Hello all!

I am currently in my last year of my undergraduate, and I am specifically studying how queer people find belonging and companionship through both digital and physical spaces. I figured reddit is the perfect place to start because this group specifically is such a strong community. If you could please fill out this 7-question ANONYMOUS form, I would be so so grateful.

The link is provided here: https://forms.gle/BaUN6XqXNCimrsTt8

No email collected, no name collected, just your responses on how you find belonging. Thank you so much for helping a student excel in their studies!

Hi everyone, forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this but I am currently writing an essay on drag and need to define it (obviously) for the purposes of the essay. Does anyone know of any good definitions of drag from any prominent queer theorists? I can't seem to find any, as all texts I've found seem to operatee on the basis that we already know what drag is....I dont want to have to use the OED definition!!!! Thank you in advance :)

I don't know if this is the right spot for this but I'm not sure which subreddits would be, so here goes.

I'm looking for book suggestions that I can give to my religious parents for Christmas that provide a good explanation of the non cishet experience, that will give them a more accurate framework for understanding who I am and the pain they have caused me. Ideally they would be written with a very brainwashed audience in mind.

A little bit of context: My family is very religious, and when I came out as bi and trans they sent me to conversion therapy. I went back into the closet for a while. The second I was able to get out and live on my own and as myself, I did.

I've been living on my own for two years now, almost entirely no contact. They know I'm bi, but they think I've "decided not to be" trans. (This is by design, I had to convince them of that to be able to get out. I'm out to everyone in my life except them.) I've chosen to meet up with them at Christmas. This is mostly because it will soon become impossible to pretend I'm still cis, and I need to see my little brothers before that happens and make sure they're alright. I don't think I'll be allowed to see them once I'm openly trans. I'm not expecting to find a perfect book that will magically make my parents accept me when I come out. I just want to make sure that amidst the confusion they'll likely experience when I come out, they have other voices than the church they can turn to for answers and explanations.

If this isn't the right spot for this I'd love suggestions of other places that might have good answers to this question.

This may sound stupid but...why is drag a primarily queer practice.?And, more importantly, is there anny literature that discusses this? I am writing an essay about identity/drag etc. and have been reading lots about how drag is queer and the importance of drag to queer identities. But how about the reverse?? Why is it majority queer people who partake in drag?? And which academics are talking about it?! Thank you in advance :)

I keep coming across the term identity politics recently and while I feel like I have a fair grasp of the concept, I feel that often I'm encountering it being used to argue that queer identities reflect a small group of people and queer views and issues are being over represented and basically pandered to. Particularly around the use of inclusive language.

I understand it more to mean that Queer struggles align with broader universal struggles for freedom of self expression, access to universal health care, right to self determine and what not, and when identity labels dominate conversations it allows for people who don't identify as queer to easily opt out of those discussions, and isolates and fragments people. It also seems to interact with race and class in setting standards of what it looks like to belong to this identity.

Where I struggle with it is on a practical point of view I do need people to know my pronouns in the same way I need them to know my name. It's a function of english language. I'm not pushing some identity politics agenda, I'm just going to rhyme time with my kid or whatever, exisiting. Its been coming up a lot more since Trump was re-elected, which is annoying because I'm not American but we import a lot of the US political conversations.

I would love some resources to learn more about what identity politics actually means, especially discussion grounded in day to day life although I don't mind theory, I'm just new to it and time poor.

Hi everyone,

I study comparative literature and political theory in Paris and I am doing some preliminary research for my master's thesis. It's still too early for me to decide what to do exactly but I'm quite interested in the queer critique of identity politics and exploring it through the concept of jouissance (jouissance is a psychoanalytical term usually translated as enjoyment). The idea would be a type of enjoyment, sexual but not only, who would disturb identities and blur the boundaries of the subject.

I know it's quite vague that's why I need to read more. I heard someone mention the notion of psychic excess in sexuality in the work of Butler but I haven't been able to actually find it in their books.

Anyways, if any of you has some recs for digging deeper in that direction, I would be very thankful :)

Take care !

