Sexual Orientation and Identity

Sexual orientation and how we might understand it is a topic that arouses significant controversy. Is sexual orientation a natural or social phenomenon? Do categories such as 'queer' and 'straight' exist only in relation to social structures and cultures? Whilst such questions have been examined from the perspectives of sociology and gender, they remain relatively underexplored from a philosophical standpoint.

In this book, Matthew Andler breaks new ground and examines the social ontology of sexual orientation. Distinguishing sexual orientation and sexual idenity, he asks why certain sexual dispositions count as sexual orientation, arguing that that sexual dispositions can only ground sexual orientations in virtue of being related to heteropatriarchal kinship structures.

He then turns to sexual identity, arguing that the properties of being queer and/or being straight are grounded in the political function of sexuality cultures as resisting and/or entrenching heteropatriarchal kinship structures. Additionally, he critiques capitalist expropriations of queerness, using the example of pinkwashing. He also examines trans-inclusivity, arguing that trans-inclusive interpretations of sexuality categories serve everyone who seeks to build a life outside of the narrow provisions of heteropatriarchal kinship structures.

Sexual Orientation and Identity: A Philosophical Analysis will be of interest to those studying the philosophy of gender, social metaphysics and gender studies and also those interested in the conceptual issues underlying debates concerining gender and social justice.