Discourses of Mobility: Institutions,Everyday Lives and Embodiment

This article seeks to contribute to the growing body of literature on the politics of mobility, revealing the ways in which the governing of mobility intersects with everyday mobile lives. We suggest that dominant and enduring institutional discourses of mobility, which are pervaded by a privileging of individualised automobility, can be conceptualised around a framework of morality, modernity and freedom. By examining everyday discourses of mobility in this context we highlight the ways in which these discourses reflect and resist normative sets of knowledge and practices. It is argued that by emphasising the everyday and mundane in an analysis of discourses of mobility, and acknowledging their situatedness in prevailing normative discourses, we are then able to focus on how movement is a social and cultural practice in constant negotiation and (re)production.     

Same-Sex Attracted,Not LGBQ: The Associations of Sexual Identity Labeling on Religiousness,Sexuality, and Health Among Mormons

ABSTRACT

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS church), beliefs about same-sex sexual attraction are carefully differentiated from beliefs about same-sex sexual behavior and identity, leading some to reject a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ) identity label in favor of declining a sexual identity or describing themselves as experiencing same-sex attraction (SSA). Using data from 1,128 sexual minority Mormons recruited from both politically conservative and liberal circles, we examined the relationship between rejecting an LGBQ identity and religiousness, attitudes toward sexuality, and health outcomes. We found that Mormons who reject an LGBQ identity were significantly more religious and less content with their sexuality but had similar health outcomes relative to LGBQ Mormons. We posit that these differences are best understood by differences in group affiliation and support, intersectional experiences with minority stressors, and the lack of generalizability of LGBQ constructs to those who reject an LGBQ identity.     

"This area has been declared a prostitution free zone": discursive formations of space, the state, and trans "sex worker" bodies

The mayorally instituted and police-enforced Prostitution Free Zones in Washington, DC, serve as a tool of nation-state disciplinarity, wherein many transgender women of color, viewed as ideologically suspect, are profiled as "sex workers," facing police harassment and arrest. This article explores here how this process is not merely about sex work but rather about discourses that are evoked in the displacement of the always-already displaced-racial, sexed, and gendered "others" through interviews with activists and trans community members, as well as District of Columbia government publications.     

Narrations and practices of mobility and immobility in the maintenance of gender dualisms

This paper analyses the role of practices and representations of mobility in supporting particular kinds of gender orders. While scholarship has shown the various ways women are materially and symbolically ‘fixed’ in place, less attention has been paid to how discourses and practices of mobility interface with systems of gender differentiation more broadly. This work is based on a robust empirical base of 55 interviews, 90 h of participant observation and an analysis of museum displays in Kalgoorile, Western Australia, an iconic frontier mining town selected for this investigation as a site of strongly bifurcated gender discourses. Analysing our field data through the lens of feminist theory which problematizes gender binaries, we argue that while some narrations of gender mobilities serve to reinforce gender binaries, lived practices of movement can also destabilise (idealised) notions of gendered movement. This paper extends conceptual work by advancing understanding about the role of mobility within systems of gender differentiation, showing how lived practices of mobility are just as likely to challenge idealised patterns of gendered movement as they are to reinforce these patterns.     

Imagined Rural/Regional Spaces: Non-Normative Sexualities in Small Towns and Rural Communities in Croatia

This research aims to critically examine how the complexity of the ongoing process of “coming out” in small towns and rural spaces in Croatia undermines the imagined hierarchical distinction between rural/urban spaces. The narratives of LGBQ individuals living in these spaces subvert imaginaries of their communities as homogeneously hostile and threatening. Some participants did, however, perceive other spaces as either “gay-friendly” or “deeply homophobic.” As Croatia is transnationally perceived to be a part of a larger “homophobic region,” the construction of the rural/urban hierarchical distinction is (re)produced and (re)configured within discourses that signify Western countries and so-called more developed regions within Croatia as “more open and liberal” as opposed to “more homophobic and backward” spaces. These distinctions between countries, regions, and the rural/urban spaces come into contradiction with each other and are undermined by my interviewees’ own incongruous experiences.     

LGBQ-Specific Elderly Housing as a “Sparkling Sanctuary”: Boundary Work on LGBQ Identity and Community in Relationship to Potential LGBQ-Specific Elderly Housing in Sweden

This study explored how boundaries in relationship to community and identity were created and negotiated among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) people within the framework of picturing LGBQ-specific elderly housing as a housing alternative in older age, by applying focus group methodology. “An island as a sparkling sanctuary” was identified as a metaphor for how symbolic resources defining the LGBQ community can be manifested in LGBQ-specific qualities of elderly housing. The boundary work underlying this manifestation included elaborations on the dilemma between exclusiveness and normality. The findings illustrate further how symbolic resources and collective identities were developed through dialectic interplay between internal and external definitions. Further, the findings show how boundary work generated shared feelings of similarity and group membership. The associated symbolic and social resources not only served to deal with difficult situations but also to manifest LGBQ identity and sense of community as a “gold medal.”     

