Sexual Identity: Configurations of meaning from active and prescriptive discourses of academics.

Abstract

The concept of sexual identity is a construct that has been installed in communities as a way of understanding diversity. It is composed of gender identity, gender role, biological sex, and sexual orientation. From an integrative approach, the objective of the research focused on unveiling in the academic experience the configurations of meaning in prescriptive and active discourses regarding sexual identity in a higher education institution that trains educators from the perspectives of inclusion and diversity. The study was based on an interpretative-qualitative approach with a hermeneutic phenomenological design, focusing on the lived experiences of the subjects. The work was divided into two stages, the first in interviews, the second in a documentary analysis. Within the active discourses, the academics staff configure their sexual identity as a gender self-concept and maintain a relationship of tension between the personal and work worlds. From the prescriptive discourses, the sexual identity of the subjects is understood from their gender self-concept, in which the roles and functions assumed by them are evaluated according to their efficiency, leaving underhand the self-esteem or authenticity of the subjects. In conclusion, sexual identity is manifested as a gender self-concept. That is to say, the subjects' evaluation of themselves is based on their self-esteem, self-efficiency, and authenticity.