Stinson, 2019; Tate et al, 2013).…”

Studying Gender Diversity

“…For instance, a recent study investigating gender identity in a large sample of children found that more than half reported similarity to multiple gender groups (e.g., boys and girls; [8]). For this reason, we and other researchers believe that free responses and less categorical measures have the potential to expand our understanding of gender in both gender minority and gender majority populations [9]. As language and identity continues to shift, this line of work is likely to continue to develop in parallel to larger social changes to ensure that our measures best capture how people are thinking about their identities.…”