Women,ageing, and Hip Hop: discourses and imageries of ageing femininity

Abstract

This article investigates how discourses of ageing femininity are constructed and negotiated amongst females in Hip Hop. Through the analysis of narratives and imageries constructed within the music and videos of rap veteran Missy “Misdemeanour” Elliott, press responses to Missy’s work and comparative accounts of other prominent female rappers’ performative strategies, this article explores some of the ways that female artists are responding to socially gendered notions of ageing in Hip Hop. I argue that Hip Hop females are in some cases using Hip Hop as a vehicle for subverting age narratives that are commonly associated with ageing femininity. Murray Forman’s concept of “age-representing” is brought into dialogue with representations of ageing Hip Hop females to support this analysis. The writings of Ros Jennings and Abigail Gardner are also drawn on to form a supportive framework by offering comparative accounts of female ageing in other popular music sub-fields. This article aims to contribute to the growing feminist critique of ageing and popular music culture.     

Transgender Identities,Pressures, and Social Policy: A Study Carried Out in Spain

ABSTRACT

This article draws on a qualitative research project concerning the relationship between trans people’s mental health and wellbeing, pressures, social policy, and heteronormative gender norms in Spain. Drawing on interviews carried out with trans people from all regions and generations, we use an ecological framework to illustrate how a socially entrenched heteronormativity pressures trans people to comply with gender norms that impact negatively their mental health and wellbeing. The article argues that the legal changes in Spain are not enough in themselves to bring about social change, but, rather, Spanish social policy makers also need to challenge gender categorization and work toward transforming public discourses on gender issues if trans people are to gain full social recognition and equal social rights.     

Homosexuality and the Law: The Construction of Wolfenden Homonormativity in 1950s England

ABSTRACT

This article analyses a television broadcast in England in 1957 in response to the Wolfenden Report (Wolfenden, 1957) into homosexuality and prostitution. Here I argue that those participants in the broadcast who are sympathetic with liberal reforms of the legislation on homosexuality utilize discourses related to normality and the public/private domains to discursively construct the Wolfenden homonormative male. In addition, I also show how, particularly through the trope of homonormativity, both the heterosexual and homosexual audiences are interpellated by the discourses exploited within the broadcast as publics whose subjectivities are reconfigured toward Wolfenden homonormativity.     

Challenges and Strategies of Sexual Minority Youth Research in Southwest Virginia

A research team that works on scholarship related to sexual minority issues has been conducting research and recruiting participants since the fall of 2012. In the years since the team was formed, there has been a variety of challenges with recruitment, approval for research through the Institutional Review Board, gaining access to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) community, and general mistrust of researchers. Using concepts from feminist-informed qualitative research methodology—including reflexivity, positionality, and engaging in research with individuals from marginalized communities—we present reflections on some of the methodological challenges the research team has encountered while trying to conduct LGBQ research in southwest Virginia. This article encompasses the viewpoints of multiple members of the research team, including those who are faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students with identities across the sexual orientation spectrum.     

Proud to be a woman: Womanhood,old age,and emotions

ABSTRACT

This article takes its starting point in the discussions regarding intersecting discourses of gender and age and the lived experience of older women. The main objective is to discuss the experience of womanhood among older women and to demonstrate their active role in creating spaces for themselves and their friends and affecting each other. The study is based on narrative interviews with female members of the University of the Third Age (U3A). The main findings describe older women who actively engage with discourses of gender to embark on positive constructions of womanhood. They create their own spaces for women’s activism that are filled with positive emotions mobilized to support each other. This article discusses such findings and their relevance to the study of old age and gender. As a result, it serves as an invitation to think and feel differently about older women and their experience of womanhood.     

Psychosocial Risk and Protective Factors for Depression Among Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Queer Youth: A Systematic Review

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ) youth suffer from depression. Identifying modifiable risk and protective factors for depression can inform the development of psychosocial interventions. The aim of this review is to evaluate the methodological characteristics and summarize the substantive findings of studies examining psychosocial risk and protective factors for depression among LGBQ youth. Eight bibliographic databases were searched, and 35 studies that met all inclusion criteria were included for review. Results show that prominent risk factors for depression include internalized LGBQ-related oppression, stress from hiding and managing a socially stigmatized identity, maladaptive coping, parental rejection, abuse and other traumatic events, negative interpersonal interactions, negative religious experiences, school bullying victimization, and violence victimization in community settings. Prominent protective factors include a positive LGBQ identity, self-esteem, social support from friends, and family support. LGBQ youth may face an array of threats to their mental health originating from multiple socioecological levels.     

Violent mobilities: men,masculinities and road conflicts in Sweden

This article focuses on violence(s) in traffic space as a gendered problem. It draws upon qualitative online studies and interviews with cyclists about their experiences of motorists’ violent practices, including cyclists’ negotiations of anti-cyclist discourses and their coping strategies. It is argued that automobility makes it possible for certain men to perform their ‘right to the road,’ including gender-identity-shaping practices, and that this has the negative effect of violating cyclists’ bodily integrity. It follows that a shift from cars to more sustainable mobilities also demands related shifts in masculinities and men’s practices in the context of transport and traffic.     

