About the Cover Image

This image, Challenging Masculine Constructs by Oliver, is part of a photovoice project (see the article by Phillip Joy, Matthew Numer, Sara F. L. Kirk, and Megan Aston, Embracing a New Day: Exploring the Connections of Culture, Masculinities, Bodies, and Health for Gay Men through Photovoice, this issue) that explored the way culture and society shape the beliefs, values, and practices about food and bodies for gay men. Taken by the participant, this image is his way to challenge what he believes are limiting gender ideas for men and how masculine bodies should be dressed and presented to others. He disrupts these social constructs by dressing and presenting his body in ways he believed moved beyond typical masculine notions and by doing so reveals alternative gender expressions and new possibilities of living.

Trans* media ecology: The emergence of gender variant selfies in print

Despite having become more visible in popular and academic discourses over the last half decade, trans* selfies are not new. In this article, I examine an early set of trans* selfies featured in a sexploitation periodical published in the United States during the early 1960s. I show how numerous media, including bodies, clothing, cosmetics, photographs and magazines, produced a socio-technical environment through which trans* subjects composed alternative gender expressions and identities, formed intimate networks and created conditions of possibility for the eventual re-emergence of trans* selfies via digital social media platforms. Merging trans* theory with media ecology, I develop trans* media ecology as a conceptual frame from which to locate the always imbricated – but never complete – becoming of gendered bodies and media. Methodologically, trans* media ecology adopts three guiding principles: (1) genders are media, (2) genders depend on media and (3) genders and media change.

Propaganda, masculinity, and the French interwar novel

My dissertation centers on literary representations of non-normative gender performances, the struggle around new gender norms, and the lived realities of gender in pre- and post-World War I- (WWI) era France. The novels discussed in this study, L'Immoraliste (André Gide, 1902), Chéri and La Fin de Chéri (Colette, 1920 and 1926, repectively), and Voyage au bout de la nuit (Céline, 1932) all depict how WWI significantly disrupted French life and troubled gender roles in nearly all environments. The novels that I analyze reveal, in particular, how French manhood became a source of nationalist anxiety in this era, as masculinity was seen as weakened by prior French military defeats and the so-called "excesses" of the belle époque. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the dissertation puts WWI-era novels in dialogue with the visual culture of war propaganda found in French government-sponsored propaganda posters. As I show, propaganda posters heavily promoted heteronormative standards of French masculinity, disseminated images of the ideal French male as physically powerful, courageous, and ready to defend family and nation, and reminded young French men that they carried the weight of defending not only the nation, but the future of French masculinity and the health of the population more broadly. As my study argues, novels by Colette, Gide, Celine, and others call into question WWI propagandized gender norms by imagining alternative gender performances and creating spaces for self-determined gender performances. My dissertation thus argues that novels by Gide, Colette, Céline, and others demonstrate that the normative standards encountered in WWI propaganda were, in fact, fictions that belied the lived realities of gender.

‘Let fa’afafine shine like diamonds’: Balancing accommodation, negotiation and resistance in gender-nonconforming Samoans’ counter-hegemony

In the Pacific Island country of Samoa, a gender-nonconforming community known as fa’afafine is said to constitute part of customary tradition and therefore enjoy cultural legitimacy. Yet fa’afafine are also confronted with a binary gender discourse that daily marginalises them within families/communities. This article explores fa’afafine’s gendered positioning in contemporary Samoa and the ways in which they have negotiated it to carve out space for oppositional agency, focusing on the strategies employed by the Samoa Fa’afafine Association. Based on semi-structured interviews with fa’afafine and other gender-nonconforming Samoans, and guided by Pacific methodology of Talanoa, the article examines fa’afafine’s collective pursuits as a case of counter-hegemonic struggle through a Gramscian theoretical lens. If their acts of resistance are covert and incremental, they are effective in aligning Samoa’s powerful cultural institutions with an alternative gender discourse to cultivate social change. The article closes with reflections on possible challenges to this counter-hegemony.

