Queer, Toxic Soybeans and Estrogen Panic: Gendered Food Fearmongering

Abstract

This article critically analyzes cultural anxieties around the plant-based phytoestrogens in soy. Drawing from biomedical data on the physiological effects of soy ingestion, I show the ways in which gendered food fear is co-constituted by science and its diffusion within popular media, including through privileging of the perspectives of heterosexual cisgender white men, from conspiracy radio host Alex Jones to Men’s Health or Good Housekeeping magazines. Gendered tropes of determinism, sexual mutation, and panic, such as hyperfocus on semen, sperm counts, or genitalia as determinant of masculinity in rat models, draw from critical biomedical research of the legume, but also center heteronormative, transphobic, and white supremacist understandings of food as a hormonal reproductive toxin. Drawing from a feminist and queer ecologies approach, this article connects the social and life sciences by showcasing the ways popular media propels gendered ecological fear in a historical moment of increased concern over the politics and power of food, health, and toxic exposures.