Keith Burns

Central to heteronormativity is a presupposition that people are “naturally” cisgender and heterosexual, and that values, laws, and institutions should be organized accordingly. Within this framework, gender and sexual nonconformity are framed as medical or psychological disorders and immoral perversions of religious teachings. Power structures are organized in ways that favor people who identify as cisgender and heterosexual (especially men) and marginalize people who identify with differing sexual and/or gender categories, or who otherwise fall outside of heteronormative standards. Perhaps the most impressive feat of heteronormativity is its clever obfuscation of the fact that it, in and of itself, is a gender ideology, […]