Changing Femininities, Changing Masculinities, Social Change, Gender Identities and Sexual Orientations - Editor’s Introduction

The aim of this special issue of Sociological Research Online launches is to explore, both theoretically and substantively, the issues that surround notions of social change, gender identities and sexual orientations. The social issues associated with changing gender identities and the shift between “old” and “new” models of femininity and masculinity challenges the two-gender system. Homosexuality, bisexuality and trans-sexuality show how greatly the processes of identity construction have changed in present-day societies and how different they are in these processes, compared with those of modern or traditional societies. However, these issues are often neglected by existing social agendas, including policies on gender equality and social exclusion. Social institutions are often intolerant of gender diversity. Many areas of social and economic life "for example the right to motherhood-fatherhood" need to be reviewed to ensure full citizens’ rights for non heterosexual people, and to reduce the power of heteronormativity. In many European countries heterosexuality and marriage have long been protected by law and still give access to various rights under social security. Also, there has been a general lack of attention (and a lack of comparative research) to the complex intersection between forms of social disadvantage such as gender and sexual orientation. These obstacles have profound impacts on homosexual, bisexual, transgender and transsexual people’s lives. Whilst their experiences are very diverse, they share the experience of living in a society where gender diversity is not fully tolerated, and where social institutions act to perpetuate the erasure of gender fluidity.