Identity Management and the Fostering of Network Ignorance: Accounts of Queer Iranian Women in the United States

This qualitative study explores the narratives of 12, first-generation, queer, Iranian-American women in an attempt to better understand the experiences of being both Iranian and queer, and to explore the various ways participants manage their sexual identities within their ethnic communities. Online interviews were analyzed using grounded theory analysis, which revealed that shame anxiety motivates the fostering of network ignorance. Feelings of fear and guilt, which together cultivate shame anxiety, motivate the identity management strategies of queer Iranian women as they attempt to foster ignorance of their sexual orientation within the Iranian community. Strategies include (co)-covering, deceiving and passing, and avoiding.     

Reframing Schooling to Liberate Gender Identity

Gender and gender identity are policed by the social environment in myriad ways. For those who challenge normative binaries, they can be positioned to experience different forms of violence. Though mindsets, social movements, and changes in policies have spurred material, social, and economic gains for those who challenge expectations of gender identity binaries, schools continue to inherit dichotomous messages about gender identity. On one hand, schools are expanding anti-bullying policies by enumerating gender identities, shifting names of Gay-Straight to Queer and Sexuality Alliances to attend to intersectional identities, addressing gender identity concerns in professional development trainings, but the field of teacher education has yet to systemically and longitudinally address gender identity for students from pre-K to university levels. As a result, educators are left ill-prepared about how to affirm and recognize gender identity in coursework, curriculum, and pedagogy. As we come to understand how and in what ways schools foreclose possibilities for students to experience gender identity self-determination, shifts in awareness can open up possibilities for schools to honor and liberate gender identities.     

Make my life easier

Included in this section are a number of self‐narratives uttered by a new generation of Taiwanese transgenders who have been forming/negotiating their transgender identity and trajectories of trans life amidst the rigidity of the gender binary as well as the complexities of emerging gender/sexuality movements and identity politics in Taiwan. These self‐narratives, spoken not as conciliatory attempts to win medical approval but as honest efforts to communicate with kindred spirits on friendly occasions, provide us with a rare opportunity to glimpse not only the inner struggles of varied transgender lives, but also the unspoken fluidity and multiplicities of identity and desire that gender/sexuality theories as well as movements have yet to grasp.     

Queer cultural movements and local counterpublics of sexuality: a case of Seoul Queer Films and Videos Festival 1

Abstract

This study is an attempt to examine the ways in which popular culture can restructure the relationship between sexuality and power, through the case of Seoul Queer Films and Videos Festival, a cultural arena of newly emerged queer discourses in Korean society. In the past 10 years, queer discourses in Korea have undergone a rapid change. With heterosexual normativity being challenged and ‘queer’ being consumed as a cultural code, Korean spectators come to engage with a queer film festival in multilateral and sometimes contradictory contexts. This study will try to pose a controversial question to the heterosexual society by reading the complex interactions between film festivals, films and spectators while paying attention to the experiences of the participants in the Seoul Queer Films and Videos Festival and pointing at the political implications of queer films now in 2006. Through this, I try to look for possibilities of a queer cultural movement which rejects being co‐opted by the heterosexual society, constructs new ideas of social powers in relation with sexuality, and seeks alternative visions for such change in relations.     

The Rhythms of a Teacher Research Group

This paper presents an inside look at the rhythms of a year-long teacher research group by highlighting the experiences of four alternatively certified urban middle school teachers of color as they engaged in practitioner research about issues of gender equity, racial identity, and culturally relevant teaching. Using examples from “data dilemma” discussions about research issues and examples from their research, the article illustrates three distinct types of dilemmas that occurred over time and shows how the collective worked to solve research problems and improve the teaching practices of the participants in the group. Suggestions for creating and sustaining teacher research groups that examine issues related to diversity are included.     

