{"title":"<i>Fuego</i>: unleashing collective Queer Chicanx/Latinx rebellion, counterpublics and imagination.","authors":"Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Nadia Zepeda","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2213472","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2213472","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This essay is a reflection and assessment of the ConFem and faculty collective's queer Chicanx/Latinx intergenerational solidarity activism. In conversation with abolition feminisms, transformative justice practices, and queer performance studies, we illustrate the shifts the collective effected toward queerer Chicanx/Latinx feminist futurities. Our collective solidarity praxis was an intervention that actively undermined the anti-solidarity machinations of the state's social hierarchical ordering at the site of the university. This essay addresses the collective's strategic move to shift away from supplicating or engaging with the state for appeasement or resolution of violence, and instead to turn to harnessing the power of queer Chicanx/Latinx visionary artists to unleash queer feminist Chicanx/Latinx counterpublics and imagination.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9617715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anti-gender ideology and the depiction of lesbians in the manosphere.","authors":"Michael Vallerga","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2352996","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2352996","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recent far-right and religious fundamentalist coalitions in Europe and the U.S. seek populist support through \"anti-gender\" rhetoric. These coalitions are in alignment with the manosphere in endorsement of biological essentialism and antifeminist, anti-LGBTQ stances. Based upon an examination of the data gathered for projects examining two manosphere communities (Red Pill and Incel), a clear picture emerges wherein they casually disparage lesbians and conflate lesbians with feminists, unearthing 1970s and 1980s political lesbian writings and discussing them out of context. Ironically, the dissatisfaction with gender relations that drove lesbian separatists at the time drives the manosphere, especially Incel, to be even more misogynistic and violent in service of their feelings of entitlement to women's bodies. This can be understood as part of a backlash against feminist and LGBTQ rights that is empowering fascists using anti-gender rhetoric in their rise to power.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140920901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"That's what we think of as activism\": Solidarity through care in queer Desi diaspora.","authors":"Maya Bhardwaj","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2228652","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2228652","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines a framing of solidarity as both activism and community care work in diasporic South Asian (sometimes referred to as \"Desi\") communities in the US and the UK. From the vantage point of the researcher as a pansexual Indian-American activist herself, this article draws conclusions based on ethnographic research and interviews conducted with lesbian, gay, queer, and trans activists during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black-led uprisings against police and state violence in the US and the UK. These conversations and this article particularly examine the participation of Desi activists and their peers in these movements, and their explorations of different modes of solidarity, from joint struggle to allyship to coconspiratorship and community transformation. They ultimately argue that queerness in Desi diaspora fosters solidarity through care that nurtures relationships across and between the diverse groups that make up LGBTQ + communities and the Desi diaspora, as well as between Desi, Black, and other racialized and diasporic communities. By examining lesbian, gay, trans, and broadly queer South Asian activists' relationships to each other and to other racialized groups in struggle, this article conceptualizes a framing of solidarity and Black and Brown liberation together that transcends difference, transphobia and TERFism, and anti-Blackness through centering kinship and care. Through the intimacies borne out of months and years on the frontlines of struggle together, this article argues that deepening an understanding of activism, kinship, and care together in Desi diasporic organizing is key to building a solidarity that imagines and moves toward new and liberated worlds.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9758711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>Refugee Chronicles</i>: excerpt from the diary with an introduction.","authors":"Evgeny Shtorn, Alexander Sasha Kondakov","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2230108","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2230108","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The following text is an excerpt from <i>The Refugee Chronicles</i>, a fictional diary written by Evgeny Shtorn, poet and activist, from his experience of seeking asylum. Shtorn had to flee Russia due to the government's hostile policies toward both queer sexualities and political dissent right after he was interviewed by the Russian secret police FSB in 2018. The run for life and liberty brought him to the utmost end of Western Europe, Ireland. Shtorn's experience of claiming asylum made him question clear cut boundaries between the West and the East along the lines of guarantees and protections of human rights. He also noted how queer sexuality plays a specific role in the asylum application process as a protected and even desired ground for granting refugee status. His experience of a lengthy stay in the dormitory for asylum seekers converted into a book-length, semi-fictional chronicle was published by an independent press, Poryadok Slov, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The book is full of queries, ambiguities, and doubts that surround the issues of queerness, migration, and the politics of human rights. The following chapter is introduced with a short pre-word by a scholar of sexuality studies Alexander Kondakov who offers a brief contextualization and conceptualization of <i>The Refugee Chronicles</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9920031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Melissa M Ertl, Meredith R Maroney, Andréa Becker, Margaret M Paschen-Wolff, Amelia Blankenau, Susie Hoffman, Susan Tross
