Non-Heterosexual Clues: Investigating One’s Sexuality in Biographical Narratives

Abstract

The article is devoted to how non-heterosexual people look for perceived signs of their sexual otherness in the past and present them in biographical narratives. This search for clues is like an investigation: informants select events and details from childhood and adolescence that are assumed to be related to their current sexual identity. These clues include, among other things, recollections of childhood sexualized games, child gender otherness, and childhood interest or indifference to the topic of sexuality. In biographical interviews and written autobiographies, the author considers rhetorical strategies for the self-description of non-heterosexual people. The evidence paradigm of K. Ginzburg is used as a conceptualization tool, but, in this case, participants look for clues, not the researcher. The methodological basis of the work is a biographical approach and narrative analysis. With the help of non-heterosexual clues found in the past, participants simultaneously confirm the sustainability of their sexuality and connect elements of their biography into an orderly story. A coherent biographical narrative allows them to normalize their non-heterosexuality by offering an explanation and background to it. At the same time, it is built on opposition to the heterosexual norm.