Amin Ghaziani

University of British Columbia, Sociology, Faculty Member

Followers

307

Following

Co-authors

Public Views

Professor of Sociology and Canada Research Chair in Urban Sexualities at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Address: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

less

InterestsView All (7)

Uploads

Papers by Amin Ghaziani

Distinguishing but not defining: How ambivalence affects contemporary identity disclosures

Theory and Society, 2023

Coming out, or the disclosure of a minority identity, features prominently across disciplines, in... more Coming out, or the disclosure of a minority identity, features prominently across disciplines, including several subfields of sociological research. In the context of sexuality, theoretical arguments offer competing predictions. Some studies propose that coming out is increasingly an unremarkable life transition as the stigma associated with non-heterosexualities attenuates, while others posit entrenched discrimination. Rather than testing these theories or providing incremental evidence in support of one position, we use 52 in-depth interviews with recently-out individuals to explain how identity disclosures in the present moment can validate plural possibilities. Our findings show that ambivalence is the core narrative which animates the contemporary coming out process. Respondents identify three interpretive frameworks that structure their experience of sexuality as at once incidental and central: generational differences, identity misrecognitions, and interfacing with institutions. We also detail a fourth theme, intersectionality, which shows the analytic limits of ambivalence in the coming out process. These patterns suggest more broadly that sexuality, like ethnicity, may provide symbolic resources-"distinguishing but not defining"in the service of crafting a modern sexual self. Keywords Closet • Coming out • Identity disclosures • Symbolic sexuality • Post-gay "Coming out" is a metaphor, narrative device, and life course transition (Floyd & Bakeman, 2006) that describes the process of disclosing discreditable identities (Goffman, 1963) generally related to sexual orientation (Sedgwick, 1990) and gender (Zimman, 2009), although not exclusively (Saguy, 2020). Disclosure rates for

Download

Performative Progressiveness: Accounting for New Forms of Inequality in the Gayborhood

by Amin Ghaziani and Adriana Brodyn

City & Community

Attitudes toward homosexuality have liberalized considerably, but these positive public opinions ... more Attitudes toward homosexuality have liberalized considerably, but these positive public opinions conceal the persistence of prejudice at an interpersonal level. We use interviews with heterosexual residents of Chicago gayborhoods—urban districts that offer ample opportunities for contact and thus precisely the setting in which we would least expect bias to appear—to analyze this new form of inequality. Our findings show four strategies that liberal–minded straights use to manage the dilemmas they experience when they encounter their gay and lesbian neighbors on the streets: spatial entitlements, rhetorical moves, political absolution, and affect. Each expression captures the empirical variability of performative progressiveness, a concept that describes the co–occurrence of progressive attitudes alongside homonegative actions. Our analyses have implications more broadly for how conflicting visions of diversity affect placemaking efforts; how residents with power and privilege redefi...

LGBTQ Social Movements

Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews

Queer Pop-Ups

Contexts

Download

Review symposium on There Goes the Gayborhood?

Environment and Planning A, 2015

Introduction: Queer Methods

WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 2016

DuBoisian Sociology: A Watershed of Professional and Public Sociology

Souls, 2005

Straights: Heterosexuality in Post-Closeted Culture . By James Joseph Dean . New York: New York University Press, 2014. Pp. xii+305. $79.00 (cloth); $26.00 (paper)

American Journal of Sociology, 2015

The Queer Metropolis

Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, 2015

Reducing HIV infections at circuit parties

IAPAC monthly, 2005

Measuring urban sexual cultures in a post-gay era