BUILDING A LESBIAN COMMUNITY IN EDMONTON, ALBERTA ...

hypothetical models.,,6 Thus, as psychologist Janis Bohan contends, lesbianism is not a mere
biological or chromosomal category ofhomosexuality; instead, it is a non-deviant socio-cultural
phenomenon ofexclusively female experience. 7 Unfortunately, heterosexism is grounded in the
beliefthat heterosexuality is the only socially acceptable sexual orientation, thereby reinforcing
negative views towards same-sex desires. 8 In this way, heterosexism relegates gays and lesbians
to a deviant category outside ofsocially acceptable norms. 9 Since the 1960s, social theorists have
come to see sexual desires and behaviours as central to identity construction and individuality.
In recent years, researchers of sexuality have proposed two competing viewpoints,
essentialist theory and social constructionism. 1o Essentialist theory views gender and sexuality as
biologically fixed categories. As social historian Adrien Stein explains:
Researchers believed that homosexual preference was the surface manifestation ofan
underlying homosexual orientation, that homosexuality was in essence a fixed
characteristic that determines emotions, desires, behaviors-whether the individual is
conscious of 'being homosexual" or not. 11
The essentialist theory presupposes sexuality as an inherent feature that exists within the
6Rictor Norton, The Myth ofthe Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for
Cultural Unity (London: Cassell,1997), 180.
7 Janis S. Bohan, Psychology and Sexual Orientation: Coming to Terms (New York:
Routledge,1996), 35.
8 Bohan, 38.
9 Mary Louise Adams, The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of
Heterosexuality (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1997), 10.
10 Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention ofHeterosexuality (New York: A Plume
Book,1996), 170-173.
11 Arlene Stein, Sex and Sensibility: Stories ofa Lesbian Generation ( Berkeley:
University ofCalifornia Press, 1997), 10.
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