Male-to-male social-sexual activity in the subaltern world of male sexual spaces is theoretically examined. Methods include hard copy and online content analysis and observational-participatory submergence in the subaltern world of queer male sexual spaces such as bathhouses, saunas, circuit clubs, fetish balls, sex clubs, dark rooms, and backrooms. Studied is a self-monitored subculture that creates its own tribal rituals at varying odds with mainstream societal and LGBTQ movement norms. Darkness is a common conceptual theme in such spaces serving multiple purposes from anonymity to atmospheric shrouding, from sensory deprivation to expanded imaginaries, from lowered inhibitions to sexual exploration. The importance of such spaces is examined regarding time-limited sexual expression for pleasure and affirmation. This contrasts greatly from normative societal expectations, partly due to sex and sexuality being core to queer culture and due to ongoing oppression towards queer men. Transgressive spaces designed as queer male social-sexual places serve several socio-cultural needs materially, allowing for perceptive liberation, figurative creative personas that symbolize one’s authentic being. Public and private spheres are somewhat blurred, yet through social etiquette navigable. By deviating from and resisting social-sexual norms, this tribe demonstrates how it maintains a core drive of their liberated sexuality outside of mainstreamed sexual governance.

Social justice and equity are vital measures that fall under the responsibilities of the Senior Leadership Team. These are the underpinning values of inclusive education. Leadership is to bring about a sense of empowerment to the individuals who form part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer community, a minority group, where one’s contribution is valued. This creates a safe learning environment where a zero tolerance to harassment, bullying and discrimination is endorsed by policies which are communicated and adhered to by all stakeholders. The beliefs of the Catholic Church’s teachings are espoused with a mission and ethos to serve everyone, which serves as a moral guidance for the leadership of a church school. This research sheds light on the current situation of how the Senior Leadership Team supports an inclusive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer culture in church secondary schools in Malta, analysed through the student participants’ voices. The study adopted a qualitative approach, where the data was presented in alignment with the research questions, then analysed to draw up recommendations to enhance and reaffirm the pivotal role of the Senior Leadership Team, with the necessary support to embed an inclusive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer culture that permeates the school.

This poster reports ongoing research involving semi-structured interviews with 29 archival practitioners who work with LGBTQIA+-focused archives and collections. The research examines how practitioners construct finding aids for their collections and how questions of LGBTQIA+ identity and queer culture informed their construction, evaluation, and maintenance of these finding aids. This poster emphasizes findings related to tensions between practitioners’ desires to be inclusive of queer potentialities within their respective collections and professional demands to adhere to steadfast concepts of archival description such neutrality, respect des fonds, and more product, less process. Specifically, the discussed findings highlight how practitioners understand their work constructing LGBTQIA+-related finding aids as an additive conversation to emerging questions of reparative description. In particular, the research examines how collection-level description paradigms of finding aids requires examining how best to represent queer identity as both individual and collective concepts. Further, the research explores how these challenges of monolithic representations of queerness within finding aids surface concerns regarding other intersectional identities, while laying bare the role of privacy and transparency to archival collections, especially in moments of anti-queer political backlash. The research concludes with practical and theoretical implications from this research with a particular emphasis on how findings might inform archival pedagogy for describing diverse populations within archival records in an era of increasing automation and linked archival interaction.

Maricas: Queer Cultures and State Violence in Argentina and Spain, 1942–1982

ABSTRACT This paper is the retelling of a qualitative research journey that began with firm intentions and desires, but got lost and mired by the academic pressures and forgetting who the research was truly by and for: the racialised queer and gay men who are the heart of it. While they used their gym time to prepare their bodies for Pride, I expose researcher mess and disorientation. Through this, my deeper idea of an inner Auntie, a loving but firm voice of reason that aids racialised queer men to be the best versions of themselves, will be arising from the process of doing qualitative research. This phrasing then decentres Whiteness, distances itself from homonormativity, and acknowledges racialised queer culture and heritage. This new framing of inner Auntie also becomes a reflexive validation guide in doing qualitative research. Ultimately, the participants saw me through the disorientation, helped me reach a turning point, and oriented me towards my desires in how to be a better researcher. This is an introduction to other physical cultural researchers as an innovative way to conduct qualitative research in sport. It is also an offering of gratitude to the people I met in this research. May their lives continue to inspire others.

