scholarly journals YouTubers between postfeminism and popular feminism: Dulceida’s and Yellow Mellow’s construction and performance of gender identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Ester Villacampa-Morales ◽  
Maddalena Fedele ◽  
Sue Aran-Ramspott

Participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006) has opened up the possibility of prosumption for the youngest users, who use social media as a tool for building their (gender) identities. At the same time, as part of a juvenile digital culture they share with their audiences, influencers, and more specifically YouTubers, they act as role models in this process. While YouTube and other social media continue to reproduce the post-feminist sensibility, recent studies indicate that it also embraces manifestations of popular feminism. This research focuses on two popular female Spanish YouTubers, Dulceida and Yellow Mellow, and its aim is to analyse how they build and represent their gender identity. Particular emphasis is put on the negotiation and/or integration of feminist precepts into those identities, in order to determine whether they contribute to the creation of new gender imaginaries. A qualitative methodology, which includes four models of analysis, is used to cover the representations from the audio-visual, socio-semiotic and textual aspects. The results show a certain ambivalence regarding gender, since popular feminism and queer theory coexist with postfeminism, and values such as diversity with the acritical acceptance of individualism.

Author(s):  
Patrick McKelvey

“Choreographing the Chronic” brings together dance studies, queer disability studies, and performance studies to examine Octavio Campos’s 2007 dance-theater piece, The Bugchasers. The essay considers Campos’s work alongside other representations of bugchasers—people who deliberately pursue HIV—in popular journalism, queer theory, and social media. It argues that Campos’s work illuminates what these other representations obfuscate: that bugchasers stage alternative temporalities of seroconversion and HIV/AIDS more broadly. The bugchasers populating Campos’s piece thwart seroconversion’s prominence as ostensibly the most important event governing queer life. By extension, they challenge dominant understandings of people with HIV and other disabled people deprived of the capacity to represent anything other than disablement.


Author(s):  
Varda Konstam

This chapter examines some of the challenges faced by LGBTQ-identified emerging adults as they chart a romantic course in the early 21st century. Diversity and fluidity are themes specific to today’s emerging adults, with a greater acceptance of a range of sexual/gender identities in evidence. The complexity of sexual/gender identity is discussed, with an emphasis on the importance of each individual’s intersectionalities with other identities (race, religion, ethnicity, etc.). Terms are defined, with the understanding that LGBTQ definitions are evolving and not always universally accepted. The nature and effect of stigma, both overt and subtle, is examined. Queer theory is introduced as a way of looking beyond heteronormative bias in the day to day lives of emerging adults. The issues of coming out and living as a trans individual are given attention. Two detailed case studies of LGBTQ-identified individuals are presented.


2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Z. Semerjian ◽  
Jodi H. Cohen

Viviane K. Namaste (2000) argues that trans-individuals have been culturally erased and rendered invisible. She contends that academics should begin to explore the realities of transgender individuals’ lives. Transgender identified athletes have begun to garner more media attention in recent years, particularly with the 2004 International Olympic Committee’s ruling allowing transgender athletes to participate in the Olympics. Despite this increasing media attention, there is a considerable lack of academic work focusing on the experiences of transgender athletes, as well as a paucity of any serious theoretical consideration of these experiences. The purpose of this paper is to present trans athletes’ narratives of their sport participation, with attention to how gender identity and performance was or was not a part of this participation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four trans identified athletes. The narratives of these athletes portray a way of thinking about gender as a category that is transmutable, unstable, and constantly written and rewritten through embodied performances. Queer theory will serve as the theoretical perspective used to analyze these narratives.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Ekblad

Gender identities that differ from biological sex (non-cisgender identities) appear to be more common in autism and neurodiversity. The study found that part of the non-cisgender identities could be related to having behavioral preferences of the opposite sex, but this failed to explain the higher prevalence in neurodiversity. Non-cisgender identities in neurodiversity could better be explained by having neurodiverse relationship preferences or lacking typical relationship preferences. Being part of the LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bi Transgender) community biased answers to questions about gender identity. Neurodiverse non-cisgender people, just like neurodiverse asexual people, might be better off with new communities that focus on the more relevant relationship preference differences rather than on narrow and indirect gender and sexual issues.


