Youthful Stories of Normality and Difference

Abstract

In recent decades a critical sociology and politics of difference has been at the forefront of the study of normality. Key aims of this are to contest hierarchies of privilege and to question appeals to sameness as the basis for inclusion. Analysing data from two studies carried out in the north east of England (one with disabled youths and one with lesbian and gay youths), this article responds to this work by examining young people’s negotiations of ableist and heteronormative constructions of normality. The article shows how the young people sought to disrupt the privileges of this normality whilst also claiming a sense of ‘likeness’ to others. The article concludes by discussing the need to consider the use of a language of likeness and inclusion in young people’s everyday politics of belonging.

Keywords

ableism connectedness difference disability heteronormativity identity lesbian and gay normality youth

Introduction

Sociological and political theories of difference¹ contest the way notions of normality privilege some and marginalize others (Seidman, 2013). They also craft a ‘non-normative’ politics of difference, the political and sociological importance of which is seen as denied by a liberal emphasis on ‘sameness’. This article responds to this work through an empirical engagement with the practical, everyday politics of normality and difference that marginalized groups create, and the desires for connection across lines of difference they hold. It analyses data from two studies – one with disabled youths and one with lesbian and gay youths² – to show how young people negotiate an ableist and heteronormative ‘normality’. It offers insights into the values the young people afforded to difference and how they situated themselves in relation to others across identity lines. In doing so, it shows that the young people’s politics of belonging had more in common with a politics of equality and inclusivity than a politics that seeks ways of living outside definitions of normality and in tension with everyday social relations or ‘every social structure or form’ (Edelman, 2004: 4).

To set out the article’s themes, the next section looks at understandings of privilege and subordination in theories of difference, offering an account of their concern with deviance. A second section sets out the ‘non-normative’ politics such theories delineate as they seek to challenge exclusionary definitions of normality. Both these theoretical contributions are examined more closely through primary data collected, and engaged with, in this article, examining how normality and difference are understood and a politics of belonging are enacted. The analysis shows how the young people measured themselves against heteronormative and ableist standards of normality, which they questioned as exclusive, but also sought proximity to that normality. The article ends by discussing the continued need to contextualize and re-define notions of inclusivity and likeness.

Contesting Deviance

In recent decades, sociological and political theories of difference have contested definitions of normality. One thread of commonality (Mog, 2008) across these analyses is the challenge to the status of the ‘European, bourgeois, healthy, male body’ as a ‘normative standard against which to compare “other” bodies’ (Erevelles, 2011: 30). In such accounts, marked identities are seen as forged in opposition to this unmarked ‘normality’ (Seidman, 2013). For example, Campbell (2009: 11) says that a divide between the normal and abnormal inscribes ‘certain bodies in terms of deficiency and essential inadequacy’. The production of deviance linked to disability is, she says, secured by ableist norms that project ‘a particular kind of self and body … as the perfect, species-typical and therefore essential and fully human’ (Campbell, 2009: 5). Sexuality scholars meanwhile point to ‘heteronormative’ constructions of a ‘normal, natural and desirable’ (Schilt and Westbrook, 2009: 442) sexuality that mark out sexual others. These have at times been seen as ‘less than human’ (Richardson and May, 1999: 317), an idea also linked to gendered, racialized and classed others through an uneven allocation of notions of ‘normal’ appearance, ‘proper’ comportment, and ‘good’ taste to male, white and middle class bodies (Carter, 2007; Garland-Thomson, 1997; Lawler, 2005).

Sociological and political theories of difference highlight dynamics of privilege and subordination that establish out-of-place bodies and persons (Puwar, 2004) in relation to a ‘universal standard or norm’ (Aziz, 1995: 164, emphasis in original). This norm, it is argued, positions some as ‘uniquely qualified for citizenship’ (Carter, 2007: 2), whilst positioning others as ‘deviant’.³ For example, Garland-Thomson (2002: 10) calls this standard the normate, a term she coins to name ‘the corporeal incarnation of culture’s collective, unmarked characteristics’. The normate, she argues, is recognizable in relation to ‘deviant others whose marked bodies shore up the normate’s boundaries’ (Garland-Thomson, 1997: 8). Similarly, Singer (2006: 601) says that identifying ‘normal’ states of being allows ‘the sight/site of deviance’ to be located ‘on the bodies of a wide array of social outcasts’. Mog (2008) sees this as revealed by a medical gaze that seeks to visualize the ‘abnormality’ of disabled and transgender bodies. Being placed outside of normality brings challenges. As Lindemann (2001: xii) says, being seen as ‘unworthy of full moral respect’ (as those marked as deviant have often been (Goffman, 1963)) leads to a ‘damaged identity’.