Abstract The Singaporean film Number 1 explores lgbtiq+ identity and has gained widespread popularity, leading to plans for a sequel. This article is the first academic discussion of the film, examining the different treatments of lgbtiq+ individuals in Taiwan, Singapore, and China before and after the film’s release. It critically reflects on the limitations and errors of the China-centric imagination of ethnic Chinese queer culture. By extending the film’s use of Taiwanese actors, songs, and its concept of diverse family formation, the article highlights the film’s deep connection to Taiwan and addresses place-based production in Sinophone discourse. The cultural symbolism in the movie, such as using local terms like a guan instead of tongzhi and replacing lip-syncing with actual singing, showcases the efforts of Singaporean cultural workers to assert their voice. The film’s popularity underscores its significant impact on social attitudes and potential to influence positive change across Chinese-speaking societies.

ABSTRACT The interconnections between queerness, espionage, and space expose the problematic nature of homosexual covert agents in international relations. This article considers the intersection of sexuality, queerness, war, and tourist space as a means to understand the complex interactions between same-sex desire and the operational objectives of an undercover agent of the United Kingdom’s Special Operations Executive, Major Denis Rake, on mission to France as a radio operator between 14 May 1942 and late April 1943. In the mid-1940s, a queer geography was already established in Paris by the time of the German occupation. During this same period, however, the Vichy government made efforts to constrain and limit queer culture in Paris. Rake’s employment at le Boeuf sur le Toit as a drag performer for German tourists enhanced his operational cover, obscuring him from German surveillance.

ABSTRACT Christian culture and queer culture interact with beliefs shaping technology design and use and are intertwined with power structures that impact how queer Christians see themselves as humans. The power relations involved in queer Christian subjectivity provoke contradictions, inciting queer Christians to wrestle with their identities, practices, and relationships in particular ways. Guided by methodological commitments of cultural anthropology, this interdisciplinary study asked how being queer and Christian while using dating apps affects how queer Christians see themselves as gendered and sexual humans seeking intimate relationships. I used cultural, digital, and theological ethnographic methods to explore how queer Christians navigate the perceived conflict between being LGBTQ+ and Christian, embracing this seemingly contradictory identity while using dating apps. In this article, I offer a Foucauldian discourse analysis of ethnographic work among queer Christians including a digital ethnography of queer Christians using dating apps. This article includes my analysis of the power dynamics at work for queer Christians who have multiply-marginalizing experiences. My hope is that by surfacing some of the ways in which Christian culture and technology are intertwined, we can work towards manifesting a world where the human diversity, dignity, and security of queer Christians are honoured and protected.

The subject of this study is the process of developing theoretical tools of the world-systems approach in the field of human studies, using K. Chitty's concept of sexual hegemony as an example. The basic problematics of the world-system approach is in the field of macro-processes. The micro-level of societal reality is often inaccessible to the world-system optics. However, relying on the ontology of macro-processes inherent in the world-system approach, the followers of this paradigm complete theoretical constructions by synthesis with intermediate models of other concepts, improving the world-system optics according to the subject under study. In the work of C. Chitty there is such a refinement of theory. Moreover, the emphasis on the economic sphere, intrinsic to the world-system approach as a branch of Marxism, precludes the attainment of an ontology of the human being, since contemporary research is compelled to shift the focus to the household. In his study of human ontology, К. Citty draws on another crucial set of world-system ideas, encapsulated in the concept of the «hegemony of geoculture». К. Citty analyzes the socio-economic sources of Western queer culture and the reasons for its politicization in the core of the world-system on the basis of a synthesis of the concept of cycles of development of the world system by G. Arrighi, the idea of class hegemony by A. Gramsci and the ideas of culture and the nature of human sexuality in the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud. Citty's research focuses on the mechanisms of state and social control of queer cultural representatives in European history since the XV century. He explains the processes of politicization of sexuality in the central, time-shifting nodal points of the world system (the Mediterranean, Holland, England, and the United States) during its crises. The conclusions emphasize that the innovation of C. Chitty's methodology lies in the fact that he creates a theoretical construct that allows us to see human sexuality in the totality of factors of different levels of societal reality. The theoretical constructs proposed by K. Chitty can be useful. Citty's theoretical constructs can be useful for understanding the clash between political power and representatives of queer culture in the context of destructive world-system processes that are gaining momentum.