{"title":"Sexual and Reproductive Justice and Health Equity for LGBTQ+ Women.","authors":"Melissa M Ertl, Meredith R Maroney, Andréa Becker, Margaret M Paschen-Wolff, Amelia Blankenau, Susie Hoffman, Susan Tross","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2369434","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2369434","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>LGBTQ+ women have long been overlooked in sexual and reproductive health research. However, recent research has established that LGBTQ+ women have unique and specific needs that need to be addressed in order to improve effectiveness of sexual health education and practice with this historically and presently underserved population. Informed by a reproductive justice framework coupled with liberation psychology theory, this review discusses the current state of sexual and reproductive health and technologies among LGBTQ+ women. In particular, we focus on a range of HIV prevention and reproductive technologies and their use and promotion, including the internal condom, abortion, oral contraceptives, dapivirine ring, HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, intrauterine device, and other less studied options, such as the contraceptive sponge. Grounded in an intersectional framing, this review acknowledges the intersecting systems of oppression that affect multiply marginalized women inequitably and disproportionately. A sociohistorical, critical lens is applied to acknowledge the well-documented racist origins of reproductive health technologies and ongoing coercive practices that have led to medical mistrust among marginalized and stigmatized communities, particularly racialized LGBTQ+ women, women with disabilities, and women who are poor or incarcerated. Moreover, we discuss the urgent need to center LGBTQ+ women in research and clinical care, community-engaged health promotion efforts, affirming non-heteronormative sexual health education, and health policies that prioritize autonomy and dismantle structural barriers for this population. We conclude with recommendations and future directions in this area to remedy entrenched disparities in health.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141471494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sofia Klittmark, Jaqueline K P Niit, Emilia Nerström, Hanna Grundström, Katri Nieminen, Michael B Wells, Anna Malmquist
{"title":"LBTQ parents' needs for support postpartum following a complicated birth: A matter of reproductive justice.","authors":"Sofia Klittmark, Jaqueline K P Niit, Emilia Nerström, Hanna Grundström, Katri Nieminen, Michael B Wells, Anna Malmquist","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2367869","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2367869","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>LBTQ people have increased risks of complications during birth, risks potentially driven by minority stress and increased levels of mental illness and fear of childbirth. With the aim of exploring reproductive injustices in postpartum care for LBTQ people, we analyzed qualitative interviews where 22 LBTQ birth and non-birth parents shared their experiences of support needs during the postpartum period after births where complications had arisen. Results point to the importance of providing an LBTQ safe space, which includes the need to feel safe regarding one's gender or sexual identity, by avoiding cisheteronormative assumptions and using inclusive language. In the context of recently experiencing birth complications, parents needed a space where they were able to focus on physical and mental healing. The results further show the need for validation of the non-birth parent and inclusive breast/chest-feeding support. Results emphasize the need for more psychosocial support around the birth experience, including better medical support and information during the whole process of childbirth.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141761602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A decolonized mental health framework for black women and birthing people.","authors":"Sydney Y Morris, Alinne Z Barrera","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2356994","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2356994","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Black perinatal mental health is an area that has received less focus in psychotherapy research in the United States. This area is especially important as recent attacks on Reproductive Justice impact not only birthing people's rights and freedoms but also their mental health and emotional well-being. Current psychotherapy interventions are rooted in evidence-based treatments (EBTs) that may not always align with the values and practices of frameworks like radical healing and liberation psychology that are meant to emphasize collective healing and empower individuals. To date, psychological research involving radical healing and liberation psychology approaches have not had a specific focus on birthing people. Psychotherapeutic interventions have also largely excluded the unique intersectional identities and healing of Black birthing people. In moving toward decolonizing psychotherapy, this conceptual paper will propose a multi-pronged framework for addressing racial stressors and other mental health concerns during the perinatal period. The proposed framework, The Three Cs of Decolonization, includes three components: Community, Creativity, and Connection to Self. These components of the framework are meant to address and highlight culturally relevant ways of healing for Black birthing people. Larger systemic changes are needed and necessary for the desired change across mental health, medical, and other integrated systems of care that have been impacted by racism and discrimination. The current framework is dedicated to healing and empowering Black birthing people with approaches and considerations that are consistent with Reproductive Justice.