Citation

Staunæs D. Fem. Psychol. 2005; 15(2): 149-167.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0959353505051719

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the transition from childhood into youth, young people seem to redefine and reconstruct their own identities. According to gender researchers, one discourse that regulates interaction and identity-formation is the heterosexual discourse. In the case of Bettina - a 13-year-old white-skinned, ethnically Danish girl - unexpected intersections of ethnicity, gender, age, and sexuality are highlighted. Bettina becomes a boundary figure who points to the consequences of troubling subject positions that make white-skinned, Danish young girls 'other' and thus subject to policing practices. The analysis shows that the argument about the heterosexual discourse must be elaborated and complicated in relation to the intersections with two further categories: age, and especially ethnicity. The normative regulation and shaming of gender do not only have a (hetero)sexual dimension. The regulation is also toned by ethnicity and tightened in the transition from childhood into youth.