Gender and Sexual Legitimacy

Abstract

This review addresses what is currently known in the literature about the topic of gender and sexual legitimacy, including our increasingly expanding understanding of gender as a spectrum, rather than a binary construct, sexuality as it relates to shifting gender roles and norms, and the related constructs of normativity and legitimacy in relation to gender and sexual identities. Whereas debates about gender and sexual legitimacy abound in the public and political arenas on a global level, scholarly work in these areas are more limited. One of the challenges is the interdisciplinary nature of its discourse, as it can be seen in this review. Whereas there seems to be an agreement across disciplines that gender and sexual identities do vary beyond current normative models enshrined in social mores and laws, there is not yet a widely accepted theory of gender and sexuality rooted beyond those normative mores.