Folkhälsovetenskapligt program.

Many of us have grown up hearing or using words meant as insults or negative adjectives that were in fact names for social groups. Most of them have gone unquestioned in the mainstream consciousness, but the term Gay in the generally negative meaning has in the past years been given attention as offensive and homophobic, with debates emerging in response over whether or not this is true, particularly on the internet. It is the articles and forum threads from these debates that make out the empirical material for a qualitative study as I ask what these people?s thoughts are about this term and how it is perceived.After a qualitative coding and analysis of these texts, and interpretation of the results based on Erving Goffman?s theory of Phantom acceptance and stigma terms, Judith Butler?s theory of performativity, Ferdinand de Sassure?s theory of signifier and signified and how it connects to the community and Baudrillards theory of simulacra, this is the principal conclusion that I have drawn:For some of the people in this debate, the term Gay and its use is about homophobia and Heterosexism, though mostly it?s not overt but a subconscious part of the continued dehumanization and stigmatization of homo- and bisexual people. This is a position I callThe socially focused skepticism.

Syftet med denna studie är att studera argumentationen framförd av motståndarna till könsneutral äktenskapslagstiftning. Debatten mot könsneutralt äktenskap har huvudsakligen förts av förgrundsgestalter inom de religiösa samfunden, men debatten har trots detta haft en sekulär karaktär. Med utgångspunkt i en heterosexistisk teoretisk diskurs, har argumentationen analyserats. Studien utkristalliserar argumentationen och hur de formats för att bilda opinion.Slutsatsen visar också på att det stora flertalet argument som förs fram i debatten kan klassificeras som heterosexistiska. Heterosexism är ett symptom av heteronormativitet.

The purpose of this paper is to see how differences are handled in preschools, with a focus on children with homo- or bisexual parents. By doing this we wanted to see how the conditions for a child with homo- or bisexual parents looks like, in order to have their family conditions mirrored, confirmed and visualised in the preschool.The foundation for the discussion is a questionaire which has been answered by 229 preschool workers from 24 different preschools in the City of Stockholm. The result of the questionaire has been handled in a statistics program. Our analysis is based on the statistical numbers and the written replies to the open questions in the questionaire.As a theoretical starting point we have used Iris Marion Young?s ideas about how our society is coloured by an ideal of similarity that defines liberation as the transcendence of group difference, where the dominant group cannot see how their perspective is just one of several perspectives.

AbstractFokus för denna uppsats är våld i lesbiska parrelationer och hur man teoretiskt kan konceptualisera detta våld. Mitt övergripande syfte har varit att öka förståelsen för denna form av våld och därmed bidra till ett relativt outvecklat forskningsfält. Ett ytterligare syfte har varit att undersöka om den könsmaktsanalys som haft stor betydelse för tolkningen och förståelsen av mäns våld mot kvinnor i heterosexuella relationer även kan förklara våldet i en lesbisk parrelation. Fokus för min analys har dels varit om och i så fall på vilket sätt kön är en faktor som kan förklara det lesbiska relationsvåldet, dels om en förståelse av våldet inom en könsbaserad teori kan innebära en viss problematik. Jag har även undersökt andra faktorer som Heterosexism och homofobi och dess betydelse för våldets uppkomst och former samt mer individrelaterade förklaringsmodeller.

The purpose of the essay is to examine Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual person?s experiences of the Social Services treatment. Our question is: How do Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual person?s experience the treatment in a relief seeking situation at Social Services? We have a social constructive point of view. Our theoretical foundation is heteronormativity, Heterosexism, homophobia, coming out/disclosure, intersectionality, master suppression techniques and we discuss Social Services as a system.

The novel American Psycho was first published in 1991. It recieved harsh criticism and was viewed as a work of Heterosexism, misogyny and pointless violence. Despite the criticism, the protagonist, a wealthy serial killer yuppie namned Patrick Bateman, fascinated the readers. He hides his monstrosity behind a façade of heteronormativity, but this essay shows that the norms in American Psycho are fragile. Batemans relationships are shallow, his identity is constructed out of traditional masculinitynorms and even though he?s homophobic there?s a homoerotic undertone in the text, as well as gothic patterns that give the novel a fair amount of queerness too.

Studies of the information needs of library patrons are necessary in order for the library to serve the community. Alas, studies of non-heterosexual persons are rare in the field of Library and Information Science in Sweden. This study aims at examining the information situation of women in same-sexed parenthood by means of analysing their situation as norm-breaking. The study is done through examining the specific information needs of this group, how they seek and receive information, what barriers they encounter and what function the library has in this information situation. A queer theoretical approach to heteronormativity in combination with McKenzie?s two-dimensional model of information seeking is used to perform a qualitative analysis of the material.