Theories of difference challenge a ‘hierarchical division between those that are socially privileged and normative and those that are socially disadvantaged and culturally inferior’ (Seidman, 2013: 4–5). For example, queer theory and critical disability studies resist representations of sexual and bodily difference as forms of failure, arguing instead that ‘failure’ is ripe with potential (Halberstam, 2011; Kafer, 2013). Thus, Jagose (2013: 179) sees queer as a ‘capacity to intervene in dominant social values and organizational principles and their reproduction of normative life’. For Goodley (2013: 636), critical disability studies ask how a ‘body that sticks out – that challenges conventions and standards – permits a moment of disruption and a chance to ask: what counts as a valued body?’. Contesting relations of privilege that frame differences in terms of deviance allows those differences to be reclaimed outside dominant accounts (Aziz, 1995: 164). In addition, and of interest here, is how this reimagined status fits with a politics of difference that seeks to contest normality and presumptions of sameness. As discussed next, narratives of difference also seek to establish ways of being, doing and belonging that are resistant to those of dominant groups. The question to be asked is to what extent this is articulated by young people in their accounts of difference, or whether they enact other versions of a politics of belonging, such as one that hopes for existing material arrangements to be more inclusive of difference.

Difference and the Politics of Belonging

Central to recent accounts of difference are themes of inclusion and sameness. Suggestions that those who are different ought to ‘fit’ by asserting their ‘sameness’ to dominant groups are often questioned (Warner, 2000). For example, Mitchell (2014: 1) questions norms of inclusion that seek assimilation into the mainstream. Such inclusion, he says:

… offers newly visible public identities such as ‘homosexual’ and ‘handicapped’ opportunities to integrate based on the ability to approximate values of normalcy … Such an approach deflects queer and disability studies-based efforts to explore alternatives resulting from the creative navigation of narrow formulas of belonging.

For Mitchell (2014: 1), inclusion disrupts the provision of ‘alternative ethical maps for living together outside of, even in opposition to, the dictates of normalcy’.⁴ This loss, he says, can be stemmed by creating space for marginalized groups’ divergent modes of being, doing and belonging. From a disability studies perspective he echoes Warner’s (1993: xxvi) call for a non-normative politics that resists ‘regimes of the normal’. Such resistance, which aims to disrupt rather than open up normality, is a hallmark of crip theory. It draws together queer and disability studies’ perspectives to rethink bodies and sexualities outside ableist and heteronormative assumptions that stabilize definitions of normality (Kafer, 2013; McRuer, 2006). In doing so, crip theory argues ‘against the compulsion to observe norms of all kinds’ (Sandhal, 2003: 26) in order to make space for a multiplicity of bodies and sexualities.

Emerging narratives of difference contest norms of inclusion that see equality as achieved in a set of common standards (Yuval-Davis, 2006). One concern is that if structures of privilege remain uncontested then not everyone will feel they belong. Slater (2015: 2), for instance, says that assimilation into given structures reinforces the normate’s privilege, making ‘reasonable the marginalization and oppression of those who do not/cannot/will not conform’. Warner (2000: 60) says that embracing normality is ‘anti-political’; an acceptance of a status quo. This means being wary of sameness. For Slater (2015: 120), to ‘become “the same” … is to fit into the very systems that serve to oppress us’. Whilst seeing desires for sameness as ‘reasonable’, Slater asks how seeking to be ‘like everybody else’ is shaped by a privileging of narrow ways of being. At their most critical, narratives of difference engender a politics not just of disruption but of refusal. For example, the ‘anti-relational’ turn in queer theory is typified by Edelman (2004: 6) as dispossessing ‘the social order of the ground on which it rests: a faith in the consistent reality of the social’. Following Bersani’s (1995: 113) critique of the well-assimilated homosexual, Edelman sets the queer against structures and temporalities that he sees as fully heteronormative. As ‘a singular trope of difference’ (Muñoz, 2006: 825), sexuality becomes the grounds for refusing assimilation and inclusion.

