Queer youth, intoxication and queer drinking spaces

ABSTRACT

Research on intoxicating substances and gender has developed considerably in the last 30 years, especially in the social sciences as feminist scholars highlighted the contradictory discourses about young women’s intoxication. Nevertheless, there still remain significant gaps if we are to fully understand the role and meaning of intoxication for all young people and not merely for heterosexual, cisgender young people. As a way of exploring the possible limitations of this legacy, we will examine the qualitative data from 52 in-depth interviews with self-identified LGBTQ young people. Our analysis explores the relationships between meanings of intoxication and sexual and gender identities, drinking spaces, and the extent to which notions of masculinity and femininity influence alcohol consumption and drinking practices among LGBTQ youth. As gender expressions among young people, especially those who identify as LGBTQ, become increasingly nuanced and fluid, understanding the role of social and cultural practices of alcohol consumption in the performance of sexual and gender identities may increase our understanding of the ways in which sexuality and gender influence alcohol consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth culture
• LGBTQ
• gender
• sexuality
• space
• alcohol intoxication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 While ethnicity is an important issue in much of our research and an issue that we have dealt with in many other papers, in this present paper we are focusing solely on issues of sexuality and gender identity.

2 We use the terms ‘LGBTQ’ and ‘queer’ throughout this analysis in ways that are important (but sometimes difficult) to differentiate. ‘LGBTQ’ is a coalitional acronym developed within identity-politics-based activism that references historically-specific and interrelated groups of people with non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgender self-identities. ‘Queer’ is more difficult to define, as it has multiple and contested meanings in both theory and practice, but in this analysis our use of ‘queer’ is more conceptual than identity-based. Though some ‘LGBTQ’ participants do self-identify as ‘queer,’ we largely refer to ‘queer’ spaces, practices, sexualities, genders, desires, bodies, and people to highlight both a contradistinctive structural relationship to normativity as well as the limitations of discreet identity category labels. These issues have come up consistently throughout our various studies with ‘LGBTQ’ populations.

3 Emslie, Lennox, and Ireland (2017) and Peralta (2008) are exceptions.

4 Although San Francisco can still be considered the center of queer communities in the SFBA, we would not like to give the impression that the queer communities can be viewed as cohesive. In fact as a number of researchers have noted, there exist many sharp divisions within LGBTQ populations living in San Francisco and the SFBA. See for example Reck (2009), Brown (2014) and Podmore (2013).

5 Since Connell’s initial formulation of the term hegemonic masculinity a number of critiques have been published. See Moller (2007).

6 On butch and feminine appearances see Cefai (2004) and Held (2015).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [grant number AA022656].