In July 2021, we held our 10th Annual Conference after a two year pandemic hiatus. We were joined by friends from universities in Budapest, Hungary, exploring a diverse range of topics from queer-baiting in Marvel films to bisexuality and Christian faith, to prostitution in Hungary.
Panel One
Global Freedom & Justice
Shamed Citizens: Lived Experiences of Mongolian Queers in Media -
Otgonbaatar Tsedendemberel
Discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) is pervasive in Mongolian legal, institutional, as well as cultural and social environments. The Being LGBTI in Asia Report states that discrimination in the workplace is one of the most serious and frequent human rights violations. Other areas are education, health, family affairs and media. This also explains why public opinions and attitudes lead to widespread discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) Mongolians, evidenced by ongoing populist and hate speech, ridicule and shaming on traditional and social media, and on the streets. Drawing on Glenn’s “rhetoric silence” (2004) and Gould’s affect and “ambivalence about self and society” (2010), I would argue that the state, media, public shaming and silencing of the queers through dominant and populist discourses make them not only invisible, but reveal their subordination at a cognitive level. I will use Foucault’s discourse analysis to investigate and explore media.
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Otgonbaatar Tsedendemberel is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Corvinus University of Budapest. He is a former Advocacy Program Manager (2009-2011) and Executive Director of the LGBT Center of Mongolia (2011-2014), where he helped lead the country’s LGBTIQ rights movement.
Women’s activism and participation during transition to democracy in Tunisia (2011-2014) - Nawel Ghali
Freshly recovered from a long period of tyranny and repression, women’s activism and participation during the revolution in Tunisia reflect their willingness to be more active in the political scene and in public sphere. During a period characterized by ambivalence and fragility (2011-2014), women have participated in the deconstruction of the state-imposed “politics from above” and have contributed to the construction of the establishment of “politics from below”. Many scholars affirmed and assured women’s intensive activism and participation during and in post-revolution, their stand takes on a central importance and incites to raise the following questions: What is the role played by the civil society, mainly women’s organization to protect women’s rights during the democratic transition? Into what extent Tunisian women were active in the political scene? What are the main factors that impede women from a better representation in the political sphere? To approach the research questions, narrative interviews were conducted with three women activists to analyse their narrative experiences, in addition to two semi-structured interviews with two men activists to analyse their opinion about women’s participation and activism in post -revolution. Categories and themes coded from the interviews are analysed from a feminist standpoint theory perspective based on Sandra Harding’s thoughts to see the ‘behind’ and ‘beneath’ of the power practices exercised on them and Iris Marion Young’s ideas about representation and classification of levels of activity to shed light on several aspects of their activism and participation. Before this section, a general background about feminism and movement development are explained and analysed.
Key words: Women, activism, participation, Tunisia, post-revolution
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Nawel Ghali is a PhD student in Philosophy of Sociology at Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hungary. Her Master’s thesis entitled “The status of women within the complexity of the Tunisian society in post-revolution”. She is currently continuing her doctoral dissertation entitled “Women question in transition: political discourse in post-revolution Tunisia (2011-2014).
The foster care girls: female under reproduction controlling policy in China - Dandan Wu
China has released the Third child policy on 31 May 2021. Except for discussion in China population controlling and women reproductive rights of China, I noticed that there are a group of ‘invisible’ people lack of research, and they need to be visible. They were born ‘out of plan,’ and fostered by multiple relatives, grew up ‘without parents’ and living nomadically. They were hidden and illegally recorded in the official government statistics because they were born ‘out of the plan.’ Meiyue Zhang (2021) illustrated how they lived during the past 30 years by storytelling. Unfortunately, there are limited literatures on them either in western academia or Chinese research academia. Kay Ann Johnson (2016) addressed stories of millions and more Chinese children ‘hidden’ in China and more than 100,000 children were adopted overseas under the context of one child policy. She provided a heart-wrenching chronical record of this chapter of the Chinese history and those abandoned children who away from China to overseas. Based on her idea, this essay aims to illustrate those fostered ‘hidden’ girls in China. I will refer this report to Meiyue Zhang (2021) and it will be separated to two main parts. Firstly, what is foster care ‘hidden’ girls will be discussed under the context of children controlling policy in China, including how they grew up and what they feel about ‘family’; secondly, I would like to offer an idea that these foster care girls born from 1980 to 2010 might be related to the special misogyny culture from Confucian son-preference.
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Dandan Wu, study at MRes Sexuality and Gender Studies at the University of Birmingham, research is mainly focusing on human rights in minority sexuality women’s reproductive rights and activating in Metoo movement and feminism movement in China.