Abstract Instead of centering on the relatively elite cultural spaces that have shaped much of the existing scholarship on Chinese queer culture, such as independent cinema, film festivals, and performing arts, this study turns to digital culture as a site where every day queer expression and community building unfolds. Using Huaxiaodiao, a popular nonbinary/gay vlogger with a substantial following on the Chinese video platform Bilibili, as a case study, this article examines how they leverage Bilibili’s distinctive cultural affordances to foster mediated affective solidarity within the Chinese queer community. Through various affective rhetorics of humor, Huaxiaodiao and their audience tactically satirize heteronormativity through cross-gender play, while playing with homonormativity through queer slang. At the same time, they evoke emotional resonance by digital storytelling, using sentimental irony to rewrite trauma. This study contributes to the scholarship on Chinese queer culture and gendered affective politics by illustrating how digitally mediated humor fosters queer affective solidarity within China’s digital landscape.

When the reality is undesirable, one dimension to which the public can respond depends on whether the reality can be changed. When such change is possible, one tends to be more active, extroverted, and rebellious. When otherwise, one tends to be more passive, introverted, and fearsome. Countercultures that took form from such reactions to reality would inherit such quality, evident in how queer culture tends to possess the quality of the former. In contrast, the otaku culture has the latter. As a culture of indulgence and fear of reality, a phenomenon of genjitsu-touhi is evident in the works of related industries after this period, which is a vicious cycle involving lucid reflection and blinded indulgence that points toward death. Sekai-kei anime follow the same step as genjitsu-touhi, as they provide an exaggerated and unrealistic commendation of otakus personal matter by tying it to affect the life and death of the entire world an externalization of narcissism. Some of these works, however, strive for a therapeutic purpose in addition by demonstrating the change, challenge, and growth of equally defective main characters that were previously used to provide narcissistic indulgence, though the efficacy of such therapy is hard to evaluate.

Review of: Maricas: Queer Cultures and State Violence in Argentina and Spain, 1942–1982, Javier Fernández Galeano (2024) Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 342 pp., ISBN 978-1-49623-497-1, h/bk, USD 99 ISBN 978-1-49623-955-6, p/bk, USD 30 ISBN 978-1-49623-983-9, e-book (PDF), USD 30 ISBN 978-1-49623-982-2, e-book (ePUB), USD 30

Queer students experience many adverse effects in the school environment, including bullying and lack of engagement. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) was proposed as a way to increase engagement among marginalized students. While Gay suggested that her framework be applied to working with queer students, few researchers have, and the researchers who have applied that framework have done so briefly or partially. This article lays out a conceptual framework for using CRP with queer students, providing background on the concept, including a justification for using the theory with queer students and a research-backed description of queer culture. This article then demonstrates application of each element of CRP to education for queer students, focusing on practical classroom application for various subject-areas.

Romanian theatre directors of the young generation (between 30- 40 years old) are proposing more and more, queer themes and topics in the public theatres where they create and work. We aim to analyse the motivations, working methods and values of three representatives of this generation in relation to their approach to this type of issue. For Eugen Jebeleanu (Fight and Metamorphosis (2024), La Ronde (2023), I Had an Orchard (2023)) queer representations represent a political and programmatic statement, while Leta Popescu (Bujor, 2023) makes them for reasons of empathy towards the lgbqia+ community in Romania. Finally, Catinca Drăgănescu's queer representations (Let them die stupid, 2023) appear when she takes on the theme of identity and identity quests as part of her wider artistic research. This diversity of perspectives we believe, enriches and establishes queer culture as part of Romanian culture, including enriching queer studies in the area of Theatre and performing arts.

Maricas: Queer Cultures and State Violence in Argentina and Spain, 1942–1982 by Javier Fernández-Galeano (review)

The contemporary landscape of Irish queer theatre and performance is diverse and alive. THISISPOPBABY stands as a landmark company known for its blending of queer culture with pop culture. Their productions, such as RIOT (2016) and Wake (2022), among others, have both won awards and played a fundamental role in showcasing queer narratives and disrupting the boundaries of traditional theatre and performance on the Irish stage. Fostering a diverse and inclusive cultural dialogue and contributing to the development and visibility of queer culture in Ireland, their approach to staging and presenting the history and struggles of the LGBTIQA+ community has created a new context for theatre. As the company continues to draw attention and acclaim, it directly poses questions about queer politics, identities and aesthetics in contemporary Ireland beyond the script of its plays. Their dance theatre piece, Party Scene: Chemsex, Community and Crisis (2022), created by choreographer Philip Connaughton, and writer and director Phillip McMahon, and centred around an examination of the practice of chemsex (sexual encounters under the influence of recreational drugs), is addressed in this essay through the lenses of intimacy and stigma, to question the intersections among mental health, consent, drugs, and sex within the context of queer experiences. I argue that intimacy is one of the most significant elements of the piece, which plays a fundamental role in the staging of the performance seeking to challenge audiences to rethink social norms and witness how contemporary crises within the community affect vulnerable individuals. Breaking the fourth wall and employing some elements proper to immersive theatre, Party Scene extends intimacy beyond the bodies on stage and emphasises the ability of physical performance to communicate what cannot be articulated with words.