Navigating Identities: Subtle and Public Agency of Bicultural Gay Youth

Young people who discover their sexual attraction to people of the same sex often go through a period of ambivalence or distress, especially when they grow up in an environment that condemns homosexuality. The Dutch sociopolitical context makes the expression of same-sex desires among those with non-Dutch roots even more complicated and risky, as prevailing schemes of interpretation render the two identities incompatible. This study explores the expressions of same-sex desires and identities as well as the different forms of agency of bicultural gay youth. In-depth interviews with 14 young adults reveal how young people negotiate bicultural identities in Dutch society that brings to the fore complexities in managing diverse sexual identities and strong religious and cultural affiliations in tandem. Their strategies have the effect of questioning dominant discourses and transcend the oppositional dichotomy between sexual and ethnic forms of sociocultural otherness.     

"I Think It More of a White Persons Sort of Awareness": Condoms and the Making of a White Nation in Media Representations of Safer (Hetero)sex

In recent years, both the media and the government in the UK have been increasingly preoccupied with the problem of rape involving alcohol. For example, in order to increase low conviction rates, the government proposed, yet eventually rejected, reforms equating drunkenness with incapacity to consent to sexual intercourse. Research evidence, for example studies by Benedict (1992) or Finch and Munro (2005, 2007), suggests that conviction rates are influenced by an interplay of cultural discourses and legal arrangements. This article uses discourse analysis to identify and critically examine the major discourses which are produced around rape involving alcohol in one major daily newspaper, the Daily Mail. This conservative paper disapproves of women's binge drinking and is unsympathetic to victims of rape involving alcohol. The analysis indicates that its discourses deprecate and delegitimise victims by a) reinvigorating and refashioning old rape myths, b) re-gendering rape involving alcohol as a problem of female drinking rather than male sexual violence, and c) masquerading women's responsibilities and risks as rights. These findings open up the possibility for research into the popularity of these discourses across contemporary culture and their impact on cultural consumers, including those involved in legal decision-making processes.     

Investigating sexuality discourses in the U.K. secondary English curriculum

This article reports on findings from a small-scale study that investigated sexuality discourses in the U.K. secondary English curriculum. In addition to conducting a critical analysis of English curriculum documents, interviews were also conducted with some English teachers and young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-identified people who attended, or had recently left, secondary school in Birmingham, U.K. Key findings indicate that issues around sexual diversity are noticeably absent from the curriculum, while other forms of diversity are more visible. This means that teachers are not explicitly encouraged to explore sexual diversity in their teaching, and the effects of this on young LGBT-identified people are overwhelmingly negative.     

Where Kinsey,Christ, and Tila Tequila Meet: Discourse and the Sexual (Non)-Binary

Drawing on 80 interviews and 17 months of participant observation in Lexington, Kentucky, this article details how individuals drew on three areas of national and local discourse to conceptualize sexuality. Media, popular science, and religious discourses can be viewed as portraying sexuality bifocally—as both a binary of heterosexual/homosexual and as a non-binary that encompasses fluidity. However, individuals in Lexington drew on each of these areas of discourse differently. Religion was thought to produce a binary vision of sexuality, whereas popular science accounts were understood as both binary and not. The media was understood as portraying non-binary identities that were not viable, thus strengthening the sexual binary. These differing points of view led identities such as bisexual and queer to lack cultural intelligibility.     

Erotic arguments and persuasive acts: discourses of desire and the rhetoric of female-to-male drag

This chapter analyzes the October 21, 2000 drag king performance by Mildred Gerestant, a.k.a. Dréd. Arguing that her act appropriates, embodies, and manipulates certain ideological discourses of desire and identity, the article studies the shape and force of Dréd's performative arguments and illuminates how a drag king act can not only tease and titillate the addressed audience (the actual people who watched the show) but also hail the invoked audience (the audience called upon, imagined, or made possible by the performance). Arguing that, as a rhetorical act, Dréd's performance offers a purposeful discourse about gender, race, and power, this chapter ultimately explores how a rhetorical analysis of FTM drag elucidates the complex relationship between the rhetor, performance, and audience. More specifically, it shows how a rhetor's performance of non-normative identity and engagement with discourses of desire has the potential to unmask the hegemonic effects of language and power and to unsuture the seemingly natural connections between sex and gender.     

The LGBQ Microaggressions on Campus Scale: A Scale Development and Validation Study

Although LGBQ students experience blatant forms of heterosexism on college campuses, subtle manifestations such as sexual orientation microaggressions are more common. Similar to overt heterosexism, sexual orientation microaggressions may threaten LGBQ students’ academic development and psychological wellbeing. Limited research exists in this area, in part due to lack of a psychometrically sound instrument measuring the prevalence of LGBQ microaggressions on college campuses. To address this gap, we created and tested the LGBQ Microaggressions on College Campuses Scale. Two correlated subscales were generated: Interpersonal LGBQ Microaggressions and Environmental LGBQ Microaggressions. The results indicated that the subscales demonstrate strong reliability and validity.