Hungarian women in prostitution between Hungary and Belgium – circumstances of prostitution in the Red Light District of Ghent, existing social policies and the possibilities of solidarity - Blanka Bolonyai
The aim of the research is to describe the circumstances of prostitution, the current system of social policies, and the possibilities of solidarity in the case of Hungarian women who are in prostitution in the Red Light District of Ghent, Belgium. In a literature review, I show how prostitution is interpreted differently by (feminist) theorists and movements, as „sex work” or violence against women in a global capitalist economy. Based on the narratives of women in prostitution, their strategies and discourses on their own situation, and on the provided laws and social policies in the current system, will be described. Then I take a look at the current social policy practices of Belgium, Hungary and the EU, in a policy analysis. After that, based on semi-structured interviews with women in prostitution, social workers, activists, and policymakers I attempt to make the dynamics of the current social-political system visible in a centrum-periphery perspective. Finally, I also ask the question what does solidarity mean for the different actors involved in prostitution, on a discursive level, and in their practices. In my presentation, I will shed light on the differences and dynamics between the Belgian and the Hungarian social policy systems and on the (feminist) voices and discourses in the current prostitution debate.
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I’m Blanka Bolonyai, doctoral student at the Social Policy Programme of ELTE University of Budapest. I studied Gender and Diversity at the University of Ghent, Belgium (MA). From 2017 to 2020 I was a social worker in the Red Light District of Ghent.
Panel Two
Identity & Selfhood
Positionality in the study of Christian faith and bisexuality: placing oneself when you’re questioning both - Harriet McInerney
Holding insider status in qualitative study produces various benefits for the researcher. Building trust with your participants and allowing them to see you as ‘on their side’ can make space for deeper, more fruitful discussion, especially in contexts where participants may choose to be wary, and closed off. It should always be questioned, however, if an insider can remain totally rigorous and critical, without letting their personal thoughts and emotions affect the data. When asking participants to discuss such intricate areas of their lives, it could be argued both ways that participants would prefer an inside researcher, or an outsider, someone with a lack of bias and feeling towards the issues raised. But before participants can make this decision, the researcher themselves must decide where they fall. How can this be done when the researcher is questioning both aspects of the research within themselves?
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Harriet is a first-year PhD researcher in the Department of Theology and Religion. Her research focuses on the negative representation of the bisexual community in the Church of England, with an aim to eradicate stigma and create a voice for this underrepresented community.
Breaking Boundaries and the Binary: Re- imagining hegemonic Masculinity in a globalizing space - Natalie Connor
This paper draws on the theories on hegemonic masculinity proposed by Connell, Aslop, Beaseley and others to highlight the ways in which the theory of hegemonic masculinity could be altered in order to account for a contemporary society where globalisation plays a key part in gender roles. I will emphasise the need to account for race and class when analysing masculine identities and how they impact women and other marginalised groups. Indeed, this is particularly relevant to third world countries and developing countries such as South Africa, where the evolution of the main people in power, often hegemonic males, influences the type of nations these countries are evolving into in the 21st century. Moreover, I will consider how the very theory itself cannot always be applied in settings where countries, western and non- western, are often still divided by class and the significance of race has very different meanings depending on the context. This can be highlighted by analysing black masculinity in the US and the UK. Later, this paper will endeavour to draw on critics such as Bell Hooks and Anne McClintock, using black and post- colonial feminism as a way of enlightening hegemonic masculinity theory and the need to combine efforts for equality of people of colour, women, homosexuals and other marginalised groups.
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I am a part-time tutor and student enrolled on the MRes in Sexuality and Gender Studies at UoB. I endeavour to de-colonise academic spaces and my current research explores cinematic representations of sexuality and gender in the post- colonial and Marxist states of Cuba and Mozambique.
Lesbian Identity Construction - Boglárka Tóth
There are many relevant factors that influence how one’s identity is constructed. In my research, I aimed to find out what exactly are these relevant factors for Hungarian lesbians to create their unique lesbian identities.
I recorded 4 semi-structured interviews with lesbians between the ages 39 to 70, all recruited trough the Hungarian lesbian NGO Labrisz, to find out what were the important and not so important experiences in shaping a lesbian identity, if such a thing even exists. For analytic purposes, I mainly used the framework of identity construction provided by McCarn and Fassinger’s paper from 1996, which highlights a dual-path of lesbian identity construction, including four steps, both as an individual and as a member of the lesbian group. These steps are the following: Awareness, Exploration, Deepening/Commitment, and Internalization/Synthesis. I found this model very useful, since it highlighted the importance of both the personal identity formation and the group membership aspect. It is also important to note, that the lesbian identity is usually only a single marker among many which consists of each individual’s overall personal identity.
