Individual Listing

2025 CHASS INT NORTH
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Ward, Jane

Associate Professor

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Women's Studies


Biography

Jane Ward’s recent research traces how queer politics takes form in relation to broader political-economic forces, including neoliberalism, the mainstreaming of “diversity,” and post-feminism. Her current projects also include a study of sex between white, straight-identified men and the evolution of scientific and popular narratives that have explained these sexual practices since the 1950s. This study catalogues the multiplying logics that white men are offered for authenticating their sexual and racial “normalcy” in the context of having sex with other white men. In another study, she examines the gendered tensions between transmen (FTMs) and their female partners, with focus on the “gender labor” that bolsters and naturalizes trans masculinity.

Former Institution

UC Santa Barbara

Degrees

BA Sociology 1995

UC Santa Barbara

MA Sociology 1997

UC Santa Barbara

PhD Sociology 2003

UC Santa Barbara

Awards

University of California Regents Faculty Fellowship (2007-2008)
American Psychological Foundation Wayne F. Placek Investigator Development Award (2005-2006)


Research Area

Queer Politics, Transgender Studies, Heterosexualitites, and Critical Whiteness Studies.

Publications

Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2008.

"Gender Labor: Tansmen, Femmes, and the Collective Work of Transgression." Journal of the History of Sexuality. Forthcoming 2009.

“Toward an Intersectionality Just Out of Reach: Confronting the Challenges to Intersectional Practice,” coauthored with Rachel Luft in Advances in Gender Research Vol. 13 edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos. Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishers, forthcoming in 2009.

“White Normativity: The Cultural Dimensions of Whiteness in a Racially Diverse LGBT Organization.” Sociological Perspectives 51(3): 563-586. 2008.

“Dude-Sex: White Masculinities and ‘Authentic’ Heterosexuality Among Dudes Who Have Sex With Dudes.” Sexualities 11(4): 415-435. 2008.

“Diversity Discourse and Multi-Identity Work in Lesbian and Gay Organizations”in Identity Work in Social Movements: Negotiating Sameness and Difference in Activist Environments, edited by Jo Reger, Daniel Myers, and Rachel Einwohner, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008 (233-255).

“Transmanner, femmes, und die arbeit, das girl zu sein.” [“Transmen, Femmes, and the Work of Being the Girl”] in Sexuell Arbeiten: Eine queere Perspektive auf Arbeit und Prekaras Leben, edited by Renate Lorenz and Brigitta Kuster, Berlin: b_books, 2007 (240-258).

“Straight Dude Seeks Same: Mapping the Relationship Between Sexual Identities, Practices, and Cultures” in Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, Second Edition, edited by Mindy Stombler et al, New York: Allyn and Bacon, 2006 (31-37).

“‘Not All Differences Are Created Equal:’ Multiple Jeopardy in a Gendered Organization.” Gender & Society 18(1): 82-102. 2004

“Producing Pride in West Hollywood: A Queer Cultural Capital for Queers With Cultural Capital.” Sexualities 6(1): 65-94. 2003.

“A New Kind of AIDS: Adapting to the Success of Protease Inhibitors in an AIDS Care Organization.” Qualitative Sociology 23(3): 247-265. 2000.

“Queer Sexism: Rethinking Gay Men and Masculinity” in Gay Masculinities, edited by Peter Nardi, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1999 (153-175).