Non-heteronormative Identities Research Articles

Scapegoating Queerness: Associating Egyptian LGBTQIA Advocacy to Western Conspiracy as a Strategy for Aborting Democratization

Focusing on Egypt as a case study, this paper juxtaposes Mubarak and al-Sisi’s anti-queer measures in order to delineate their discursive strategy in framing collective victimhood vis-à-vis Western-sponsored gender activism in an attempt to overshadow the Muslim Brotherhood’s political visibility and reverse the liberal gains of the January 25 Revolution, respectively. This study argues that both presidents’ anti-queer discourse succeeded to abort calls for democratization because of rulers’ capitalization on populist and religious-nationalist idioms in developing a collective victimhood frame as a defensive strategy against constructed threats. Building on the social movement theories’ framing approach, this study unpacks the state’s three-pronged collective victimhood frame by drawing on the revival of Western colonial heritage, sovereignty assertion, and cultural authenticity to validate a generalized repression against non-heteronormative identities and non-conforming sexual practices during the Queen Boat incident in May 2001 and following al-Sisi’s ascension to power from 2014 until 2024.

‘New war, same old story’: Gender and War-related Trauma in ITV’s Home Fires

Airing during the centenary of the First World War and the 75th anniversary of the Blitz, Home Fires (ITV, 2015–16) deals with both world wars by linking them through war-related trauma that not only coloured wartime experiences but also shaped generational experiences in the decades following both conflicts. Set in the Second World War and focusing on the women of the Great Paxford Women’s Institute in rural Cheshire, the series complicates simplified narratives of Britons’ experiences in the world wars that represent the first as futile and the second as triumphalist and definitive. Rather than confining trauma to surviving combat conditions, Home Fires explores second-generation trauma, patriotic marriages versus non-heteronormative identities as a threat to the nation, and spousal abuse and adultery as consequences of war trauma. Ultimately, Home Fires is an emotionally wrought fictionalised narrative of the Second World War that encourages audiences to think critically about the world wars, their commemoration and the gendered valuation of trauma.

SIGNIFIKANSI AKSI MELELA DALAM MANGA SHIMANAMI TASAGORE (2015)

This study examines the concept of coming out as part of queer narrative within Shimanami Tasogare (2015), a manga by Kamatani Yūki. Although coming out has become an important concept within LGBTQ, previous related research tends to see coming out as a one-time achievement. This study analyses the significance of coming out in Shimanami Tasogare by using the queer narrative approach. This study applies Klein et al.’s theory (2015) which argues that coming out is a dynamic and non-linear social process. This study uses text analysis and compositional interpretation (Rose, 2001) as research method. Results show that coming out plays a significant role for the characters who have done it for two reasons. First, coming out is a way for LGBTQ individuals to remove the compulsion to hide their non-heteronormative identity. Second, coming out is also a way to educate people who misunderstand or have misconceptions about LGBTQ. This study found that Shimanami Tasogare has succeeded in depicting the complexity of LGBTQ identity without trapping itself within the traditional queer narrative which assumes that coming out is a linear process.

Binary Inversions and Gender Fluidity in the Malay Sitcom Senario

Abstract This article examines the performance of non-heteronormative modes of gender in Malaysia’s longest-running Malay sitcom, Senario. My close textual reading centres on two episodes to identify the show’s linkages with broader Malay socio-cultural attitudes about gender fluidity. Three facets of Senario’s non-heteronormativity are foregrounded: (1) the religio-cultural belief that gender fluidity, sexual deviancy, and non-heteronormative identities are ‘conditions’ that can be ‘corrected’; (2) that this gender ‘correction’ is a recourse that privileges the masculine, and (3) that heteronormative binary roles are sustained even when imagining inversions of gender. By correlating these performances with wider religious and cultural beliefs/practices, and historical developments, it is observed that Senario’s gender performatives were heavily influenced by, and inflected with, real-world biases towards non-heteronormative communities. This work represents a meaningful step towards addressing the present lacuna of critical scholarship on Malay television representations of non-heteronormative gender identities.

Lesbian kinship in Asia

Cognizant that concepts and theories in the study of sexualities have been developed in the context of the West, scholars researching lesbian lives in Asia are attuned to the local cultural context and seek to understand how lesbians negotiate their sexualities and partnership especially in the web of kin relations. Some scholars have come up with different concepts to capture the disclosure of non-heteronormative identities, but almost all look into how lesbian daughters express their identities and give visibility to their partners while meeting familiar obligations and preserving, or challenging, kin relations.