Such accounts raise questions about difference and its role in shaping the politics of belonging. As well as disrupting hierarchies of privilege, several accounts seek to trouble or refuse normative notions of inclusion. These critiques depart, however, from empirical accounts that show marginalized groups’ desires for inclusion, equality and sameness. Richardson and Monro (2012: 20), for example, depict a queer politics of belonging that aims for ‘equality with heterosexuals, rather than a more fundamental questioning of how society is structured and organized’. Similarly, Shakespeare and Watson (2001: 556) describe how disabled people reject labels of difference so as to acquire ‘a mainstream identity’. Some wish only to be seen as ‘similar citizens with the same rights to work, marry, be educated and live “ordinary” lives’ (McLaughlin et al., 2011: 7). For Appiah (2005: 110), a person may not want identity ‘too tightly scripted’ around difference. This is often so for young people. In response to stigmatizing attitudes, Slater (2015: 57) shows how disabled youths say they are ‘like everybody else’. Studies also show how lesbian and gay youths claim ‘ordinariness’ (Hegna, 2007; Savin-Williams, 2005). For young people generally, fitting can be important in contexts in which failure to maintain an acceptable identity has costs (Croghan et al., 2006).

Analysing the politics of belonging adopted by Arab youths in London, Nagel (2002: 259) says that appeals to sameness can reduce social distances and allow connection across identity borders. Such appeals, she says, are interesting in their distance from narratives of difference. Following Nagel, this article explores young people’s accounts of difference and normality. It shows that while many faced discrimination for differences they spoke proudly of, and were critical of privilege, they primarily sought inclusion. Thus, one aim of the article is to show the gap between their politics of belonging and sociological and political theories of difference. Another is to discuss the theme of sameness (and its relationship to inclusion) which is at times framed as trapping people within singular modes of being, doing and belonging. Whilst committing to identity difference, the young people sought to delimit difference and stress their ‘likeness’ to others across identity lines with the hope of seeking inclusion. The article asks whether this expression of ‘likeness’ risked reinforcing exclusionary norms, or whether the aim for inclusion it signalled was an understandable response to existing exclusions. Ultimately, it asks what a desirable politics of belonging looks like: does it seek new spaces for difference or open up existing ones to once excluded subjects? Reflecting on the data, it suggests a continued need to work with notions of inclusion and ‘likeness’ as articulated by marginalized groups.

Methods

This article draws on data from two Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded studies conducted in north-east England. Project A was a study of young lesbian and gay identities for which five young lesbians and 14 young gay men were interviewed. Project B was a study of disabled young embodiments in which 10 boys/young men and seven girls/young women took part. The age range of the studies was 14 to 21 years. Project A was advertised through websites and youth groups, with lesbian and gay young people invited to make contact if they wanted to take part. In Project B, 13 disabled youths were recruited from a database of children with cerebral palsy who the project team had permission to contact. Four were recruited from a school for disabled children. The 13 were sent information about the study and called a week later. Those wanting to know more were visited at home for a further discussion, with interviews set for the following week if they were agreeable. Young people in the school were approached by a teacher with the same information and a reply slip. Those who replied were also able to meet with the researcher. Ethics approval for Project B was granted by the Local Research Ethics Committee of the National Health Service. In both studies, informed consent was gained prior to each interview. Parents were asked to give consent for children under 16.

Both studies used in-depth qualitative interviews, although Project B also used visual methods, photo-elicitation and craft-making to produce varied forms of data (Bagnoli, 2004). Here, interview data is primarily used to provide a degree of equivalence, although relevant images are described. A key focus in the interviews was identity formation and difference. Questions were asked in Project A about what being lesbian or gay meant, about the ‘homo/hetero’ divide, and about discrimination and equality. Whilst Project B was focused on embodiment, questions were also asked about disablement and the meanings of disability and ability. Interview transcripts were coded based on a close reading of the data, with codes placed in the text by relevant passages, many of which related to definitions of normality, sameness and difference. The coding process helped build data categories that were analysed thematically (Ezzy, 2002). Data were interpreted as a ‘storied’ interaction between self and society, and thus as reflecting broader ‘stories’ of disability and lesbian and gay identity (Plummer, 1995). This approach was taken in order to ask what ‘counter-narratives’ were produced of the minority youth identities examined (Lindemann, 2001).