ABSTRACT In this article, I conceptualize Chicago’s kink scene as a cultural palimpsest: an arena that facilitates creative expression repeatedly across time, retains imprints of its foregoing forms, and accumulates layers of history in the process. On the basis of ethnographic research, I then argue that Chicago kinksters harnessed the creative, retentive, and historically layered—or, in a word, palimpsestic—features of their scene to respond to the unsettled times of COVID-19 and mpox. Channeling subcultural creativity, kinksters crafted new forms of collectivity online when in-person nightlife halted in times of social distancing. Marshalling the scene’s retentive capacity, kinksters worked to prevent long-standing subcultural venues from permanent closure amid pandemic-era economic disruptions and to archive and commemorate those that did not survive. And drawing upon earlier histories, kinksters reactivated older strategies of response to HIV/AIDS as they confronted new diseases, including by transforming kink venues into health spaces. Overall, I demonstrate the utility of the cultural palimpsest concept by showing that kinksters mobilized the palimpsestic capacities of their scene to respond to unsettled times of contagion via synergistic strategies of innovation, preservation, and historically informed health action. My approach may prove useful to others who study cultural agency amid change.

This study examines the role of Canadian queer theater festivals as unique sites of adult education and social movement learning. Traditionally, social movement learning has focused on informal mentoring or formal instruction in protests, workshops, and lectures, aiming for mass societal transformation. However, newer approaches emphasize personal transformation, with social movements adopting adult education to impact social, political, and cultural life. Theater festivals, especially those centered on queer themes, offer inclusive, accessible, and engaging platforms for sharing experiences, dialogue, and collective social change efforts. These festivals facilitate active learning through workshops, performances, and discussions, allowing participants to engage with social issues creatively. Despite extensive research on Pride festivals, queer theater festivals have been largely overlooked in scholarly discourse. This qualitative study focuses on how attendees of Canadian queer theater festivals learn about queer identities, exploring three key areas: queer culture, identities, and intersections.

ABSTRACT This study examines the self-formation of Protestant allies within South Korea’s heteronormative Protestant regime of truth, where opposition to LGBTQ rights remains strong. While conservative Protestant groups actively resist LGBTQ advocacy, some Protestants support sexual minorities despite facing personal and institutional risks. Drawing on Foucault’s theory of subjectivation and Butler’s concept of ethical subjectivation, this study frames allyship as an ongoing performative process shaped by relational encounters and acts of solidaristic engagement. Based on in-depth interviews with 12 Protestant individuals, it identifies key triggers for desubjectivation, such as disillusionment with Protestant institutions, unaccountable suffering, and exposure to counter-discourses, and examines the practices through which they reconfigure their subjectivity. These include participating in the Queer Culture Festival, publicly coming out as allies, and reappropriating religious rituals as acts of resistance. By disrupting the conditions of recognition within the Protestant regime of truth and destabilizing their prior Protestant identity, Protestant allies reconfigure their subjectivity and redefine what it means to be Protestant while assuming ethical responsibility for LGBTQ individuals.

“Balsamic Garden II. Queer-ecological Workshops for Seniors from Mysłowice and Tychy” is an interdisciplinary project, whose goal was to invite seniors to partake in a conversation about queer culture. The project was based on the ecosystemic approach, as its creators paid special attention to the multilevel relationships, such as those established between the participants and the local ecosystems, or the environment of the engaged institutions and organizations. The present article describes the project goals, undertaken actions as well as developing partnerships, including the collaboration with Kolektyw Śląsk Przegięty (The Queer Silesia Collective). Discussed were the key actions such as botanic walks focused on the observation of the local biodiversity as well as the presentation of The Queer Silesia Collective’s archives and the outcome of the Queer Literary Club. The project - using nature as a space for searching for openness and diversity - highlights the potential of queer ecology as an effective tool in breaking down cultural and social barriers.