Constr(i)(u)cting Lesbian Identities in Physical Education: Feminist and Poststructural Approaches to Researching Sexuality

Abstract

The article explores some assumptions and limitations of current research about lesbians in physical education. Research has explored the identity management strategies used by lesbian teachers (Griffin, 1992b; Sparkes, 1994; Woods, 1992), based upon liberal and radical feminist assumptions that a “lesbian identity” exists in some essential form (Jaggar, 1988). Materialist feminist theory refuses any “essential” lesbian identity, but acknowledges the social construction of particular lesbian identities within specific historical conditions, illustrated in the work of Cahn (1994). Poststructural theorists (Bryson & de Castell, 1993; Butler, 1990; Pronger, 1990, 1992) also reject the existence of essentialized identities, and argue instead that “effects” of sexualities are continually being performed at the surface of the body. I argue this poststructural assumption, that lesbian identities do not really exist, is compatible with a politics “as if” they existed (Riley, 1988). Finally, the paper calls for a shift in research focus away from individual lesbian identity toward how institutional discourses constrict and construct lesbian identities.

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