- Hey guys, I'm collaborating with Welcome Collection
and the exhibition in the Institute of Sexology
to talk to you about heteronormativity.
What is heteronormativity?
You might be asking.
Well, the internet says,
it is the belief that people fall into distinct
and complementary genders, man and woman,
with natural roles in life.
It asserts that heterosexuality
is the only sexual orientation, or only norm,
and states that sexual and marital relations
are most, or only, fitting between people
of opposite sexes.
Now we all know better than that,
but heteronormativity is not just a belief,
it's an undocumented and institutionalized way
of keeping marginalized groups of people marginalized
and oppressed.
And you can see it everywhere.
Even if you are a really good LGBTQ+ ally,
you can still get trapped by it, which I know
I do far too often.
Example, hey so do you have a boyfriend?
Nope.
Woo, single pringle ready to mingle.
Oh well actually I have a girlfriend.
Oh.
if you're still confused, you should check out
the Trans-Vengers comic.
It was created by a group of 13 to 19 year old
trans people with a charity-gendered intelligence
in order to highlight different aspects
of heteronormativity and relate it back to
the Institute of Sexology exhibition.
I love this comic because it features
some historical features I studied at university,
and also trans superheroes who can time travel.
So let's talk about different ways
heteronormativity can work.
First of all, gender roles.
There's a certain set of words that someone
says when you're born that hold a lot of power,
that can determine a lot about the way
you're treated in the future.
It's a boy!
It's a girl!
And that's it.
If you're a boy you do boy things,
you're masculine and you fancy girls.
If you're a girl you do girl things,
you're feminine and you fancy boys.
There's obviously nothing wrong with that
but the harmful thing is that it's assumed
for everyone.
In reality, we have no idea.
It's a bloody baby.
And you're maybe thinking, well actually, Hannah,
we're a much more accepting society now.
True, but why do we still see blue toys
for boys and pink toys for girls?
Why are there different fashions, activities,
interests, school subjects, career paths
that are considered either masculine or feminine?
Gender identity.
This has to do with how you feel on the inside.
Do you feel like a man, a woman,
neither, both, somewhere else in between?
Awesome.
You do you.
But unfortunately, that's not what
heteronormativity is about.
The common misconception is that penis equals man
and vagina equals woman.
But there's so much more going on than that,
and there's so much more to a person
other than their genitals that makes them
a man or a woman or whatever else.
Also, what's in between someone's legs
is none of your business.
Sexuality.
People who are LGBTQ+ "come out"
in society because unless you do,
you're assumed straight.
Heterosexual is the default orientation,
it's the norm.
And that's stupid, unless someone tells us
or gives us clear signs, we just assume
that everyone is straight?
Being LGBTQ+ is just as normal as being straight.
I can definitely see this kind of
heteronormativity in my life, 'cause even though
I grew up in a very liberal household,
it was still heteronormative.
'Cause my parents would ask me and my sister
if there were boys in school that we fancied.
They would never ask about girls.
Heteronormativity is always seeing a man and a woman
together in the media, and TV shows, films,
adverts, YouTube videos.
It's also apparent in the way we talk about sex.
The way that sex is defined by most people
is penis in vagina, but actually
there's loads of different types of sex
that involve penises, vaginas, anus, mouths,
other stuff.
And just because a vagina isn't penetrated
by a penis, it doesn't mean that it doesn't count as sex.
It's still sex.
So this has just been a basic introduction
to heteronormativity, and I wanted to start
a little project.
Basically, whenever you see an example
of heteronormativity, take a picture of it
and tweet it at me using the hashtag Heteronorms
so I can find it.
And then at the end of the week I'm going to
compile them all into a blog post
to demonstrate how prevalent heteronormativity is
in our society, and try to combat it.
Thanks to Welcome Collection for supporting
this little project, the Institute of Sexology exhibition
is still going on until the 20th of September,
so if you can, get yourself down there
before then, it's really, really cool.
Thanks for watching this video, please give
it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it,
and let me know your thoughts on all of this mush
in the comments.
And I'll see you soon.
Bye!