ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses human societies always include persons with male or female genitalia. Heteronormativity might be thought of as the “hegemonic sexuality” in the United States and other Western societies, in which the normal and good sexuality is heterosexuality, the sexual desire for a member of the opposite sex. The documented variation in sex/gender, as well as the organization and mobilization of people of non-heteronormative sex/gender, does not support a binary notion of either maleness/femaleness or heterosexuality/homosexuality. There are a number of medical conditions that can produce intersex persons, including androgen insensitivity syndrome and Klinefelter’s syndrome. European Americans, with their Western/Christian binary gender categories, often found the gender practices of Native American cultures incomprehensible and sometimes abominable. Social scientists have studied various aspects of the interactions between gay and lesbian partners and compared those interactions to straight partners. Compared to homosexuality, bisexuality emerged comparatively late as a research topic and as a social identity.