The data have limitations. Fewer girls/young women took part than boys/young men; this may have been because the researcher in both studies was male. Also, only one person was non-white. Discussions of race and gender (and of whiteness, racism, patriarchy and sexism) are not a focus in this article in the way that heteronormativity and ableism are as structures of ‘normality’ (Kolářová, 2011). The analysis presented may be relevant to these matters however. By reflecting on relations to the ‘normate’, the analysis, following Garland-Thomson (1997: 8), hopes to go ‘beyond simple dichotomies of male/female, white/black, straight/gay, able-bodied/disabled so that we can examine the subtle interrelations among social identities that are anchored to physical differences’. The analysis may be relevant insofar as hierarchies of privilege are multiply intersected.

Negotiating Boundaries of Normality and Difference

Marginalized Differences

New narratives of difference frame normality as problematic in that it creates risks for people who fail to conform (Davis, 1995). Mirroring these accounts, young people in the studies spoke of a hierarchical division between the normate and non-normate that shaped their accounts of difference. Disabled youths, for example, saw themselves as different from able-bodied peers whose definitions of normality they responded to and accommodated:

Everyone’s really alright and they’ve accepted that I’m slightly different from them.

What do you mean?

They know that I’ve got a disability; they’ve experienced it through me that it is normal, even if they don’t think it is. They’ve grown into it. (Jenny, 16; Project B)

For some, this relationship was not seen as presenting a problem. In other cases, however, difference was less favourably framed. Some described attempts to not seem too different:

I like to be, not – well as normal as I can be. I don’t really like being different ’cos it makes you seem weird doesn’t it?

In what way?

Don’t know, just abnormal, ’cos everybody else is just getting on with it and you need assistance and everything, it just doesn’t feel right. (Sara, 15; Project B)

Some spoke of a desire to come across to others as ‘normal’. Craig explained his reasons for wanting to work in radio. In contrast to his body, he felt his voice was not a ‘problem’:

… it just gives me confidence, makes me feel like I’m able-bodied when I’m on the radio ’cos nobody can see you, people can only hear you … makes me feel more normal…. They can’t see any physical problem with me. (Craig, 17; Project B)

Such accounts reveal the extent to which definitions of normality are shaped by ableist assumptions. Disabled young people negotiated the possibility of being seen as deviant.

Similarly, lesbian and gay youths negotiated heteronormative assumptions. Jess, a young lesbian, indicated how the privileged status of heterosexuality was central to definitions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with regards to sexuality. Whilst some felt attitudes had changed, others said there were still problems:

It’s a horrible thing to still have to say but we are different to how society thinks. It’s still a group in society that’s different … people aren’t aware of what gay people go through. A lot of my friends … were amazed at the crap you get for being gay, even nowadays. (Anna, 19; Project A)

… what we face is the fear of the thing ‘is it just a phase’ rather than out-and-out ‘that’s wrong, dismiss it’ … the expectation is that you experiment, you try it and then you go back to the heteronormative paradigm. (Alex, 19; Project A)

Either way, heteronormative assumptions mattered.

Heteronormative assumptions of gender also impacted on the young gay men in the study. Many felt they should distance themselves from looking or acting ‘camp’⁵:

My parents always said you’ll never become camp will you? You’ll never become ‘gay’? And I said no. I’ll always be myself. I know that I am gay but I’m not gonna change … I am just a normal person who is gay I think. That’s how I see myself. I don’t stereotype myself. I am just normal. Does that make sense? (Tom, 16; Project A)

For some, camp was something they took pleasure in; something that could be fun. But this was moderated in response to those around them. In particular, those who wanted to dress in ways that were less typically masculine felt required to adapt to their surroundings:

I feel quite repressed in my society … when I am in the Performing Arts Academy its fine, I can look really gay and no one gives a shit … but when I am outside, when I am walking outside, when I am not inside a building that I feel safe in, I get really paranoid about it. And so it’s kind of like having two personalities. Indoors, in a safe environment, I can feel free and outside I feel really locked in and I have to assume this macho walk, and things like that. (Matt, 17; Project A)

The young people identified boundaries of difference between themselves and heterosexual and able-bodied others. That these distinctions were hierarchical was shown in the way that the ‘normality’ of heterosexuality and able-bodiedness were not typically seen as being questioned. Ableist and heteronormative definitions of normality were things the young people negotiated. As discussed next, however, the young people contested labels such as ‘abnormal’ or ‘wrong’, and sought to diminish exclusions.

