ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a wider project that sought to capture the management of sexual and religious identities among adults, who self-identified as Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh or a combination of one or more of these faiths. It focuses on those individuals who identified as Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, who were primarily of South Asian heritage. Religious and ethnic/cultural communities particularly in the case of minorities often serve as important spaces within which identity is constructed and reinforced. Heteronormativity is a systemic cultural ideology, practice and institution that privileges heterosexuality, requiring social actors to toe the heterosexual line in all aspects of life. Many emphasise their religions as vehicles of gender equality, and a means through which monolithic community views could be challenged. The chapter highlights the ways in which gender is lived, positioning men in the frame, as well as women.