My friends and I always talk about the joy and freedom that comes from being gay/queer/nonbinary. Specifically, how being so allows us to be free of societal expectations and harmful gender roles.

So I was wondering if anyone knows of any research or books that touch on this. I would love to see what we feel and talk about put more eloquently/professionally.

This study seeks to understand some of the things that may link cisheterosexist experiences and mental health in LGBTQ+ young people. It invites you to complete 3 short surveys - one when you are ready, another two weeks later, and another two weeks after that.

We would really value your participation :)

Participants must be:

1. LGBTQ+ (inc. questioning/unsure)
2. 16-25 years old
3. based in the UK

Study provided ethical approval by King's College London Ethics Committee (Ref: HR/DP-24/25-45481)

Link to the information sheet and first survey is here, which includes contact information if you have any questions: https://kclbs.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_blz1Qd1t6H7MBds

Hello – I am studying the effects of shame for cisgender closeted LGBQ people. In the following survey, you will answer about 20 questions. You should not experience any more than everyday discomfort should you choose to take this survey.  You can skip questions or withdraw from the survey at any time. Anonymity for participants will be maintained; data will not be linked to names.

There may be some questions some may find explicit in nature. Please skip any and all questions that you feel you cannot answer.

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. If you are interested, please click the link below:

By clicking the link and taking the survey, I am acknowledging that I am 18 years of age or older, AND live in the United States AND identify as the gender that was assigned to me birth AND identify as a *closeted Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Queer person

*You can be closeted to everyone, a select few, or even only out to people online

https://qualtricsxmzkwpyrq86.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_da0yvwxohAnAi0u

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at: 

Josh

researchshame@gmail.com

Or my faculty advisor at:

rplante@ithaca.edu

I've read a bunch of books and have stuff I'd like to discuss in real time, anybody know any discord servers for this subject?

Hi Folks,

I’m putting together a syllabus where I pair some classic works of theory (mostly but not only queer theory) with works of literature or media. I want to teach Eve Sedgewicks classic essay on Paranoid Reading, but I am struggling to think of what to pair it with. I thought I would try to crowdsource some ideas.

Also, if folks have ideas for Sontag's Notes on Camps or David Halperin's How to Do a History of Homosexuality, I would also love to hear

My gf and I were talking about wacky acronyms and she mentioned nambla. When she told me what it stood for I was shocked and did a Google search with reddit at the end.

It brought me to this subreddit....

The op of the thread and the people responding were acting as if pedophilia was part of lgbtq?

Then they were arguing that pedophiles deserve an outlet to get off. They were saying that it wasn't good that countries were banning sex toys that resembled children. They felt as if pedophiles should have the right to fantasize about fucking children.

I just want to let the pedophiles in this subreddit know that it doesn't matter how hard you try to identify with lgbtq. You're not a part of it. You're part of an insidious and hated group known as pedophiles.

As soon as you began fantasizing about children you lost your right to identify as lgbtq.

Hi, everyone! My name is Rob or Nero, I'm a sexologist living in Madrid, Spain and I'm starting a short survey to investigate a subject I feel very strongly about. This questionnaire aims to collect information about the experiences and identity of cis transfeminine men, defined as men who, although they identify with the male gender, do not want a penis or wish to have a vulva. It covers topics such as early influences, self-perception, medical and psychological support, and social impact, with the goal of better understanding and advocating for the needs of this unique group.

If anyone would be interested in participating, please, check out the link below.

Thanks a lot in advance!

https://forms.gle/8F3ufyEk2o9o8Bqj7

I've been looking for a good place to start reading and learning about queer theory in general. I'm a white GNC lesbian, and I've pretty much just read Stone Butch Blues (which was phenomenal). Reading some of the posts on this sub makes my brain hurt and I don't understand a lot of the discussions.

Books I own:

Feminism Meets Queer Theory (collection of essays)

The Straight Mind by Monique Wittig

Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Are these are good places to start? What will be easier for me to delve into? Or should I start somewhere else?

These books are also white authors, what are good POC to read?