Reconciling Differences

There was, for many, a sense of the subordinated status of difference. Multiple responses to this were described. Some enacted identity in specific ways to get by with less trouble; others resisted being marginalized by performing a range of hidden labours to reduce the presence of a problematic difference (Scully, 2010). A principal concern, however, was to diminish exclusions. This was done in two ways. Firstly, many understood that difference could be framed as deviance because heterosexuality and able-bodiedness were privileged (and taken-for-granted) as ‘normal’. They did not passively accept such understandings:

… it’s really sad that people have in themselves assumed that that’s how it is, that you see someone and if they’ve got any one of those criteria that I’ve just mentioned then they’re … not ‘normal’ in inverted comas. ’Cos I don’t believe in there being a normal, because everyone is different so how can there therefore be a normal? But … as I’ve grown up I’ve realized it’s not sensible to assume … people won’t judge you because you’re happy with who you are … People don’t and it’s something that they won’t accept, that you’re just the same as everybody else. (Kate, 15; Project B)

They’re taught from such a … young age that straight is right and gay or different in general is wrong and I think you can see that, especially when it comes to the education of children that it has changed a lot when it comes to things like race … which is fine … yet you’ll never get like Joan is married to Carol. (Jess, 19; Project A)

Many sought to reframe difference by contesting assumptions that to be different is to have failed social norms. Instead of seeing difference as a problem, they questioned the attitudes of others. As Rachel wrote alongside an image she shared, ‘attitudes are the real disability’ (Figure 1):

In my opinion, disability shouldn’t have a symbol or label as not all people with a disability are ‘in a wheelchair’ as they can range from either end of the scale and not just on the physical appearance of someone. This best represents disability as it’s the people who cast judgement and discriminate against those who are different. I feel that these people don’t like that someone is different and feel threatened by this. (Rachel, 20; Project B).

Figure 1.

Scrapbook image (Rachel, 20; Project B).

Embedded hierarchies of privilege made these challenges even more critical.

Secondly, the young people sought to reduce social distances by explaining how they saw difference as mattering. They did this to show they were ‘just the same as everybody else’, as Kate put it. In reframing difference, they expressed ‘likeness’. For instance, Davis (1995: 11) says that the difference of disability emerges through modalities of function and appearance. For the disabled young people, such differences mattered but were partial; whilst not exactly the ‘same’, they were alike in other respects:

What does disability mean to you?

You’re sort of different. But you’re a person as well, so you’re sort of a different person but you still have those feelings as a normal person would, it’s just slightly different to what you can do and what you are.

What do you mean, ‘Just slightly different’?

’Cos you can’t do as many things, or you’re sort of restricted, [compared] to being completely normal, but you try. (Sara, 15; Project B)

Sara’s framing of disability as ‘just slightly different’ suggested a sense of likeness to others. This was echoed by many of the lesbian and gay young people. Just as Sara said disabled people have the same ‘feelings as a normal person’, Louise stressed how heterosexual and lesbian and gay people were ‘just a little bit different’:

… at the end of the day we’re just normal, we’re just the same people as straight people and we just have a different sexuality … I might think about things differently, I might but at the end of the day we are all the same kind of people, we’re in the same society. We’re just a little bit different. (Louise, 19; Project A)

For the lesbian and gay young people, difference was to do with attraction and the partners they sought. Many, however, said this did not ‘define’ them as individuals:

… it defines who I am attracted to and who I want to have relationships with. I don’t think, feel that it defines me as an individual … I don’t view myself as being any different than a straight person other than my sexuality. (Chris, 20; Project A)

The young people hoped to reframe difference to prevent it becoming a source of exclusion. They also framed difference as something that mattered in delimited ways and spoke of things that made them like others. As discussed next, the ethical maps for living that they produced were marked by ‘ordinariness’. They sought to reconcile differences by contesting negative readings of difference and by exploring likeness across identity lines.

Practices of Ordinariness

Norms of growing up were also part of constructions of normality, and the young people often underlined likeness in terms of shared aspirations. Andy, for instance, a young gay man, felt his image of an adult life was no different from a ‘normal straight person’s’:

I still would like to grow up and get, find someone eventually to have, a life partner; I guess a secure job, a secure house. I wouldn’t say it’s going to be a lot different from a normal straight relationship, a normal straight person’s life. (Andy, 16; Project A)

Similarly, Steve said that people seeing him as gay was important, not just because that had value in itself, but also so people could see that he could ‘do just as much as anybody else’:

Do you feel it is important for you that people recognize you as being gay?