Finding a voice,fighting for rights: the emergence of the transgender movement in Hong Kong 1

Abstract

This paper is intended to provide a space for reflection on Hong Kong’s transgender movement at its current stage, with particular reference to the objectives and activities of the Hong Kong Transgender Equality and Acceptance Movement (‘TEAM’). Established in 2002, TEAM was the first organized group of transgender people and supporters in Hong Kong. First, the paper examines the emergence of the transgender movement in Hong Kong, situating the stated objectives of TEAM in the broader social, legal and political context in Hong Kong. It then considers the successes and limitations of TEAM’s activities to date, measured against its objectives. Finally, it examines why Hong Kong’s transgender community has not yet fought for the right to legal recognition of their gender identity, as have transgender individuals and transgender movements in many other countries around the world. In the Asia‐Pacific region these include Australia, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and New Zealand. Through interviews with members of TEAM, the paper questions whether legal recognition is indeed a concern and/or priority for Hong Kong’s transgender community, and, if so, what prevents Hong Kong transgender people from claiming their right to legal recognition in the courts or through the political process.     

The Intersectionality of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Performance Poetry: Validating Secondary Latino Youth and Their Community

In this article the authors draw from culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education to describe performance poetry as an effective strategy for validating secondary aged Latino youths’ lived experiences. Supported by teacher modeling and the incorporation of community poets, students created and shared their own powerful poems that provided authentic opportunities to engage in critical analysis of the poems and issues of equality, social justice, and equity. Performance poetry is successfully used as a tool for validation, honoring and learning from our community, and transformation. Students in this border community were validated in terms of the identities as members of multiple worlds, learned about their own neighborhood from community poets, and were transformed in their identities as community activists through performance poetry. However, in this era of standardized teaching and high-stakes testing, teaching through performance poetry is often not supported in schools.     

Reflections of a Racial Queer

In this article, I reflect on my personal experiences of racial queerness. In an effort to speak my secrets, I explore my identity production as a Multiracial person by critically examining my positionality throughout various key stages in my life. I present Multiracial microaggressions –those accumulated moments that underscore my racial queerness and argue that these phenomena, while taxing, also confer agency. I propose a conceptual framework that incorporates both queer theory and borderlands theory as a potential framework from which to study how Multiracial individuals are positioned as racial queers. I argue that queerness, for the Multiracial individual, may denote both deviance (from the monoracial norm) and a unique individuality (stemming from one’s Multiracial background). By offering my testimonial as a racial queer and introducing the racial queer conceptual framework, I come a bit closer to naming my experience as a Multiracial individual and providing a space from which others can do the same.     

Finding Comfort in the Discomfort of Being Multiracial: Lessons from my Schooling

The multiracial population increased by 32% between 2000 and 2010 and represents 9 million people in the United States. The author reflects on her lived experiences of being multiracial but with visibly White skin. She details the lessons she learned about her multiracial identity—from her early positioning as a young student to her role as a teacher of other multiracial students. The article presents the complexities experienced by students with multiracial identities and how their self-conceptions of identity may be complicated when they visually appear to be White.     

Archiving queer feelings in Hong Kong

Abstract

This article argues for the revitalization of a productive tension between ‘queer’ and ‘theory’ and underscores its necessity for a study of ‘local queer theory.’ While there is an apparent lack of academic queer theory in Hong Kong, there are numerous examples of writings that advance theoretical positions, albeit in unfamiliar guises. The article analyzes three examples of queer writings by Hong Kong authors, penned between 1984 and 2000. Focusing on the texts’ archival effect and affective expression, the analysis demonstrates that these writings form an archive of queer feelings. As a repository of the discomfort and anxiety that are constitutive of queer lives, these writings can offer fruitful interventions into current theoretical debates. The article concludes with a call for more creative and irreverent – in short, queerer – ways of localizing the global phenomenon of queer theory.     

Complicating cosmopolitanism: Ethno-cultural and sexual connections among gay migrants

ABSTRACT

Contemporary migrants are described as “connected migrants,” as they maintain multiple connections using digital and social media. This article explores how this leads to processes of cosmopolitanism and/or encapsulation in a particular group, voluntary gay migrants in Belgium, focusing on the intersection between ethno-cultural and sexual identifications and connections. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the cosmopolitan outlook of the participants becomes clear, as their national and ethno-cultural connections are relatively weak while they identify more strongly with cosmopolitan LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) culture. However, while more salient, sexuality is not all-defining either, bespeaking their rather privileged position as a group of migrants who are self dependent and not strongly encapsulated in ethno-cultural nor sexual communities, with neither minority identity causing excessive stigmatization. As a consequence, they use digital and social media to simultaneously connect to different social spheres, although most do manage their self-presentation to avoid the clash or “collapse” of different social contexts online.     

