The Kim Kardashian’s bunda

This essay was presented as the opening talk of the VI International History Conference under the theme “History and the challenges of the 21st century: politics, feminisms and gender performances” that took place at the Federal University of Goiás, Jataí, in 2018. The author suggest the enduring value of analysing discursive construction and the competing knowledges and narratives that condition our lived experience, but also that we must, as historians of, and in, the present, be aware that we are occupying socially and temporally contingent positions.

Unqueering Transgender? A Queer Geography of Transnormativity in Two Online Communities

<p>This research implicates gender in the study of sexuality and suggests a genealogy of transgender that consists of both the medicalisation of transsexuality and the articulation of gender performances in gay liberation’s politics of difference. While the transgender subject is often idealised in queer discourses, this research positions the transsexual (one articulation of transgender) as normative: conservative gender politics, the ontological separation of gender and sexuality that echoes assimilationist gay and lesbian politics, an identity based on essentialist biology and psychiatric “wrong body” discourses, and the privileging of passing technologies such as hormone replacement therapies and sex reassignment surgery (themselves justified though the elaboration of wrong body discourses). Further to this, the public rendering of some transgender bodies as nonconformist results in violence and the need to explore alternate spaces of being, namely the internet which has the potential to build community, raise consciousness of gender and transgender oppression, but can also be used to legitimate transnormative (re)productions of the self. The analysis of two online communities of transgender individuals shows the most frequent users tended to be transsexual and privileging conservative gender politics and an essentialist medical etiology of transsexuality. Users were also typically more knowledgeable in passing biotechnologies than some medical professionals. In one community that are tailored to transgender individuals, subjects felt at ease to discuss a variety of topics and explore the complications of transgender. In the second community, tailored towards feminists in general, transgender issues were addressed in a more confrontational manner, often exposing the transphobic nature of some feminisms.</p>

Unqueering Transgender? A Queer Geography of Transnormativity in Two Online Communities

<p>This research implicates gender in the study of sexuality and suggests a genealogy of transgender that consists of both the medicalisation of transsexuality and the articulation of gender performances in gay liberation’s politics of difference. While the transgender subject is often idealised in queer discourses, this research positions the transsexual (one articulation of transgender) as normative: conservative gender politics, the ontological separation of gender and sexuality that echoes assimilationist gay and lesbian politics, an identity based on essentialist biology and psychiatric “wrong body” discourses, and the privileging of passing technologies such as hormone replacement therapies and sex reassignment surgery (themselves justified though the elaboration of wrong body discourses). Further to this, the public rendering of some transgender bodies as nonconformist results in violence and the need to explore alternate spaces of being, namely the internet which has the potential to build community, raise consciousness of gender and transgender oppression, but can also be used to legitimate transnormative (re)productions of the self. The analysis of two online communities of transgender individuals shows the most frequent users tended to be transsexual and privileging conservative gender politics and an essentialist medical etiology of transsexuality. Users were also typically more knowledgeable in passing biotechnologies than some medical professionals. In one community that are tailored to transgender individuals, subjects felt at ease to discuss a variety of topics and explore the complications of transgender. In the second community, tailored towards feminists in general, transgender issues were addressed in a more confrontational manner, often exposing the transphobic nature of some feminisms.</p>

Queer Masculinities: Gender Roles, the Abject and Bottomhood in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

This article analyzes queerness in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019), teasing out how the queer relationship at the core of the novel is framed. Ocean Vuong’s novel mobilizes queerness to straddle boundaries between cultures, gender roles and bodies. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous places the queer sexual orientations and gender performances of its protagonists, one Vietnamese American, one white American, in firm relation to the formative force of cultural contexts. Zooming in on two young boys’ queerness, the novel diversifies gender roles and makes room especially for non-normative masculinities. What is more, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous mobilizes the abject to showcase how queer sexual intimacy straddles boundaries between bodies and subjects. The article attends to language politics in connection with the novel’s coming-out performance, striated constructions of gender roles and their interplay with the abject and “bottomhood” (Nguyen 2014: 2) to come to grips with the novel’s diversification of queer masculinities.

Non-Normative Gender Performances Fat Video Game Characters

While video games unquestionably became more diverse and inclusive in the past decade, there is still a striking underrepresentation of characters whose bodies do not conform to the heterosexist concept of normativity, including those perceived as fat. My article begins with the introduction of fat studies as the interdisciplinary field concerned with the ways media construct fat people as unattractive, undesirable, and asexual. Next, it discusses how these prejudices are reflected in a medium in which fat has been historically coded as villainous and monstrous. The last part includes two case studies of positive fat representation: Ellie from the mainstream game Borderlands 2 (Gearbox Software 2012) and the eponymous character from the independent title Felix the Reaper (Kong Orange 2019). Their gender performances are coded equally as non-normative.

“Be the Dream Queen”: Gender Performativity, Femininity, and Transgender Sex Workers in China

An under-researched aspect of transgender sex workers in China pertains to their desires and expressions of femininity. Male-to-Female (MTF) transgender sex workers are a high-risk population prone to depression and stress regarding body image, intimate relationships marked by violence, and social stigma, rendering them vulnerable to hate crimes and discrimination. Ethnographic data from in-depth interviews with 49 MTF transgender sex workers indicate that sex, gender and feminine desire are mutable in the construction of self and subjectivity. This study uses the conceptual framework of gender performativity, that is, gender is performative and distinct from physical bodies and binary classifications. It is not only an individual’s normative gender expressions which are based on the sex assigned at birth, but it also reinforces the normative gender performances of the gender binary. This article argues that the 49 MTF transgender sex workers are embodiments of gendered performances, displaying femininity to ameliorate hate crimes and discrimination as well as reinforce the masculinity and sexuality of their clients and intimate sex partners. Embracing their femininity constitutes a self-help program, enabling them to build self-confidence and develop a positive self-image in the face of overwhelming social disapproval.