Yeah, I can’t emphasize enough that yes it is, and I think it is important that I’m very mature about that as well … it is important that people see me as gay so that they can understand when they look at me living a normal life, I’m a student, I’ve got my career path lined up, you know I’ve got my own flat, they can see that, yeah I am gay, but I can do just as much as anybody else. (Steve, 21; Project A)

The recognition Steve described entailed acknowledgment of his ‘normality’ as a gay man. In contrast to earlier narratives of ‘struggle and success’, which made securing recognition of a gay identity important in itself (Cohler and Hammack, 2007), Steve stressed being ‘normal’. His counter-narrative was one of ‘likeness’, which stressed that a person could be gay and ‘normal’ too. This was demonstrated through ‘practices of ordinariness’ (Coleman-Fountain, 2014; Heaphy et al., 2013), such as being in education, having a flat and thoughts around a career.

Steve’s language of doing was similar to that of the disabled youths, who valued being able to demonstrate their ability to do everyday things like going out unassisted or going to pubs, bars and nightclubs. Just as Steve sought to demonstrate how ‘un-queer’ his life was, the disabled young people highlighted their ordinariness by doing everyday things. This could often be ambivalent. Sometimes it meant doing everyday things without help:

… it’s absolutely massive to do things for yourself … It might not be much, but carrying a bag or carrying a pint back … carrying a drink back [whilst] having to use your hands to push it’s like, it’s quite good and to do things yourself is a lot better than getting other people to do it for you … independence is a lot, yeah. (Mark, 17; Project B)

For others it meant doing everyday things ‘differently’. For instance, one young man spoke about using a hoist to get into the bath so as not to need his parents’ help. A young woman shared an image of the shower her parents installed so she could wash unsupervised. The aim was to counter associations of disability with an inability to ‘do’ things independently or to live ‘normally’:

I just want to live life as normal as I can, really. I try not to encounter any problems if I can help it. (Craig, 17; Project B)

Just so that people with my disability would see that they don’t just have to do nothing; you know, go to school and then go to college and this might not be what they want, and I’ve still got my rugby and any sport and enjoy it, do you know what I mean? (Mark, 17; Project B)

Many were seeking to become more ‘grown-up’:

I hope that I’ll be able to drive and that I’ll have a car that’s adapted so that I can drive it, but that, if ever my mum needs to drive it or say my husband in future, then it’ll still be, they’ll still be able to drive it …

What is it about driving that would be important?

… just make me feel more grown up I suppose. (Kate, 15; Project B)

Being on the cusp of adulthood shaped the ethical maps the young people produced; growing up offered images of an ordinary adult life that they sought to enact. Most imagined ‘good’ futures in which they were ‘normal’ participants in their social worlds.

The young people were inhabitants of a material and symbolic world in which they worked to integrate themselves into images of an ‘ordinary’ adult life. Their counter-narratives of difference challenged stories of failure, abnormality and inability. The young people did not seek to deny difference or to say that difference did not matter; instead they incorporated it as something that could exist within everyday social arrangements. The aim was not to turn away from given social arrangements but to seek inclusion in them.

Seeking Inclusivity

The young people enacted difference in ways that reduced social distances. For instance, among the lesbian and gay young people an ongoing conversation was about the visibility of sexual difference in various social spaces. Whilst many described the gay scene as an important and safe space for ‘doing’ identity, they also debated the extent to which they wished to be visible outside those spaces. The hope was for ‘mixed’ inclusive spaces:

I have a friend I was speaking to … she thinks that the gay community … there will be a time when it’s unnecessary. ’Cos … a lot of the time I’ll go to gay bars but I don’t actually like them … I think if you go to like quite a cool club, like you can be openly gay there and you don’t need to put up with the rest of it, so I think eventually once, you know, it becomes a lot more accepted I think there will be less of a need for a gay community but I think we still need a word to define yourself. (Mike, 20; Project A)

The desire for inclusivity appeared elsewhere. Steve described his image of equality. He mentioned two things: having equal rights to marriage, and feeling safe walking around an area of north-east England in which sexual minorities are often seen as marginalized:

Full equality will be when I can walk down the Bigg Market holding hands with a man; full equality will be when I can marry in a church. (Steve, 21; Project A)

For the lesbian and gay young people, an equal future was one in which different sexualities would be seen as unremarkable, but also ultimately private:

I rigidly regiment my professional life as something different … I naively believe in equal opportunities and I don’t like to think that I will face any homophobia at the workplace … I would like to think that’s … another issue, whereas socially and personally obviously it will have a huge impact in my life. (Alex, 19; Project A)

This inspired the young people to see how their everyday lives converged with those of heterosexual people. Discussions were had around dress, the spaces they inhabited, employment, and about future family formation (Coleman-Fountain, 2014). However, the main aim was to push for access to public space and existing institutions without discrimination.

