Heteronormativity

Heteronormativity names the whole web of assumptions and institutional arrangements that treat heterosexuality as the default: everyone is presumed straight “unless otherwise stated,” and the presumed life script runs boy-meets-girl, marriage, children. Its everyday face is concrete — asking a young man “got a girlfriend?” rather than “seeing anyone you like?”, the spouse box on every form, nearly every romance template on screen.

The key is in the “-normativity”: the critique targets the default setting, not heterosexual people. And the cost of the setting lands on both sides. Sexual minorities must constantly decide whether to correct other people’s assumptions — every correction being an involuntary coming-out. Meanwhile straight people are disciplined by the same script: the person who doesn’t want to marry, the straight man deemed “not manly enough” — their pressure comes from the same system. It interlocks with the gender binary to produce much of what passes for “just how things are.”

Register note: academic and advocacy vocabulary. In everyday speech the same idea sounds like “everyone’s assumed straight by default.”

Common misuse: reading it as “an insult to heterosexuals” or “opposition to heterosexuality.” Being straight is entirely legitimate; what’s under discussion is the institutional habit of treating it as the only default.