Between invisibility and homonormativity: LGBT+ referents for spanish adolescents

Studies show the importance of non-cis-heteronormative referents for LGBT+. The object of this paper is to explore LGBT+ referents for teenagers on the basis of the results of the “Survey on Adolescence and Sexual Diversity,” which was distributed to Spanish high school students in the fourth grade of compulsory secondary education The sample was composed of 128 students aged 15–18. About 56.2% identified as girls, 43.8% identified as boys; none identified as non-binary or trans. The results of the quantitative analysis of the survey data highlight the invisibility of non-heteronormative identities and the role of the media as the main purveyor of these identities. Suggestions are offered for the transformation of communicative spaces to embrace diversity and inclusivity.

Interpersonal Factors Affecting Queer Second or Foreign Language Learners’ Identity Management in Class

AbstractAlthough most second or foreign language classrooms can be assumed to contain queer learners, research shows that educators often fail to create inclusive learning environments and outcomes for these populations. A step toward improving this situation is to understand the factors affecting how queer students manage their identities in language classrooms. I use interview data from queer students of Japanese as a second or foreign language (N = 16) to analyze how the characteristics and behaviors of others in the class influence their sexual identity management. My findings indicate that queer learners use 3 types of cue when gauging others to anticipate the consequences of their decision to reveal their nonheteronormative identity in class: salient indicators, insider evidence, and explicit statements. This article also explores how some participants used the “here and now” event of the research interview itself to carry out accounting work that discursively resisted heteronormativity by positioning their sexual identity as normative. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for identity management theory and educational practice.

Translating transgender: Using Western discourses to understand Samoan fa'afāfine

AbstractThe analysis of gender as a socially constructed category is one of the foundations of the sociological project. The concept of transgender is of particular interest, in that it reveals that sex is not necessarily constitutive of gender. Gender nonconformity in non‐Western contexts particularly demonstrates that the ways in which sex, gender, and sexuality are conceptualised in Western discourses are open to challenge. However, academic research about non‐Western transgender identities and populations often ultimately replicates specific heteronormative and/or Western ways of seeing the world. In this article, I discuss how Samoan fa'afāfine have been represented by various academic disciplines, using a sociological perspective to deconstruct discourses commonly used in this process, which include Orientalism, essentialism, and functionalism. I then outline research that allows for a more nuanced understanding of the lived experience of fa'afāfine, situating them within the broader Samoan cultural context and paying attention to how fa'afāfine themselves construct and maintain their identities. I conclude that this more holistic approach should be taken with all representations of non‐Western and Western nonheteronormative identities and populations.

Para lá da heteronorma: subjetivação e construção da identidade sexual

Resumo Este artigo explora a construção da identidade sexual que não se enquadra na heteronorma a partir de um quadro teórico que articula três dimensões da experiência sexual: integração, estratégia e subjetivação. Argumenta-se que a formação destas identidades pode ser mais bem compreendida segundo o eixo da subjetivação e, mais particularmente, na tensão que se estabelece entre este e o da integração. Isto acontece porque, entre os indivíduos que vivem para além dos limites convencionais da heteronorma, a experiência sexual constrói-se, inevitavelmente, em confronto com a mesma, gerando uma reflexividade que contribui para operar um distanciamento do indivíduo face a papéis e valores convencionais, problematizando-os ou, mesmo, adotando modelos alternativos.

Jane Lynch and /s/: The Effect of Addressee Sexuality on Fricative Realization

Although there has been a sizeable amount of work on the speech of gay men (e.g., Podesva 2007), there has been little to no research on gay or bisexual women, whether interspeaker or intraspeaker. This dearth is possibly due to the lack of a stereotypical gay speech style for women. Most people will recognize the gay man speech style exemplified by characters such as Kurt Hummel on Fox’s Glee , but there seems to be no female equivalent. While there may be visual stereotypes of sexuality such as “butch” lesbians sporting baseball caps and Doc Martens (or think of Old Hollywood bisexual Marlene Dietrich’s controversial love of tuxedos), this does not come with a particular speech style. Studies such as Podesva and van Hofwegen’s (2014) analysis of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) residents of Redding, California, have found differences in the realization of /s/ (as defined by spectral measurements such as center of gravity or the mean frequency over the spectrum) between straight and lesbian or bisexual (LB) women. This study examines American lesbian actress Jane Lynch’s realization of /s/ according to center of gravity measurements in two different interviews, with the aim of determining if her /s/ realization is affected by the sexuality of her interlocutor. Lynch’s speech was measured across two topic-controlled interviews, one with lesbian host Rachel Maddow and the other with two non-lesbian women hosts, Gayle King and Erica Hill. Results show that Lynch used lower /s/ realizations (i.e., a lower spectral mean) with the lesbian host than with the non-lesbian hosts. The analysis explores how she uses /s/ both responsively and actively to index a non-heteronormative identity and conceptually aligns herself with the lesbian host. This is mainly presented within the frameworks of Bell’s (1984) theory of audience design and indexicality. It is argued that /s/ may not be consciously salient, but it is perceptually salient on some level (e.g., Mack and Munson 2012). It may therefore, along with other possible features, contribute to an individualized group-marking style. In the absence of a well-known “lesbian accent”, it is argued that Lynch uses /s/ as a tool to create and control her self-presentation to a heteronormative society. Secondarily, some LGBT vs. non-LGBT topic effects within one of the interviews are discussed, with the finding that Lynch has a lower mean of /s/ while discussing LGBT topics, such as same-sex marriage, than unrelated topics, such as her acting career.