The emphasis on inclusivity was echoed by the disabled young people. Rachel shared a photograph of the football team she played with as representing happy memories. The team was largely able-bodied she said but recognized her as disabled and included her:

… we are like a big family … even though we do lose more often than we win … it’s just a load of good fun … They don’t bring up your disability all the time so it’s nice to just be doing something that I love … without having it mentioned. (Rachel, 20; Project A)

A medical diagnosis meant monitoring was a daily reality for Rachel. She found being ‘checked up’ on by her family and medical doctors intrusive, but in the context of the team this medical framing was de-emphasized and her disability was less relevant. This made her feel included. Inclusivity was expected of other spaces and institutions. Many spoke of going to pubs and clubs, leaving home, and about plans for work and family. Disabled young people did not seek something different, they wanted to be present, seen and heard:

… the biggest [music stage] they’ve got stairs … ’cos the lift is broken, so you can’t get down … unless you can actually physically walk down … so I’m at the back next to the speakers … that can hold me back. (Craig, 17; Project B)

The public people don’t listen to wheelchair users. That’s why it’s difficult to talk to them.

And do you ever find they don’t listen to you?

[Yeah]

What do you think about that?

I think it’s bad because [for] communication aid users it takes a long time to talk.

Do you find that people don’t wait long enough for you to say something?

Yes, that is what I am trying to say there.

Why do you think that is?

I don’t know, but I think they should wait there. (Malik, 17; Project B)

The young people’s politics of belonging was premised on expanded and accessible spaces, institutions and interactions. The aim was for equality and diminished exclusions.

The young people produced counter-narratives that emphasized their desire to be folded into existing material social arrangements. They rejected ‘regimes of the normal’ (Warner, 1993: xxvi) insofar as they sought to be equal participants in everyday life. Slater (2015: 57) says aspirations to be seen as and treated ‘like everybody else’ are ‘reasonable’. Speaking of disabled youths, she says:

Non-disabled and disabled young people are watching the same television programmes; reading the same magazines; listening to the same radio stations. They are therefore being delivered the same messages that to be successful is to meet up to adulthood expectation. (Slater, 2015: 39)

Slater (2015: 39) thus asks: ‘should we be surprised that disabled and non-disabled young people have similar hopes and dreams?’. Connectedness was articulated by the young people in both studies. Sameness of aspiration and shared ways of inhabiting the world shaped how they made sense of their location in everyday life.

That equality was something many felt was yet to be achieved informed approaches to identity, likeness and difference. For instance, Ben described the implications of wishing to be seen and treated ‘like everyone else’ on lesbians’ and gay men’s equality politics:

People don’t like to be typecast and there is a lot of pigeonholing and to help get over homophobia and things like that there is a big point made that it’s only a small part of them. It’s in their sexuality and the rest of them is totally separate and much like everyone else, and while we are just like everyone else you can’t deny that sexuality does play in to all the different aspects of our lives, people just don’t like to admit it, because they think it will kind of put them back from trying to make themselves more equal and like stop us getting that. (Ben, 20; Project A)

Heteronormative and ableist definitions of normality, and hierarchies of privilege, shaped the contexts in which the young people spoke of their difference and likeness. They were committed to the differences they sought inclusion for, even as they saw them as something that was private and personal. Whilst aimed at normalizing difference, the politics of belonging they forged was shaped by desires to make society inclusive of difference.

Conclusion

Theories of difference argue for a politics that disrupts and seeks space for difference. Some, such as ‘anti-social’ queer theorists, refuse conformity to singular standards of being, doing and belonging by rejecting aspirations for inclusion. This article has considered concepts of sameness, difference, normality, and inclusion that such theories introduce by analysing lesbian and gay youths’ and disabled youths’ politics of belonging. The point has been to consider how these issues were understood. For this reason it shows how the young people made sense of difference, stressed likeness across identity borders, and sought inclusion in existing social arrangements. It also shows how they remained committed to notions of identity difference. For many, difference was not a bad thing, instead the problems they experienced were perceived to stem from ableist and heteronormative assumptions. Others said that difference did not preclude them from doing things that people might not associate them with. Therefore the young people said that difference could be a valued part of identity, although many also felt it should not be the basis of any exclusion or separation in public life, and simultaneously sought to privatize difference.

