scholarly journals Fairness for Unobserved Characteristics: Insights from Technological Impacts on Queer Communities

Author(s):  
Nenad Tomasev ◽  
Kevin R. McKee ◽  
Jackie Kay ◽  
Shakir Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Deniz Nihan Aktan

Abstract Focusing on queer-identified amateur football teams, this article investigates the potentials of the mobilities and alliances of gender non-conforming footballing people to disrupt the seemingly effortless structure of the football field. While football is arguably one of the sports with the strongest discriminatory attitudes toward gender non-conforming people, it has also become a site of resistance for queers in Turkey as of 2015. How political opposition groups relate to the football field, which is mostly considered as a male-dominant and heterosexualized space where social norms are reproduced, are classified into three groups in my research: resistance through, against, and for football. I give particular attention to the category “resistance for football” as a distinctive way for gender non-conforming people to inhabit the field. I discuss how the link between sexual and spatial orientations shapes the domain of what a body can do, both in terms of normativity and capacity, and I explore what these teams offer in order to exceed spatial and sexual boundaries. Lastly, I present recent queer interventions in the value system of the game through which I reflect upon the concept of “queer commons” and the processes of bonding, belonging, and border-making in queer communities.


Author(s):  
Finn Reygan

While queer theology has foregrounded sexual and gender diversity in faith communities internationally, in South Africa, the emergence of a queer, African theology is necessary given that religion is often not a ‘safe space’ for sexual and gender minorities owing to theological violence. Advocacy for inclusion requires the development of theological capacity in queer communities so as to foster biblical, theological and interpretative resistance. There are a number of approaches available, including demythologising and reclaiming the Bible for queer communities, developing more redemptive interpretative options for queer inclusion and developing alternative discourses that challenge the heteropatriarchy of the Bible. Entry points for this work include Bible study; workshops and seminars for faith communities on sexual and gender diversity; the acceptance of a minimum pastoral threshold (or minimum levels of preparedness) for engaging with issues of sexual and gender diversity; and creating ecumenical spaces, cognizant of the local context, where such engagements can take place. This involves moving beyond a theology of compassion and essentialised notions of sexuality and gender so as to develop a queer, African, people’s theology that recognises the trauma experienced by sexual and gender minorities in faith communities.


Author(s):  
John Wei

This chapter deals with social inclusion and exclusion along the lines of cultural capital and social distinctions underlined by social class migration and mobilization. Drawing upon sociological analyses of various forms of human capital and academic inquiries into the issue of suzhi (“quality”), this chapter analyzes the ongoing social stratifications in China’s queer communities that have reproduced larger social inequalities. Through an investigation of an “upward” online queer community, it argues that the state-engineered discourse of suzhi has to some extent expired, but the lingering myth of “quality” continues to underline queer social distinctions and social interactions online and on the ground.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Wright

Abstract Recent work in language and sexuality has emphasized globalization and multilingualism as important areas of investigation (Bucholtz & Hall 2006, Leap & Boellstorff 2003, Murray 2014). Concomitantly, other scholars have employed the construct of sexual fluidity as a metaphor for linguistic fluidity (Otsuji & Pennycook 2010, Pennycook & Otsuji 2015). Few studies, however, have examined how sexual and linguistic fluidity intersect in individual experience. This paper examines metalinguistic discourse in three fictional novels involving bisexual, bilingual characters in order to understand how talk about language informs representations of sexualities. In these texts bilingualism functions in constructing access to queer communities, authenticity, belonging, and emotional control for bisexual characters. Further, sexual and linguistic fluidity are portrayed as lifespan processes embedded in specific time periods. Such understandings point to a need for historical approaches to fluidity that capture longer timescales and multiple dimensions of linguistic and sexual desire, practice, and identity.


Sexualities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 666-682
Author(s):  
Jane Wallace

This article argues that the Bourdieusian concepts of field, habitus and cultural capital open up theoretical space in which to analyse the hierarchical nature of LGBT and queer communities living in the Kansai region of Japan. Drawing upon data collected during ethnographic fieldwork, this article will show how ‘urban’ and ‘queer’ forms of LGBT-activist practice acted as a kind of cultural capital (in the form of symbolic capital) within the groups studied. The possession of and ability to engage in specific ways with these cultural capitals determined the respondents’ positions in the field. However, access is not universal, and is determined by context. Furthermore, the processes involved in a renegotiation of an individual’s position in the field can bring multiple habitus into contact, resulting not only in instances of successful transfer, but also tension and rupture. This article provides an original and timely contribution to sexuality and gender studies of Japan, by adding a detailed analysis of the ways in which cultural capital plays out in the field using ethnographic data.


2019 ◽  
pp. 146144481989035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Henry Triggs ◽  
Kristian Møller ◽  
Christina Neumayer

This article maps out how people in queer communities on Reddit navigate context collapse. Drawing upon data from interviews with queer Reddit users and insights from other studies of context collapse in digital media, we argue that context collapse also occurs in anonymity-based social media. The interviews reveal queer Reddit users’ practices of context differentiation, occurring at four levels: somatic, system, inter-platform and intra-platform. We use these levels to map out how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) people express their identities and find community on Reddit while seeking to minimize the risks imposed by multiple impending context collapses. Because living an authentic queer life can make subjects vulnerable, we find that despite Reddit’s anonymity, sophisticated practices of context differentiation are developed and maintained. We argue that context collapse in an era of big data and social media platforms operates beyond the control of any one user, which causes problems, particularly for queer people.


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