Author(s):  
Corina-Maricica Seserman ◽  
Daniela Cojocaru

Today’s teenagers have a very close relationship with ICTs and the digital space related to them, as they have impacted the way the youth constructs their sense of self and the tools they use to perform their carefully constructed identity. One key element which influences the way one constructs their views by themselves is within the boundaries set by their biological sex and therefore through the behaviors associated with their asigned gender. Through the symbolic interactionist lense, or more specifically through Goffman's dramaturgical theory on the manner in which one presents him/herself in society, this paper looks at the manner in which teenagers use social media platforms and at the way they consume and create digital content in order to present their gender identity. The way teenagers consume and produce digital content differs and depends on how they interpret their ideals of femininity and masculinity, which are afterwards reproduced in the content they post on their social media pages. Therefore this research is an attempt to understand what are the factors teenagers take in account when consuming and producing content. What gender differences can be observed in regards to new media consumption? What difference can be observed in online activity behaviors between males and females? How do they feel about their gender identity concerning fitting in with their peer group? A mix-methodological approach was engaged in the data collection process. In the first stage of the research highschool students (n=324) from the city of Suceava (Romania) participated in taking an online survey. The initial intent was to meet with the young respondents in person, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic this was deemed impossible. For the second stage of data collection, six of the participants who took the online survey were invited to participate in a focus group designed to grasp a better understanding of the results from the previous stage. The discovered findings uncover engaging gender similarities and differences in social media consumption and the type, subject, matter and style in which they posted their content, but also in regards to the performance of the self between the online and offline space.


Author(s):  
Evan S. Tobias

Contemporary society is rich with diverse musics and musical practices, many of which are supported or shared via digital and social media. Music educators might address such forms of musical engagement to diversify what occurs in music programs. Realizing the possibilities of social media and addressing issues that might be problematic for music learning and teaching calls for conceptualizing social media in a more expansive manner than focusing on the technology itself. Situating people’s social media use and musical engagement in a larger context of participatory culture that involves music and media may be fruitful in this regard. We might then consider the potential of social media and musical engagement in participatory cultures for music learning and teaching. This chapter offers an overview of how people are applying aspects of participatory culture and social media in educational contexts. Building on work in media studies, media arts, education, and curricular theory, the chapter develops a framework for translating and recontextualizing participatory culture, musical engagement, and social media in ways that might inform music pedagogy and curriculum. In this way, it may help music educators move from an awareness of how people engage with and through music and social media in participatory culture to an orientation of developing related praxis.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095624782110193
Author(s):  
Vanesa Castán Broto

All over the world, people suffer violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Queer theory has linked the politics of identity and sexuality with radical democracy experiments to decolonize development. Queering participatory planning can improve the wellbeing of vulnerable sectors of the population, while also enhancing their political representation and participation. However, to date, there has been limited engagement with the politics of sexuality and identity in participatory planning. This paper identifies three barriers that prevent the integration of queer concerns. First, queer issues are approached as isolated and distinct, separated from general matters for discussion in participatory processes. Second, heteronormative assumptions have shaped two fields that inform participatory planning practices: development studies and urban planning. Third, concrete, practical problems (from safety concerns to developing shared vocabularies) make it difficult to raise questions of identity and sexuality in public discussions. An engagement with queer thought has potential to renew participatory planning.


2021 ◽  
pp. sextrans-2020-054875
Author(s):  
Susanne Drückler ◽  
Ceranza Daans ◽  
Elske Hoornenborg ◽  
Henry De Vries ◽  
Martin den Heijer ◽  
...  

BackgroundGlobal data show that transgender people (TGP) are disproportionally affected by HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs); however, data are scarce for Western European countries. We assessed gender identities, sexual behaviour, HIV prevalence and STI positivity rates, and compared these outcomes between TGP who reported sex work and those who did not.MethodsWe retrospectively retrieved data from all TGP who were tested at the STI clinics of Amsterdam and The Hague, the Netherlands in 2017–2018. To identify one’s gender identity, a ‘two-step’ methodology was used assessing, first, the assigned gender at birth (assigned male at birth (AMAB)) or assigned female at birth), and second, clients were asked to select one gender identity that currently applies: (1) transgender man/transgender woman, (2) man and woman, (3) neither man nor woman, (4) other and (5) not known yet. HIV prevalence, bacterial STI (chlamydia, gonorrhoea and/or infectious syphilis) positivity rates and sexual behaviour were studied using descriptive statistics.ResultsTGP reported all five categories of gender identities. In total 273 transgender people assigned male at birth (TGP-AMAB) (83.0%) and 56 transgender people assigned female at birth (TGP-AFAB) (17.0%) attended the STI clinics. Of TGP-AMAB, 14,6% (39/267, 95% CI 10.6% to 19.4%) were HIV-positive, including two new diagnoses and bacterial STI positivity was 15.0% (40/267, 95% CI 10.9% to 19.8%). Among TGP-AFAB, bacterial STI positivity was 5.6% (3/54, 95% CI 1.2% to 15.4%) and none were HIV-positive. Sex work in the past 6 months was reported by 53.3% (137/257, 95% CI 47.0% to 59.5%) of TGP-AMAB and 6.1% (3/49, 95% CI 1.3% to 16.9%) of TGP-AFAB. HIV prevalence did not differ between sex workers and non-sex workers.ConclusionOf all TGP, the majority were TGP-AMAB of whom more than half engaged in sex work. HIV prevalence and STI positivity rates were substantial among TGP-AMAB and much lower among TGP-AFAB. Studies should be performed to provide insight into whether the larger population of TGP-AMAB and TGP-AFAB are at risk of HIV and STI.


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