Crucially these narratives were told and enacted in contexts in which difference can be seen as deviant. In response, some sought to reduce the likelihood of them experiencing difficulty by reducing the impact of difference. Others questioned the privileged status of others. Either way they responded to hierarchies secured by definitions of normality and in doing so hoped to reduce their exclusionary effects. Often this was done by asserting ‘likeness’ to others. The frequently made claim that, while different, the young people were ‘like everybody else’ was a way to negotiate hierarchies by saying that, despite difference, they had things in common which gave them a sense of belonging in everyday social arrangements. This ‘connectedness’ was as much part of their identity as difference (Lawler, 2014), and motivated expectations for inclusion. For the young people, the important thing seemed to be to find a balance between valuing and reframing difference without creating distances. Efforts to make existing social arrangements inclusive spoke to a desire for connection. Whilst critical of everyday ‘normality’, they sought space in it.

One challenge to this is that in doing so they recreated hierarchies by positioning others as still outside ‘normality’; for instance, those who might not seek the ‘same’ things or work hard enough, or might find that they are excluded through lack of support or capacity. This remains a problem: in seeking normality, to what extent did the young people recreate hierarchies and leave open the potential for some differences to be seen as deviations from norms? The potential to entrench exclusion makes efforts to problematize notions of normality, and to make sense of the processes that establish some differences as deviances, necessary. But there is also something to learn from desires for inclusion. Contemporary political and sociological theories of difference often seek to disrupt social norms to make space for difference; others affirm a will to turn away from norms of social belonging and citizenship to create alternate worlds outside. Whilst the young people asked questions about how bodies and sexualities get valued and who gets to experience the security of normality, they also sought to ensure their differences were not the basis of exclusion. Their aim was to ‘disrupt’ existing social forms by ensuring the ‘folding in’ of difference in order to reduce social distances. Their politics of belonging was one of inclusion and connectedness.

What can we draw from this? The answer is perhaps to remain aware of how a politics of difference sits in tension with the language of likeness and inclusion that shapes the politics of belonging. Notions of inclusion framed in terms of sameness are often critiqued (Nagel, 2002), but they nonetheless speak to current exclusions and hierarchies. Whilst the desire to contest hierarchies of privilege and reframe difference is important, it is also important to recognize that the aim for many was not to create alternate spheres of living, or refuse existing social arrangements, but to open up given material and social arrangements. For instance, local communities, peer groups and kinship networks, spaces and patterns of work, and public and intimate life. These were not abstractions to refuse; they were the fabric of everyday life. Notions of inclusivity, likeness and connectedness were ones they used to express the importance of belonging – even as they faced the prospect of marginalization and exclusion. In a context in which notions of sameness and inclusion are often seen as problematic, it is, this article argues, important to stay alert (in theory and policy) to what it means when people invoke these terms, even as it remains important to consider processes of exclusion and marginalization, and to challenge ableist and heteronormative (amongst other) assumptions that are implicated in the reproduction of everyday life. The latter is something the young people sought to do, even as they sought recognition for their likeness to others and appealed for their inclusion in everyday life.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Janice McLaughlin and Diane Richardson for reading earlier drafts of this article and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful and constructive feedback.

Funding

Full details for ‘Project B’ are: ESRC Grant ‘Embodied Selves in Transition: Disabled Young Bodies’ (RES-062-23-2886). The full team are: Professor Janice Mclaughlin, Dr Edmund Coleman-Fountain, Professor Allan Colver, and Professor Patrick Olivier. ‘Project A’ was funded by an ESRC 1+3 doctoral award.

Notes

Edmund Coleman-Fountain is Research Fellow in Social Policy Research Unit, University of York. His research focuses on youth, difference and identity. He is author of Understanding Narrative Identity Through Lesbian and Gay Youth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and, with Janice McLaughlin and Emma Clavering, is co-author of Disabled Childhoods: Monitoring Differences and Emerging Identities (Routledge, 2016).

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