Browsing by Subject "Insider research"

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how queer and pansexual self-identified people make sense of the concepts of ‘queer’ and ‘pansexual’. Based on interviews with queer- and pansexual-identified people, this study seeks to understand how and why the terms queer and pansexual are being used and what these terms mean for the individuals using them. By doing so, the study contributes to the lack of knowledge regarding why these two terms are gaining popularity in Finland. The study ultimately examines the distinct features of both queer and pansexual identity categories and explores the meanings of categories for identity-construction. Recent scholarship studying sexual identity categories has noticed that queer and pansexual identities have been gaining popularity among sexual and gender minorities and have increasingly been adopted over more traditional identities of lesbian, gay or bisexual. This shift is understood to be connected to the fact that traditional binary sexual categories are being challenged by broader non-binary sexual categories of, for instance, queer and pansexual. (see e.g. Callis, 2014; Morandini et al., 2017.) However, there is very little research examining this phenomenon in Finland. The research questions of this study are: 1. How and for what purposes do queer- and pansexual-identified people use the terms queer and pansexual? and 2. What kinds of tools of identity-building these categories are? This study suggests that pansexual and queer identity categories are different from each other in distinct ways. The term pansexual was mainly used to signify sexual orientation, whereas queer formed a significant identity category for the interviewees. Queer is a tool of identification that allows existing outside of a cis-heterosexual set of norms, enables identity to exist as fluid, complex, and multiple, and forms a community membership that creates feelings of safety and belonging