Racializing Emasculation: An Intersectional Analysis of Queer Men’s Evaluations of Sexual Assault Doug Meyer University of Virginia ABSTRACT This article focuses on how 60 queer men perceived emasculation in relation to their experiences of sexual assault, drawing particular attention to racial and ethnic differences. While previous scholarship has focused primarily on gender, the author of this article uses an intersectional approach to explore queer men’s narratives. Results demonstrate that queer men of color with intra-racial experiences of assault typically denied feelings of emas- culation, emphasizing instead other emotions that were intimately related to challenges they faced due to their social position. Most White participants with intra-racial experiences felt emasculated after the assault. Racial and ethnic differences appeared even more pro- nounced with interracial forms of violence, as Black queer men drew attention to racialized concerns, such as fear over being perceived as a “troublemaker” for reporting a White assail- ant, while White and Latino participants described feeling emasculated, in large part due to masculinizing stereotypes of Black men. The implications of this research suggest that emasculation is a racialized, as well as a gendered, process for queer men – one that does not arise automatically from simply being a man who has been sexually violated but one that springs disproportionately from whiteness and that generally involves particular racial- ized gender dynamics. KEYWORDS : intersectionality theory; masculinity; race/ethnicity; rape; sexual assault. Studies examining sexual assault against queer men have pointed to how this research has focused on gender and sexuality more frequently than on race (Javaid 2018; Ralston 2012; Tillapaugh 2017). Conversely, I examine racial and ethnic differences among 60 queer men who have been sexually assaulted, exploring their perceptions of emasculation, defined as “feeling a diminished sense of strength or as feeling like ‘less of a man’” (Ferrales, Brehm, and McElrath 2016:572). Throughout this article, “queer” is used as an umbrella term for sexual minorities, which includes anyone who does not identify as heterosexual. In previous studies examining sexual assault, queer men were This work was supported by a grant from the Bucker W. Clay Faculty Research Support in the Social Sciences at the University of Virginia, and a summer stipend award in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Virginia. The author would like to thank Valerie Jenness, Barbara Katz Rothman, Mimi Schippers, Alberto McKelligan Hern andez, and Bailey Troia, as well as three anonymous reviewers, for their extremely helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article. Please direct correspondence to the author at the University of Virginia, Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Levering Hall, P.O. Box 400172, Charlottesville, VA 22904; email: dom6e@virginia.edu. V C The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.  39 Social Problems, 2022, 69, 39–57 doi: 10.1093/socpro/spaa053 Advance Access Publication Date: 5 October 2020 Article Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/69/1/39/5918079 by University of Virginia Law Library user on 01 May 2022