Gender Studies Seminar: Domestic Spaces with Júlia Pascual Bordas

Gender Studies Seminar Series 2023: Gendered and sexualized spaces

The Gender Studies Seminar Series invite researchers to share their insights on key issues for gendered and sexualized lives, and to engage in critical discussions about the development of gender studies as an interdisciplinary and intersectional research field. During the spring and fall semester 2023, we focus our attention on critical contributions and interventions into gendered and sexualized spaces, from the domestic to the geopolitical. 

Domestic Spaces with Júlia Pascual Bordas

Title: The private bathroom, a strongbox for gender performativity and transgression. 

Abstract: 
Public bathrooms are key places in terms of gender identities, gender expressions and sexual orientations out of the norm. Studies about public bathrooms, toilets and washrooms have shown that they are key places in terms of discrimination, but also for gender and sexual diversity (see Albert, 2011; Browne 2004, Cavanagh
 2010; Halberstam, 1998; Patel 2017). Nevertheless, bathrooms within the house have not received much attention (Longhurst, 2000). This ongoing research examines how 27 LGBT+ youth experience the bathroom according to their gender, sexual orientation and age. These experiences combined with a spatial and emotional approach, show how the bathroom at home represents a site of gender training, exploration and transgression. The private bathroom is shown to be a place of intimacy and performativity, where non-normative bodies and hidden sexualities become visible. 

Júlia Pascual-Bordas (she/her pronouns).
Is a Research Assistant at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), and a PhD Student in the Inter-University Doctoral Program in Gender Studies: Cultures, Societies and Policies. Her research focuses on LGBTIAQ+ youth and private space in Catalonia.