Sex, gender and gender identity: a re-evaluation of the evidence

Summary In the past decade there has been a rapid increase in gender diversity, particularly in children and young people, with referrals to specialist gender clinics rising. In this article, the evolving terminology around transgender health is considered and the role of psychiatry is explored now that this condition is no longer classified as a mental illness. The concept of conversion therapy with reference to alternative gender identities is examined critically and with reference to psychiatry's historical relationship with conversion therapy for homosexuality. The authors consider the uncertainties that clinicians face when dealing with something that is no longer a disorder nor a mental condition and yet for which medical interventions are frequently sought and in which mental health comorbidities are common.

“It's Like Mixing Paint”: Songwriting Gender Diversity and Alternative Gender Cultures with Young People as an ‘After-queer’ Methodology

This paper conceptualises songwriting as an ‘after-queer’ approach for exploring notions of gender and sexuality with young people. The article draws on songs created by seven groups of young people in music-based workshops which took place in schools with participants aged between 14–17. During these workshops, songwriting was used to explore the participants' imaginings of what gender might look like in their "perfect world". 'After-queer' scholarship is introduced and referred to throughout the paper as it relates to queer theory and research with young people, particularly focusing on discourses of risk and vulnerability that emerge across these fields. The paper highlights the value of creative and arts-based methodologies in queer research, through which expansion and questions of possibility, alternative, and identity can be raised and responded to. 'After queer' is offered as a useful lens for critical analysis, particularly in light of complex questions related to the promotion of "diversity" that emerged through the findings.

Is gender just a costume? An exploratory study of crossplay

Cosplay, a portmanteau of costume and play, is a costume inspired by a fictional character originating from a variety of media texts and is typically worn to pop culture conventions. When cosplayers dress up as a fictional character of a different gender than the cosplayer's self-identified gender, this is known as crossplay. It has been argued that this fannish activity challenges status quo notions of gender through bodily performance, but some scholars have been skeptical about the emancipatory politics surrounding crossplay culture. Thus, an online survey probed on the motivations to do crossplay as well as on the lived experiences of crossplayers. Responses to questions about crossplay motivations as well as social interactions that occurred while wearing crossplay were analyzed using the grounded theory approach. Results suggest that respondents are motivated to perform crossplay by an attachment to a favorite fictional character rather than to express alternative gender identities. However, some respondents indicated that crossplay was a socially acceptable way to present oneself as another gender. A close look at participants' responses about positive and negative feedback from other convention attendees while the participants were engaging in crossplay indicates that gender inequality persists for self-identified men and nonbinary individuals who choose to dress as female characters. This suggests that masculine performativity remains hegemonic even within the play space of fan conventions.

“Feminine Genius” and “Authentic Masculinity”

The question driving chapter 4 is how millennial missionaries embrace Catholicism’s strict gender complementarianism while also maintaining savvy among their peers with millennial-generation expectations of gender parity. Two interpretive frameworks illustrate why and how missionaries work to inhabit their “feminine genius” and become “authentically masculine.” “Complementary submissions” describes the many types of submission these missionaries enact—to one another and to God. “Gendering prayer” examines how, in particular, gendered prayer practices shape missionaries’ gender performances. The interwoven demands of complementary submissions and gendering prayer animate how these millennials enact alternative gender roles and how they flourish as Catholics in the contemporary United States.

Faux-meat and masculinity: The gendering of food on three vegan blogs

This study explores the relationship between gender and veganism through a critical analysis of food-based discourse on three vegan blogs. As many researchers note, there is a strong association between meat and masculinity in North American society (Nath, 2011; Rothgerber, 2013; Rozin, Hormes, Faith & Wansink, 2012; Ruby & Heine, 2011; Sumpter, 2015). While some researchers argue that the practice of veganism inherently challenges traditional gender norms (Adams, 2015; Potts and Parry, 2010), in these blog posts there is little room for alternative gender performativity. Drawing upon critical feminist and vegan studies literature, and previous discourse analysis of food blogs, this research examines the intersections of gender and food through the practice of veganism. Furthermore, it analyses how the association between meat and masculinity is applied in the gendering of vegan food. I argue that the gendered discourse of vegan food on these blogs reinforces, rather than challenges, traditional gender norms through the use of tropes describing “carnivorous men” and “manly meals” with hopes of satiating male appetites.