GLBT Communication Studies

History of GLBT Communication Studies

GLBT communication studies dates back to the 1970s when members of the National Communication Association (NCA) created the Caucus on Gay and Lesbian Concerns (1978). Many of these members also contributed to two foundational texts about GLB communication practices: Gayspeak (1981), edited by James Chesebro, and Queer Words, Queer Images (1994), edited by R. Jeffrey Ringer. Within NCA, the presence of GLBT communication studies expanded with the creation of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Division (1997), as well as with the publication of Queer Theory and Communication (2003), Transgender Communication Studies (2015), and QED: A Journal in LGBTQ Worldmaking (2013), a journal that regularly features GLBT communication research.

Key Research Areas of GLBT Communication Studies

There are also interrelated areas of research that bind GLBT communication studies. These areas include, but are not limited to, the meaning and embodiment of GLBT identities, especially in relation to sex and gender; concerns about, and advances in, representations of GLBT experiences; strategies of self-disclosure; and the ways in which GLBT identities influence interpersonal, familial, and organizational relationships.

One prominent area of GLBT communication studies examines the ways in which sexual orientation and gender identity relate to expectations about, and embodiments of, sex and gender. Historically, GL identities—identities of sexual orientation—were once defined in terms of sex and gender, in that an effeminate (gender) man (sex) or a masculine (gender) woman (sex) was assumed to be indicative of GL sexualities. Making sex and gender incongruent—what has been referred to as “gender inversion” or “gender nonconformity”—was a [Page 624]significant sign of a GL identity. For example, an effeminate man may have been assumed to be gay because of the man’s effeminacy; whether the man was sexually attracted to men was less indicative of sexual orientation. However, GL identities transitioned from being signified by gender inversion to being signified by one person’s sex/gender and the person’s attraction to, and sexual acts with, another person’s sex/gender. From this perspective, a man was considered more gay if the man found men sexually attractive; engaging in gender inversion was less indicative of sexual orientation. Note that with these two contrasting assumptions of sexual orientation, bisexuality becomes more relevant to the latter assumption, as B identity is often indicated less by embodiments of sex and gender, and more by the person’s attraction to men and women.

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