Upcoming book! Gender Functions: Why LGBTQ+ Gender Matters and How it Works
This is a sneak peak of Gender Functions — A book that tells the story of the evolution and enactment of LGBTQ+ genders drawing from 25+ years of research with diverse gender communities from across the US.
Based on the lived experiences of drag, butch, femme, bear, leather, trans, nonbinary, and house/family communities.
Levitt, H. M. (2026). Gender Functions: Why LGBTQ+ Gender Matters and How it Works. Cambridge University Press. (Release June, 2026)
Below is a description of why this book matters.
In Gender Functions, LGBTQ+ people in drag, butch, femme, bear, leather, transgender, nonbinary and house/family communities share how their genders are shaped and formed. From decades of research across the US, Levitt relays their words and voices, sharing stories that are at once so rarely heard and yet so familiar. A novel understanding of gender results, describing how gender operates for both individuals and communities.
Rather than understanding gender development as a project of learning dominant social norms, this work shows how it is also the generation of new possibilities to be authentic in relationship.
Instead of viewing gender as just one of its elements, this work examines how it unfolds across historical, (bio)sociopsychological, cultural, interpersonal and sexual domains — revealing an interplay that makes evident why gender has no beginning or end.
As opposed to viewing LGBTQ+ gender as problematic or pathological, this approach celebrates its many functions and make clear why gender is important across societies.
Gender Functions takes the reader on a voyage through history and time, across diverse communities, and amidst the intriguing questions of today. Across its chapters, cumulative insights build, illuminating new meanings of gender, how it functions, and why it matters.