Prototypicality at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation

Abstract

The intersectional invisibility hypothesis (IIH) states that members of multiply marginalized groups experience intersectional invisibility by not being seen as prototypical for either of their constitutive groups due to the influence of heterocentrism and androcentrism. That is, a lesbian woman may not be represented in relation to either the category 'woman' or the category 'homosexual people'. Two online experiments conducted in Sweden and the United Kingdom (N = 1923) tested predictions from the IIH at different intersections of specific genders (woman and man) and sexual orientations (heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality) using an attribute generation task and direct similarity ratings. Results show strong support for the influence of heterocentrism: Only prototypes for heterosexual women/men match general prototypes for women/men. Androcentrism influenced the prototype for 'homosexual people', which had a stronger match with the prototype for gay men compared with lesbian women. In contrast, bisexual women were seen as more prototypical 'bisexual people' than bisexual men were. Psychological research conducted on general gender groups may therefore only be applicable to heterosexual individuals, while research on homosexual people in general may be applicable mainly to gay men.

Keywords: gender; intersectionality; prototypes; sexual orientation; similarity; topic modelling.