I have an assignment for class where I have to choose one or two songs to base my case study on. I normally focus on womens rights or feminism in these types of assignments, but this time I want to focus on a more queer or gendered, or even just a more intersectional point of view. The thing I want help with is discovering artists, music or music videos in which I can explore this. It is a new way of doing academia for me, so I thought I would hop on here and just ask.

Hello, I'm starting a project of writing a children's picture book (high prob. middle grade) about transgender self discovery and the inner processes of that and I'm trying to avoid many cliches, for one the pink/blue dichotomy or "Tommy was bullied for being effeminate but wore a dress and everyone loved it and accepted them" because I think those are a disservice to trans narratives in the present however, I'm scared of tackling that self-identification from a very easy-to-digest neo-lib stand point (very Born This Way-esque) and I want to push it further but I feel like I need to have more solid arguments to construct my narration and I just want to ask for ideas, suggestions and references. Love ya, thanks!!

This is going take a minute to formulate, so bear with me. Late 20th century queer politics [edit: in the US] had two reasons for coming into being. A) the death of labor-socialism by the 1970's meant a search for new revolutionary subjects, and B) the later HIV/AIDS crisis. These new revolutionary subjects were to be understood as the oppressed waiting in the wings for a revolutionary coalitional politics. The first one degraded into Democratic Party representation and limited, contingent legislative reform in the US, the second became an ongoing global tragedy which only in the last decade met some success thru PrEP. This, alongside with the limited legislative success of same-sex marriage counts as a kind of partial fulfillment of the queer liberation movement's historic demands. Its success was limited, because same-sex marriage legislation has weakened in recent years. And since access to PrEP is mediated by an over-complex neoliberal health care industry composed of state-private partnerships meant to emphasize competition, it means that you are subject to healthcare that can evaporate in an instant if conditions change even slightly. Not everyone gets to have PrEP. The system fails rural people, Black and Latino people, people with or without health insurance, unhoused people and so on.

However, that partial success meant that queer liberation has had trouble reconstituting itself as a movement, not least because there is no global left movement for socialism to undergird its demands in the wake of recent reactionary reforms. In the place of such a left it led to Democratic Party representation thru their protection racket, where vulnerable groups are offered protection and rights but this protection/rights is contingent and weaponized for votes. Like you could interpret Dem politics as using queer and trans people as props to bait conservatives into targeting hate crimes at queer people, so that queer people vote more for Dems even though the party fails to offer consistent protection and rights. As well as crafting weak legislations which can come undone rather easily, further substantiating this unfortunate dependence on the protection racket.

So now queer liberation has tried to reinstatiate itself thru disability rights, which makes sense because the HIV/AIDS health care crisis was one of its primary raison d'etres. But since disability rights is subject to the same Democratic Party weaponized contingencies, it means that queer and disability politics goes into niches further removed from concrete politics. It's followed much of the same tack as other political concerns, in the way that in place of specific demands it just poses questions of "Who am I?

So all that to say I'm looking for queer historians who are trying to understand queer politics' success and failures as they relate to broader material/social conditions in the late 20th century​/early 21st century. Edit: while this post is largely addressing US conditions, I'd be interested in hearing how late 20th century queer history has played out globally.

EDIT: I overstated that part about questions of "who am I." Political questions are organically a part of material/social conditions in the modern era, arising out of real concrete problems. I think I'm struggling to say something like, because of the way the 20th century played out, mass politics is blocked from dealing with concrete problems directly. So that becomes reflected both in academia as well as state representational politics. It's not specific to queer or disabled political factions, it's much more general than that.

I am very new to queer theory although i have identified as a lesbian for a few years and overall consider myself educated on LGBTQ+ topics. I used to think queer was just a term to describe your gender/sexuality, but am now realizing it may be much deeper than that. I am greatly interested in learning more and if anyone can explain it to me i would really appreciate it. Thanks so much! :)

EDIT: I am not asking for myself, as I am not cishet, just asking as a general hypothetical to learn more!

i'm looking for anything about the over policing of butch women/dykes and about butch rage !! anything related is super helpful !!!