A Patchwork of Femininities: Working-Class Women’s Fluctuating Gender Performances in a Pakistani Market

Scholars have studied multiple femininities across different spaces by attributing variation to cultural/spatial contexts or in the same space by attributing variation to class/race positions. However, we do not yet know how women from the same cultural, class, and race locations may enact multiple femininities in the same context. Drawing on observations and interviews in a women-only bazaar in Pakistan, I show that multiple femininities can exist within the same space and individual. Working-class women workers in Meena Bazaar switched between performances of “pariah femininity” and “hegemonic femininity,” patching together contradictory femininities to secure different types of capitals at the organizational and personal levels. Pariah femininities enabled access to economic capital but typically decreased women’s symbolic capital, whereas hegemonic femininities generated symbolic capital but could block or enable access to economic capital. The concept of a patchwork performance of femininity explains how and why working-class women simultaneously embody idealized and stigmatized forms of femininity. Further, it captures how managerial regimes and personal struggles for class distinction interact to produce contradictory gender performances. By examining gender performances in the context of social stratification, this article explains the structural underpinnings of working-class women’s gendered struggles for respectability and work.

“A Woman Dressed like a Man”

Sapphic cabarets where women “dressed like men” figure among the most widely publicized symbols of lesbian desire. During the 1930s more than twenty such cabarets opened throughout the city of Paris. Many of these survived the war and operated into the 1960s and after. This article examines the unique figure of the entraîneuse, a female staff member paid to cross-dress who worked in these venues. It argues that this commercial figure played a special role in promoting a sexual schema—now called “butch/femme”—that is usually explained either as biologically determined or as an erotic choice. The gender performances fostered in the Sapphic cabaret enabled the formation of a female same-sex subculture while at the same time making what was then perceived as a contagious threat—the “mannish lesbian”—instantly recognizable and thus more easily subject to surveillance and control. Les images des « Cabarets Saphiques » où des femmes se travestissent en hommes figurent parmi les symboles les plus médiatisés du désir lesbien. Pendant les années trente, plus de vingt de ces cabarets ouvraient leurs portes partout à Paris. Beaucoup d'entre eux ont survécu à la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cet article examine la figure de l'entraîneuse, une employée souvent payée pour se travestir et qui travaillait dans ces lieux. Cette figure commerciale a joué un rôle particulier dans la promotion d'un schéma sexuel—aujourd'hui appelé « butch/femme »—que l'on explique d'habitude comme le produit du déterminisme biologique ou d'un choix personnel ou bien politique. Les représentations du genre encouragées par le Cabaret Saphique ont soutenu la formation d'une sous-culture lesbienne tout en rendant ce qui était alors perçu comme une menace contagieuse—la « lesbienne masculine »—immédiatement reconnaissable et donc plus facilement soumise à la surveillance et au contrôle.

A Patchwork of Femininities: Working-Class Women’s Fluctuating Gender Performances in a Pakistani Market

Scholars have studied multiple femininities across different spaces by attributing variation to cultural/spatial contexts. They have studied multiple femininities in the same space by attributing variation to class/race positions. However, we do not yet know how women from the same cultural, class, and race locations may enact multiple femininities in the same context. Drawing on observations and interviews in a women-only bazaar in Pakistan, I show that multiple femininities can exist within the same space and be enacted by the same individual. Working-class women workers in Meena Bazaar switched between performances of “pariah femininity” and “hegemonic femininity,” patching together contradictory femininities to secure different types of capital at the organizational and personal levels. Pariah femininities enabled access to economic capital but typically decreased women’s symbolic capital, whereas hegemonic femininities generated symbolic capital but could block or enable access to economic capital. The concept of a patchwork performance of femininity explains how and why working-class women simultaneously embody idealized and stigmatized forms of femininity. Furthermore, it captures how managerial regimes and personal struggles for class distinction interact to produce contradictory gender performances. By examining gender performances in the context of social stratification, I explain the structural underpinnings of working-class women’s gendered struggles for respectability and work.

Instagram and female celebrity: exploring gender performances through social visual semiotics, feminist theory and framing analysis

With the advent of social media, and specifically Instagram, individuals now have the ability to instantly communicate their moods, thoughts, and ideas through personally created visual messages. Instagram is designed to communicate ideas through self-generated digital images uploaded to the platform and network in real time from mobile devices, especially smartphones. This has had an impact on what is accepted as important media content, with fans, publics, and popular culture having a seemingly insatiable appetite for the personal details proffered by celebrities’ online profiles (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). These images are redefining our understanding of celebrity, reformatting fans’ expectations of reality, and helping to define emerging modes of subjectivity in a world dominated and increasingly defined by social media networks. This Masters of Professional Communication Major Research Project examines how social media networks are changing the way female celebrities portray themselves to the public and how these digital platforms are assisting in the cultivation of celebrity personas. Informed by social visual semiotics, postmodern feminist theory, and framing analysis this research project will analyze: 1) the Instagram accounts of three prominent female celebrities: Ellie Goulding, Kat Dennings, and Beyonce; 2) how these celebrities’ self-portrayal assists in their ability to create an accessible persona for their fans; and 3) what these prominent female celebrities’ social media performances reveal about female empowerment and self-representation in our social media saturated era.