Forgetting Gender While Desexualising Friendship? Heteronormativity and Everyday Practices of Cross-Gender Friendship Among Adults in Germany

Abstract

Friendship is commonly considered a relatively free relationship, allowing individuals to interact unhindered by social norms and structures. At the same time, friendship formation seems to be highly gendered, with relations between (cis) people of the same gender representing an implicit norm. This can be attributed to heteronormativity, which structures patterned interactions between men and women and does so differently in romantic love versus friendship. Yet how does this operate at the interactional level? How do those leading cross-gender friendships experience and navigate this normative order? Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with cross-gender friends in Germany, I use the concept of ‘doing gender’ – and extend it to sexuality – in order to analyse how the everyday practices and meaning-making of friendship are linked to heteronormativity. I find that gender is often ‘forgotten’ on an immediate, interactional level, yet re-enters the picture through a type of symbolic boundary-work in which the interviewees desexualise their friendship.

Appendix: Transcription Guidelines

(.):

short break, less than a second

(2):

number of seconds of a break

…:

omission

no :

emphasis

rel-:

breaking-off

/B: bla /:

interjection by speaker B

[ ]:

begin and end of an overlap

(laughing):

paraverbal and nonverbal communication

D&G/217:

cited paragraph, e.g. paragraph 217, from joint interview with D. and G.;

individual interviews are abbreviated with a single letter