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141082319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nowhere to bi: Barriers to belonging in the broader LGBTQ+ community for Aboriginal bi+ people in Australia.","authors":"Mandy Henningham","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2233339","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2233339","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Having a multiplicity of identities not only makes it difficult to find inclusive spaces for Aboriginal bisexual+ (bi) people but may often be a barrier to building connections and relationships with people who have other queer identities. Bi + identities alone are often rendered invisible, unintelligible or erased when it comes to inclusion and solidarity among their peers. An intersectional lens is used to reflexively investigate existing literature to explore how a lack of solidarity among lateral communities may impact Aboriginal bi + people in Australia who face an array of racism and queerphobia from both LGBTQ + and Aboriginal communities. These unique and multifaceted layers of discrimination greatly impact mental health and wellbeing. These experiences stem from the heterosexist and monosexist status quo from heteropatriarchal settler colonialism that is seen in both Aboriginal and LGBTQ + communities respectively. As a result, Aboriginal queer people are constantly surveying risks, policing their own identities and identity expression, often hiding parts of their identity as a survival strategy to avoid rejection and adhere to dominant cultural norms. When specifically considering Aboriginal bi + identities, there are added unique stressors of lateral violence with other LGBTQ + groups, antibisexual prejudice, and assumed monosexuality, adding additional layers of minority stress. The author explores these experiences by extending upon borderland theory and minority stress models. Whilst there is solace in the holistic celebration of intersecting identities in emerging intersectional Aboriginal queer spaces, there is still a great need for solidarity and celebration of Aboriginal bi + people within the broader LGBTQ + community.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10128558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sisters, it's been a while! The emotional pull of the lesbian 'gender critical' movement and a failure of solidarity.","authors":"Claire Thurlow","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2229144","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2229144","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>For five years the UK lesbian community has witnessed growing animosity over the acceptance or otherwise of trans people. This division has been increasingly recognised and commented upon outside of the lesbian community as part of the mainstreaming of so-called 'gender critical' (trans-exclusionary) views. Focussing on the lesbian gender critical position, this article tackles its persistence despite the oft-presented counter that empirical research shows its concerns to be unfounded. This article aims to ask questions of this persistence, and to this end ponders the primacy of emotion in the development and sustaining of the lesbian gender critical movement. By tying its rise not only to concerns about trans rights, but instead to an opportunity to recreate lost lesbian community, purpose and solidarity, it is hoped new avenues of understanding can be explored. A centring of the emotional needs met through gender critical activism might explain why it persists even as it has become a movement that vociferously defends the strict gender categories that lesbianism itself rallies against. This centring also poses uncomfortable questions about when anti-establishment itself becomes (some form of) establishment and how that relative power is wielded. While many lesbians view the current dire situation as demanding solidarity with trans people, and make excellent arguments to promote this, this article suggests that the emotional pull of 'gender critical' will not be easily overcome and greater attention should be paid to it.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9737636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"TERFs aren't feminists: lesbians stand against trans exclusion.","authors":"Baker A Rogers","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2252286","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10894160.2023.2252286","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this article, I examine lesbians' solidarity with trans people in the United States. Trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) are feminists who believe that there is a stark difference between the biological reality of sex and the socially constructed nature of gender. They argue that sex is essential and innate. This leads some feminists to the argument that trans people are trying to infiltrate sex exclusive spaces. While TERFs are not always lesbians, lesbians are assumed to make up a large proportion of TERFs. As Thomsen and Essig argue that current ideologies within the media are allowing for the slippage between the terms \"lesbian,\" \"feminist,\" and \"TERFs.\" Some scholars are suggesting that equating lesbian identities with transphobia and trans exclusion is but a new form of lesbian marginalization. I utilize 49 in-depth, qualitative interviews with lesbians across the United States to interrogate the stereotype that lesbians are largely TERFs. Through the voices of lesbians across the United States, I illustrate how many lesbians despise TERF ideology and argue that lesbians must stand in solidarity with trans people in the fight for social justice.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10553338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}