From here:

Human beings are biologically hardwired to be repulsed by other people, or something pretending to be a person, if they seem “off” for whatever reason.

Contrary to popular belief, beauty standards are not completely subjective. While there are unrealistic beauty standards pushed by the mass media, the left goes in the opposite direction by trying to (fruitlessly) eliminate beauty standards altogether.

The reason being? The idea that you cannot judge a book by its cover is both cliche, and somewhat inaccurate. The cover can reveal some important information about the contents. And that simple fact of life INFURIATES them.

The only thing you need to do to look reasonably good is to take care of yourself and not go out of your way to look provocative. All you need to do is to look physically healthy, wear clothing that is in good repair and isn’t tacky, and behave like a well-adjusted individual. Sounds easy enough for most people. It’s not difficult to practice basic hygiene and tidy your hair up. It’s not difficult to dress up in something non-objectionable that normies dress up in (and if you absolutely MUST find an occasion when dressing up in something flamboyant is appropriate, by all means, do so, there’s a time and a place for everything). It’s not difficult to go outside and go for a walk to burn some calories off, or not consume more calories than what is needed. A failure to do any of these things indicates laziness, a lack of self-restraint, narcissism/self-centeredness, or worst case scenario, mental illness. And thus we judge them to be “ugly.”

And yes, while you’d think it would be easy for most people, it’s apparently difficult for the average leftist, since they act like these standards are somehow “oppressive.” It’s so difficult for most leftists, that they actually felt the need to give (poorly thought out) instructions on how to dress while attending Matt Walsh’s speaking event in order to blend in.

Yes, apparently having shitty fashion sense is intrinsic to being queer, and anything that would require you to not dress like a shithead is oppressive.

Even though, you know, that kind of crap is self-evident to normal people. How to blend in and not look like a fucking lunatic. So how does this relate to crossdressing?

Crossdressing in of itself doesn’t even make all that much sense, when you realize that such clothing is literally tailor-made to fit the different body shapes of men and women, which FURTHER drills in the point of how wrong it is.

There might be some men who take interest in things that would be seen as “girly,” or tomboys, or women who take interest in things seen as “masculine.” But that by itself isn’t enough to visually erase any distinction between male or female. Even they still wear clothing intended for their sex.

A male, with clearly masculine features, wearing clothing not intended for him. Or vice versa. The amount of dissonance involved is enough to set off alarm bells in your head.

We are already biologically predisposed to be repulsed by any attempt made to blur (or outright eliminate) the differences between male and female, to the point where even putting on clothing intended for the opposite sex will trigger that fear/disgust response. And contrary to what leftists will tell you, there’s a damned good reason for that.

Nothing good can come from willfully ignoring the differences between men and women.

For instance, dating, romance, sexuality. Most people, like it or not, will much rather date someone who looks reasonably healthy for their sex.

Androgyny, at best, indicates poor physical health and/or infertility. At worst, it indicates an attempt at deception.

This is especially true within the “trap” subculture, where the goal is to pass as a female as much as possible, usually without the use of surgery or HRT. This is especially in regard to trying to “trap” straight men or lesbian women. Even if the people who practice such a lifestyle don’t actually go that far, the implication is every bit as horrifying as you think it is. It’s horrifying because the LGBTQ community doesn’t see anything wrong with rape by deception. They already believe that being a sex pest is intrinsic to being LGBTQ, and so they will call you a “homophobe” or “transphobe” if you call them out on such behavior.

Edit:

Such people also forfeit the right to complain about the “trans panic defense,” because rapists don’t have the right to complain when their would-be-victim fights back. And plus they could have EASILY avoided their well-deserved beating simply by telling the truth right off the bat, BEFORE anything went too far, because if they had done so, the absolute worst their partner would have done would be to say, “No thanks,” and walk away. Seriously, statistically speaking, troons are less likely to be murdered than either biological men or women, so they shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

And in the vast majority of cases crossdressers aren’t even trying to make people laugh, they’re trying to provoke ANY reaction out of people. Like the two gay teenagers who were intentionally being loud and vulgar in public so that they could provoke a negative response out of someone and get a dopamine rush out of ruining their life on social media.

