“Bright pink fluffy things”: Gay speakers’ constructions of ‘effeminate gay men’ and the potential bases for their marginalisation

Abstract

This article is concerned with gendered constructions of ‘gay men’. Two excerpts, taken from the transcripts of focus group discussions with men on the topic of men and emotions, are subjected to discourse analysis to identify the discursive resources and the ideological relationships that are invoked in the construction of ‘effeminate gay men’. This construction is shown to be a potential source of humour and, through the discourse of attractiveness, to constitute the basis for discrimination and marginalisation. Importantly, these resources and the constructions and subject positions they constitute are invoked by speakers who self-identified as ‘gay men’. Thus, the analysis demonstrates both the power and appeal of ‘hegemonic’ constructions of gender for speakers who might themselves be subject to ‘gender’x discrimination.