Concealing, revealing, and coming out: lesbian visibility in Dalibor Matanić’s Fine Dead Girls and Dana Budisavljević’s Family Meals

Drawing and expanding upon the scholarship that has analysed how non-heteronormative identities have been represented and discussed in the post-socialist spaces of the former Yugoslavia, this article examines two Croatian films, Fine mrtve djevojke/Fine Dead Girls and Nije ti život pjesma Havaja/Family Meals to reassess the notion that real lesbians are not represented in mainstream films from Eastern Europe. Although the two films employ diverse genres and provide substantively different points of view, they are crucial for understanding the evolution of cinematic representations of lesbians in Croatia and for evaluating the ongoing changes in public perception of sexual minorities. Through an analysis of the films’ production and consumption, their narrative structures and cinematic techniques, this article uncovers the ways in which these films offer divergent perspectives of the lesbian subject. While Fine Dead Girls uses lesbian characters as a medium that ultimately reaffirms the heterosexist project despite its director’s advertised lesbian-positive approach, Family Meals eschews pronouncements about activism and ideology to offer a nuanced portrait of a ‘real lesbian’ using the metaphor of family mealtimes. Departing from previous scholarship that presents cinematic lesbians of the Western Balkans as mere repositories of external discourses, this analysis treats homophobia and hetero/sexism as socially constructed phenomena not particular to the Balkans, and illustrates the necessity of non-essentialising views of sexuality and gender in constructing a visible lesbian subject.

Gender on the edge: transgender, gay, and other Pacific islanders

GENDER ON THE EDGE: TRANSGENDER, GAY, AND OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDERS Edited by Niko Besnier and Kalissa Alexeyeff Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2014; 378 pp. ISBN 978-988-8139-27-9The 1990s were marked by a spate of sustained ethnographies of non-western transgendered and other non-heteronormative populations (e.g., Johnson, 1997; Kulick, 1998; Nanda, 1990; Prieur, 1998; Williams, 1992/1986) and texts (edited or sole-authored) which discussed instances of these identities and behaviours in various locales and/or times (Feinberg, 1996; Herdt, 1993; Nanda, 2000). Since then there has been a relatively steady stream of journal articles and monographs in the area, both anthropological and from other disciplines. Gender on the edge: Transgender, gay, and other Pacific Islanders represents the first edited collection that focuses specifically on Pacific trans and other non-normative gender identities, an approach that is particularly suited to this geographic area, as the instantiations of non-normative genders and sexualities on the various island nations share certain features, but are also unique to their own cultural, political, and economic contexts.While this collection is the work of 14 different authors, the individual pieces are bound together by two fundamental aspects. Firstly, non-normative identities are discussed in relation to their own cultural context. Much writing on non-western transgenderism positions the participants as somehow 'strange', implicitly comparing them to western models of sex/ gender/sexuality, and also frequently isolates non-western transgendered peoples and practices 'as a separate category to be studied independently from other dynamics in society and culture' (p. 10). However, within their respective cultural contexts, most instances of non-western transgenderism are relatively 'normal', and these authors acknowledge this in various ways, with one of the central aims of the text being 'to understand non-heteronormative practices in terms of their social, cultural, political, and historical contexts' (p. 10). Secondly, the influence of globalisation and migration has had a significant impact on non-western transgendered identities - this is particularly so in the Pacific, where the population is notably transitory. Editors Kalissa Alexeyeff and Niko Besnier are careful to make explicit the fact that 'foreign-influenced' instantiations of non-heteronormative identities and practices are not 'inauthentic'. The book is marked by a number of discussions in which more 'traditional' models of non-heteronormativity are contrasted with those which may be seen as more 'modern', but in all instances care is taken to ensure that the more 'traditional' model is not privileged as more 'authentic' by the respective authors (even if it is by those being discussed).Rather than relying on the term 'transgender', in the introduction Besnier and Alexeyeff refer to the populations being discussed as 'non-heteronormative', and the various contributors do not always discuss practices that could be termed 'transgenderism'. Possibly as a result of attempting to address the scope that this framework sets up, the introduction does feel somewhat short on content, and overly full of post-structuralist 'buzzwords'. Specific gaps are identified by the editors - the literature is notably short on work that is grounded in Papua New Guinea (although this volume does have one chapter discussing Papua New Guinea); there is a dearth of material on FtM transgenderism and female same sex sexuality (briefly discussed in this volume); and those who are normatively gendered themselves but have a preference for sexual partners who are transgendered remain a lacunae in the field.The book is divided into three sections. The first of these - 'Historical transformations' - comprises three chapters which focus on Tahiti (Deborah Elliston) and Samoa (Reevan Dolgoy and Penelope Schoeffel). Elliston and Dolgoy both focus on the ways in which global influences have resulted in shifts in expressions of transgenderism in the respective locales. …

