* Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies: Queer Theory

This article discusses the intersection of race and gender in drag Ball culture. It provides background into sex, gender, and sexuality labels in ballroom culture, and also discusses important issues of passing, which is generally considered to be more difficult for drag queens than average MSM. Another important issue discussed in this article is the way that gender norms are sometimes enforced in drag.

This article is about the history of the title “Miss HIV” in drag pageantry. This gives an introduction to a more political side of drag within queer culture. Some examples of the topics included are stigma, prevention, and normalizing positive statuses. It also has comparative information from the handling of HIV in different countries.

This piece offers an in-depth analysis of the influence of the Black Church and its production of homophobia within the black community. In doing so, Elijah Ward unearths the homophobic constructions of masculinity and its impact on black men.

This article contains research exploring how bisexual women and men understand their faith and how they interact with it. This research aims to point out how these members of the LGBTQ community have been denied access to institutionalized Christianity and how they have re-imagined their faith in response. Toft offers an analysis of how bisexuality is understood by popular Christian denominations and how those impacted challenge such views.

Author Keeley Abbot, professor of Law and Social Sciences at Birmingham City University, examined how teachers incorporate sexual inclusivity into their sexual education curriculum for high school students using a psychological approach to analyze interview data. Current legislation advocates inclusivity in sexual education. However, it is ambiguous how educators include conversations about diverse sexual practices into their sexual education syllabi. Their research shows that teachers’ curriculums can promote a heteronormative climate. Consequently, they reinforce exclusion of LGBT+ practices, which may leave high school students with an insufficient sexual and relationship education.

This essay explores the concept of who is the expert within the doctor patient relationship, specifically in terms of patients with intellectual disability. It examines definitions of moral authority and epistemic responsibility. Epistemic responsibility is being referred to as the ability to make knowledge claims in regards to the intellectually disabled. For example, Carlson examines who has the right to choose quality of life for the person with disability. Furthermore, he examines the lack of independence for people with disability and notions that people with disability are seen as unhealthy. As health care develops, more clinicians are improving their care for people with disabilities.

This essay was written by Lorde at the advent of both the publication of the English translation of Farbe Bekennen and the establishment of a newly re-unified Germany. Lorde reflects on what it means to be a part of an international community of women of color, especially in the context of an increased American influence after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Wacker writes about intersectionality as a black, queer, German woman living in a majorly white country. While she notes the importance of establishing a language for speaking about identity because when we don’t have a word for something, we assume that it doesn’t exist, she emphasizes the necessity of intersectionality in forming networks of interconnected experiences. (Published in German, use Google Translate to see it in English).

James France’s film documents one of the most important moments in the history of LGBT activism: Act Up! and TAG(Treatment Action Group)’s fight against HIV / AIDS in the late 1980’s in to 90’s. In response to institutional apathy and ignorance, activism for HIV / AIDS treatment became the only solution to save LGBT lives in America in a time when being gay was demonized and the disease was thought to be a direct result of homosexuality. Through this amazing activism and relentlessness new treatment strategies were created and were able to save a great number of LGBT lives and decreased the amount of AIDS related deaths in New York by 50 percent.

This film documents a 1966 police riot that started in Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco. It was the first documented example of organized queer resistance to police harassment in the United States, and this crucial benchmark in queer history was led by an organization of drag queens and sex workers. This film also discusses demographic information over time in a gay neighborhood.

The late Stella Young, writer, comedian and advocate for persons with disabilities, speaks to audience in Australia about her experiences as a physically impaired woman. Young spent most of her life in a wheelchair due to a brittle bone disease; therefore, she provides an insiders perspective on individuals with visible disabilities experiences in society. She uses her public platform to help raise awareness of ways people with disability are objectified for the benefit of non-disabled people. Her speech highlights problems with “inspiration porn” for non-disabled audiences, as well as reconfiguring disability as a societal norm.