ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the ways in which younger civil partners emphasised their ordinariness in their accounts of their gender, sexual and relational identities and practices. It suggests that personal accounts of ordinariness provide insights into how gendered and sexual lives are being reformed through 'reflexive convention'. The terminology of 'ordinariness' is entering the lexicon of academic and political discussions of sexual minority lives. The chapter begins by briefly highlighting some of the ways in which 'ordinariness' has been a feature of recent discussions of lesbian and gay lives and relationships, how it is theoretically and politically framed, and how it is linked to historical-generational developments. The majority of partners' narratives suggest that interlinked developments in the increasing cultural visibility, social acceptance and legal recognition of sexual minorities have opened up new possibilities for successful claims to citizenship on the basis of lesbian and gay ordinariness.