Ethnic and Urban Intersections in the Classroom: Latino Students,Hybrid Identities,and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Drawing from data collected through classroom observations and in-depth interviews, this article describes and analyzes practices identified as culturally responsive by Latinos students in an urban, multiethnic/racial context. The findings suggest that culturally responsive pedagogy must be more broadly conceptualized to address the cultural identities of students who have complex identities because of their experiences with peers of many varied identities, those whose urban roots have resulted in hybrid identities, and those who are multiethnic/multiracial. Based on these findings, the article forwards the concept of “cultural connectedness” as a framework for practicing a non-essentializing, dynamic approach to culturally responsive pedagogy that acknowledges the hybrid nature of culture and identity.     

“I will not hate myself because you cannot accept me”: Problematizing empowerment and gender-diverse selfies

ABSTRACT

While selfies of beautiful cisgender women are declaimed by mainstream media as narcissistic and facile, some body-positive feminists and queer theorists argue that selfies can be empowering. They claim self-representation by traditionally stigmatized people can challenge normative presentations of beauty and gender. This article problematizes “empowerment” as a definitive and/or productive frame and argues instead for observation and analysis of “privilege” in situated practice. In this article I combine analysis of a collection of online cultural artifacts (including nonbinary selfies on Tumblr) and interviews with a small group of trans* social media storytellers to explore theoretical tensions between gender fluidity and identity fragmentation across multiple social media sites and practices. Gender-diverse digital self-representation encompasses both “consistent” androgyny, nonbinary, agender, and so on, and “emergent” presentations-in-flux. I assert that the ongoing iteration of self across social media—implied by self (re)presentation—can have simultaneous and contradictory political significance. I conclude that networked interpersonal complications frame understandings of empowerment, as perhaps they always have done.     

Discrimination and multicultural identity configurations: The mediating role of stress

The present research examines perceived discrimination as a predictor of how multicultural individuals negotiate and configure their different cultural identities within the self. We focused on three multicultural identity configurations: having one predominant identity (categorization), compartmentalizing one’s different identities, and integrating one’s identities. Since discrimination is related to intraindividual discordance and is stressful, we examined the mediating role of stress in the associations between discrimination and the identity configurations in 259 multicultural individuals. Mediation analyses revealed that greater discrimination predicted compartmentalization through greater stress, while lower discrimination predicted greater identity integration through lower stress. Categorization was not predicted by discrimination or by stress. Discrimination and stress appear to have damaging and depleting roles that hamper multiculturals’ capacity to reconcile their identities into a cohesive whole.     

Examining the World Around Us: Critical Media Literacy in Teacher Education

This article presents findings from action research conducted in a graduate level course with practicing K–12 educators. In this article, I consider the usefulness of critical media literacy in the graduate classroom as I engaged students in discussions about multicultural issues including race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. Through an examination of student presentations and field notes collected over the course of the semester, I found the graduate student participants were typically quite savvy at evaluating the messages they receive from media. Further, I found the incorporation of popular media into the classroom helped students grapple with typically foreign and often theoretically dense concepts like unconscious racism and heteronormativity, as well as theories like critical race theory, intersectionality, and queer theory. The graduate student participants were able to see deep connections between text/theory and media and often used various media to illustrate theory in quite complex ways. Lastly, engaging with texts of everyday life and using visual representations helped students interrogate the concepts explored in the course and provided students access to theory otherwise regarded as inaccessible.     