This Is a Man's World: Drag Kings and the Female Embodiment of Masculinity

Portrayals of non-heteronormative characters have been more and more present in the mass media since the last decades of the 20th century. Gay and lesbian characters are now part of mainstream media in films, sitcoms, drama series, talk shows, etc. Apparently, this could mean that non-heteronormative identities and desires are tolerated by the general audience but this might be just so as long as these characters behave according to heteronormative standards of normality or their bodies are easily readable. The presence of trans, drags or genderqueer characters is minimal and with it the potential subversion of the heteronormative matrix. However, not all drag is subversive and therefore an inappropriate reading or decoding could end up reinforcing the same normative gender identities they intend to subvert. To understand the potential subversion of non-heteronormative characters this paper aims to analyze briefly the re/conceptualization of performativity in the work of Judith Butler, the representation of drag as a parody of gender performance, the female embodiment of masculinity and its representation in popular culture.

‘There is a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one of them without a fella …’: the ‘lesbian potential’ of Bend it Like Beckham

Drawing on debates around lesbian (in)visibility, representability and appropriation in cinema, this paper explores the ways in which Bend it Like Beckham (Chadha, 2002) opens up possibilities for lesbian spectatorial engagements. Situating the film within the larger generic context of the (female) sports film, I argue that Bend it Like Beckham uses the lesbian recognisability and representability provided by the contemporary sports context for an articulation of non-heteronormative identities and desires, blurring the boundaries between lesbian visibility and invisibility. Questioning traditional and binary understandings of gendered spectatorship, and with a particular focus on moments of athletic performance, I suggest that the athletic (bodily, emotional and looking) relations between the central female characters allow for appropriative viewing pleasures to be taken in this superficially ‘straight’ text.

Sexual Agreements Among Gay Male Couples

Many gay male couples make agreements about whether or not to permit sex with outside partners, yet little is known about the development and maintenance of these agreements, their impact on relationships, and whether they are an effective HIV prevention strategy. Using semi-structured, qualitative interviews, 39 gay male couples were asked about their sexual agreements and about other relationship dynamics that might affect their agreements. Analysis revealed a wide range of agreement types, all of which are presented along a continuum rather than as discrete categories. For couples with open agreements, most placed rules or conditions limiting when, where, how often, and with whom outside sex was permitted. Although motivations for having agreements varied, HIV prevention did not rank as a primary factor for any couple. Most couples had congruous agreements; however, a small number reported discrepancies which may increase HIV transmission risk. How couples handled breaks in their agreements also varied, depending on what condition was broken, whether it was disclosed, and the partner's reaction. Additional results include differences in agreement type and motivations for having an agreement based on couple serostatus. Overall, agreements benefited couples by providing boundaries for the relationship, supporting a non-heteronormative identity, and fulfilling the sexual needs of the couple. Future prevention efforts involving gay couples must address the range of agreement types and the meanings couples ascribe to them, in addition to tempering safety messages with the relationship issues that are important to and faced by gay couples.

Sexual citizenship in Latvia: geographies of the Latvian closet

This study examines sexual citizenship in Latvia. It investigates the process by which political narratives have heterosexed the nation since regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. My aim in exploring this process is to develop a deeper understanding of non-heteronormative identities and counter-hegemonic spaces in this heterosexist society. Drawing on discourse analysis of political media statements I argue that despite the legalizing of homosexuality, political narratives have continued to sex the nation as heterosexual, forging the national closet. I then explore how these narratives become experienced in lives of sexual minorities through the state's failure to prevent sexual discrimination. Drawing on participant observation and a decoding of the urban landscape, I investigate how the Latvian closet is materialized in the bodies and places of the everyday lives of ‘gay’ men living in the capital, Riga. Examined in this way insights are given to the spatial forms of political resistance to heterosexism in Latvia and how it differs from western models.