In my thesis I explored how the cis-heteronormative and patriarchal social systems affect LGBT+ people, especially in relation to coming out. In the theoretical part, I defined basic concepts such as the acronym LGBTQIA+, sexual orientation and gender identity. Through gender binary, I presented the difference between gender and sex assigned at birth, explaining intersex and gender expression. I then delved into the social systems, constructions and norms that build the world around us. Based on these, I explained the social construct of gender and sexual orientation, heteronormativity and cisnormativity, medicalization, patriarchy and heteropatriarchy, and stopped at the latter to describe sexism, sexualization and the hegemony of masculinity. In the last part of the theory I focused on homo-bi-transphobia, the (non)coming out of LGBT+ people, with a personal focus on coming out to oneself and coming out to one's parents. In the empirical part, I present my findings from interviewing seven LGBT+ people, which I reached through non-randomised convenience sampling. The questions were mainly related to their coming out, both to themselves and to other people, but also about the discrimination they have been subjected to on the basis of their sexual orientation/identity, the assumptions made about them by the people around them and their wishes to change the society. Through this, I learnt how LGBT+ people are affected by cis-heteronormative and patriarchal environments and other social norms. I have found out that, because of this, LGBT+ people try to hide their sexual orientation and/or identity, and that they have also spent a long time not acknowledging it before coming out, and even internalising prejudices about their own identities. Social assumptions lead them to try to blend in by adapting their sexual expression. Society makes assumptions about people's sexual orientation, gender identity and pronouns based on their gender expression, and many of these assumptions are wrong. I found that femininity is seen as weak and inferior in a patriarchal society, which leads to stigmatisation of women, feminine men and people on the feminine transgender spectrum, they are most likely targets of oppression in patriarchal and cis-heteronormative environments, which in return influences the decision to come out. But in order to help LGBT+ people and open space for them to come out and live their lives fully, we first need to understand the complexity of social norms and man-made constructs, to start questioning and thinking critically about the world around us, and to begin to realise that the things we think are universally true sometimes they are not.
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