Speaking of heteronormativity
Can I register a small, non-judgey grammar objection to this term? Despite its relatively recent coinage and re-minting into even more recent currency, it’s a bad construction. A literal definition of its Latin roots would be “making the different normal,” but its intended definition is about heterosexuality, not just hetero-ness generally. In fact a better (or, more literal) construction for the intended sense would be “homonormative,” i.e. making sameness (i.e. the normality of homogeneity, allegiance to heterosexual norms) normal. But really what the coiners were trying to get out would be “heterosexual normativity,” or “normative heterosexuality,” or “heterosexuonormativity” which is a more Germanic portmanteau word than I think we’re willing to tolerate, conversationally speaking.
This post brought to you by me waiting for a fax.