Looking at the "controversy" of games having LGBTQ content I keep coming across things like this:

Looking at how people fought back against EA's microtransactions in Battlefront II, you could hit them right in the brand. Parents, normies, and other people just wanting a good time free of politics thought they could trust Nintendo to deliver just that. But like Disney now, they are letting the tail wag the dog and have damaged their brand. Nintendo let these localizers pull a Bud Light. Let's hope Nintendo sees they shouldn't take sides in the culture war and certainly not attack their core audience.

We've had wins in Helldivers 2 and Steller Blade , I say let's add one more.

We want fun, localizers want The Message™️.

Now ignoring how nobody cared in the end, and how telling it is that he sees it as a "message" like it's a dog whistle..

They always do that and justify it as "heterosexuality is the norm" like it isn't "political".

This is clearly q fallacy but I can't remember what it is.

Do any of you know?

From here

You seem to be missing the point of why people are acting like this. You immideatly jump to the conclusion that people like the person who followed Jessica Rush as a psychopath, but never take the their reasoning for acting like this. Normal people act like this because of disonance caused this trans fad. You can no longer evaluate a person by their appearance and in that way you are creating public dissonance among people who don't interact with trans people on a daily basis. When you rob a person out of one of his senses you create a place for uncertainty and that leads in an uneasy in any non-connected to the culture person. Imagine having a skin head with swastica tatoos and visable bullet wounds on his marks walk next. You would imideatly react to what you are visually presented by backing of or not making eye contact, no matter if the person with tattoos is recovering gang member or thug out to express him self violently. Now imagine that you as a person see something off, like a man in a dress entering the changing room of girls swim team. You cannot stop him since you can no longer place that person as female , male , Adult or child by your standard. You cannot say to this man that this a woman changing room, because he can claim to be a Child and Women only because he does not feel in the body of an adult man.

These women you given have given as a example don't suffer from discrimination, but suffer from a fad which told them they are free to be what ever they are without judgement of people which is childish at best. You can act as a man, you can act as what you feel, but that does not allow you to twist the perception of the people around you. Actually it makes you look more untrustworthy because you have made such a large effor to lie to them about what you are, because you want to present your self as what you Feel you are not taking in point that might be unattainable or even offensive(example: If you tattoo a swastica on your face).

You as a person cannot change how the world perceives you.

IF you are not attractive nobody should be forced to be attracted to you.

If you have decide to dress your self as a hobo, it will be idiotic to expect people to like after you lied to them about your self with the way you made an effort to twist your presentation to them.

We are human. The first communication with another person we do is the senses of sight and smell and even touch. So if you make the huge effort to cause mental dissonance into a person through you appearance and behavior it will be arrogant to expect normal reaction to people who have not been exposed to this mental dissonance( a man wearing a bikini without the effort to look at least a bit femenen, a woman who has forgone all hyginic treatments so to look more manly., ect ,ect) with normality.

When you are alone you are free to do what ever you wish, but in a community you have to build bonds with people and adjust to the community culture. If you come out as a outlier and forcefully demand people to accept you, even thought you reject the community culture you will create a noticible ressentment towards your self because you decided that you above them, you are more them and have no common culture with them.

In University you have the Woke culture defending you from society, but that is like a cult member being accepted in the cult, but when he present his cult person to expect the same acceptence in society akin to the one he recieved in the cult.

With your wishes to reject feminity you are rejecting a part of your self. To be feminine is not like a piece cloth you can drop. To be masculine is not cut a piece of you thinking now you are man. You can lie to society, that is an a individual choice, but when that behavior becomes absurd to the visial reality you can only beg or demand that society endulge in your fad or mental disorder . And then You are just endulging the fad or even worse a lesser mentle dissorder creating an idealogical cult. As a person living in a ex-communist country and had been living with a person who had a mental disorder(My mother had schizophrenia) I warn you againts elduging any of the two leads to dark places where the west find it self where people cannot trust each other because they forced into a life where they are forced to subject them self to the idealogy forced by the loud minority.