Lately, gender and sexual orientation have lost their meaning as categories that forge identity. Gender roles have expanded, but are simultaneously also being accentuated more. Desire for gender consistency still seems widespread; a state of things well documented e.g. by recent bestsellers such as “Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps”. In leftist and liberal circles, controversial debate has flared up around so-called “identity politics” – relationships between particularism and universalism, culture and natures, discourse and the body are being renegotiated. In her lecture with subsequent discussion as part of the series BÖLL ANALYTICS, psychoanalyst and sexologist Sophinette Becker examines the role and function of identity in the face of an increasingly fragmented society.