Cruising Mat Motor: Malay biker masculinity and queer desire in/through KL Menjerit

Abstract

This paper examines the construction of working‐class Mat Motor (Malay biker) masculinity and queer desire in/through KL Menjerit, a commercial biker film that exudes the unmistakably aura of working‐class kejantanan (masculinity). Specifically, I focus on how the film – or more precisely the ‘queer moments’ it contains – resonates in ways that are not necessarily obvious to the disinterested heterosexual public eye. The discussion takes into account both filmic elements and the sexual geography of Kuala Lumpur (KL), where shifting biker spaces sometimes intersect with homosexual cruising sites. My argument is that the film’s representation of the Mat Motor protagonist as unbendingly straight and heterosexually jantan – while imaginably gratifying to the core audience of Mat Motors – actually belies the opposite reality of KL’s ‘forgotten’ underside, where gender and sexuality are much more fluid and malleable than is sanctioned by society and the state.     

Beyond the ‘feminization of masculinity’: transforming patriarchy with the ‘feminine’ in contemporary Japanese youth culture

Contemporary Japanese society has seen the emergence of aesthetically conscious young men who employ ‘feminine’ aesthetics and strategies as ways of exploring and practising new masculine identities. In this paper, I explore the significance of this emerging trend of male beauty by observing and analysing the expressions, strategies and intentions of those young men who have taken to aesthetically representing themselves in these ways. This cultural trend is often described as the ‘feminization of masculinity,’ echoing the gendered articulation of rising mass culture in terms of the ‘feminization of culture,’ which acknowledges aspects of the commercialization of masculine bodies in Japan of the 1990s onward. While this view successfully links important issues, such as femininity, beauty, and the gendered representation of the self in a broader context of capitalist culture, it does not sufficiently convey a sense of agency in the young men's lively practices of exploring and expressing new masculine values and ideals. Rather than viewing ‘feminization’ simply as a sign of commodification, I argue that these young men strategically distance themselves from conventional masculinity by artificially standing in the position of the ‘feminine’, where they can more freely engage in the creation of alternative gender identities. From this point of view, the use of the phrase ‘feminization of masculinity’ often implies a fear and anxiety on the part of patriarchy over the boundary‐crossing practice that seriously challenges the stability of gendered cultural hegemony. Moreover, such anxiety driven reactions easily merge with nationalist inclination, as those threatened tend to seek the consolidation of patriarchal/hegemonic order by eliminating ambiguities and indeterminacy in cultural/national discourse. I conclude that the cultural hegemony of contemporary Japan could better sustain itself by incorporating non‐hegemonic gender identities, which would allow it maintain an open space for critical imagination and effectively diffuse an obsessive and ultimately self‐destructive desire for transparency/identity.     

U.S. third culture kids’ identity and college success

Third Culture Kids (TCKs), people who spend a significant number of their developmental years in a country other than their parents’ passport (home) country, have many positive attributes. These include the ability to see other points of view, be open to people from different backgrounds, and be adaptable. This phenomenological study, based on interview data, explored how their identity as TCKs helped them succeed in college through an anti-deficit perspective. The population was nine participants (three men, six women) who had all lived outside of the United States of America (their parents’ home country) for at least seven years before the age of 18 and who returned to the United States. for college. The findings indicate a need for updated study on the experiences of Third Culture Kids and how they conceptualize and understand their own identities and its relation to the idea of a third culture. Recommendations are made for TCKs and their families, and institutions of higher education in supporting them.     

Trans-Singapore: some notes towards queer Asia as method

From the transsexual sex workers of Bugis Street to the self-fashioning butches of the current creative economy, trans-visibility has always been an iconic feature of Singapore’s public culture. Using three case studies that examine colonial transsexual subculture, postcolonial transgender biomedical modernity and the contemporary inter-Asian performances of tomboy boybands, this paper examines these practices of trans-embodiment to reveal their centrality to Singapore’s modernity. While the recent transgender turn in the West has resulted in trans-visibility and acceptance, this paper will critically show how the experience of trans-visibility in Singapore provides a different model to consider the narrative of progressive modernity. It concludes by gesturing to this new model – one that does not replicate Eurocentric ontology – through further demonstrating these practices as strategies for the critical paradigm of “queer Asia as method.”