In short, the research found that while there are some shared experiences by lesbians, there are very few things that are common among all lesbians. What was mainly important is their relationship towards religion, and whether or not they were able to find a lesbian social group to open up in, or how familiar they were with the concept in the first place.
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I’m currently a PhD student at the Eötvös Lóránd University of Science, in the Sociology Doctoral School. My current research focuses on Women’s success and failure. I have a master’s in gender studies, and I wrote my master’s thesis about Lesbian Identity Construction.
Non-binary experiences of language: ‘queer to my cis friends’ - Rai Furniss-Greasley
Non-binary people sit outside of the normative identities of male/female, man/woman, and often find themselves at a linguistic crossroads. Trying to find the right words to describe oneself is difficult enough to the queer community and non-binary people have the added stress of coming up against explanatory gaps. These are when the right word just does not exist; at least, not yet. When a new word is created to fill a gap, this is a neologism.
Within this paper I will introduce my research project looking into the impact of explanatory gaps and neologisms on non-binary people seeking authentic self-description. From a survey conducted early in 2021, I will show a willingness to use new words but a reticence to create them from the non-binary respondents along with other preliminary findings.
I will highlight the specific finding that speaks to non-binary people’s use of two sets of language that is dependent on their audience’s queerness, or lack thereof. This sentiment of “queer to my cis friends” shows non-binary folk using more generic umbrella terms when speaking to non-queer, or non-trans, audiences. An illuminating finding that provokes further questioning, which I will discuss in brief toward the end of this paper.
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Rai is a part-time student on the MRes Sexuality & Gender Studies programme at the University of Birmingham. Xyr research project focusses on non-binary experiences of language and xe hopes to pursue this further with a PhD in the near future. Rai lives with their partner and two cats.
Panel Three
Literary & Cultural Representations I
The Representation of fallen women in Pre-Raphaelite art - Sara Abutaleb
The situation of Victorian women was not easy, they faced hardships and limitations. Women considered either a proper wife and mother, or a fallen woman - and consequently an outcast of society. According to the Victorians, women and men belonged to separate spheres. Proper women were expected to fulfil certain roles inside the household (‘angels in the house’), whereas men had totally different roles outside it This paper studies the representation of fallen women in Pre-Raphaelite art, concentrating on the inequality between the two sexes, asking how it affected women’s lives at that time. The focus will be on paintings depicting prostitution: John Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s Thoughts of the Past (1859). The study aims to examine if visual art and literature could change the society perspective towards the Victorian fallen women back then and to reveal the painters’ attitude towards fallen women and prostitution.
Keywords: Victorian women, inequality, society, prostitution, pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood.
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Sara Abutaleb is from Jordan and is a first year PhD student at the University of Eötvös Loránd Budapest, social sciences faculty of sociology. My interest is in the representation of women in different cultures, my field of research is the representation of Victorian women in art and literature.
Kuir politics and the Virgenes de la Puerta - Vanesa Medina Godoy
In the photographic series Vírgenes de la Puerta, collaborators Juan José Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek present trans women from Peru as cultural icons by using the iconography of colonial religious painting and other traditional cultural practices. The project responds to the isolation of the trans community from Peruvian society, using the country’s cultural heritage to craft a distinctly Peruvian look and symbolically reincorporate trans women into Peruvian culture and history. Through this intersection of queer and national/cultural identities, Vírgenes de la Puerta places itself within wider discussions on the global circulation of queer theory and the way local cultures and histories affect the experience of gender and sexuality. In this context, the concept of kuir becomes an alternative to queer politics that centres a mestiza and indigenous perspective in Latin America. In this paper, I take a deeper look at the kuir politics at play in the representation of trans women in Vírgenes de la Puerta. Going beyond a mere referencing of Peruvian culture, the photographs’ use of national themes and motifs can be seen as a critical tool for the articulation of a sense of queerness that responds to the complexities of its specific context. In this way, Vírgenes de la Puerta reappropriates national cultural narratives as the means to imagine kuir futures. As such, this paper makes the case for kuir as a decolonial approach that allows for a more complex exploration of the ways queer and cultural identities come together in Vírgenes de la Puerta.
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Vanesa Medina Godoy is a postgraduate research student at the University of Birmingham working towards an MRes in History of Art. My research focuses on the encounters of gender, sexual, racial and cultural identities in contemporary global art. My current project examines the use of Andean themes and motifs in representations of trans women from Peru.
Music as Survival: The Persecution of Singing Slave Women in the Early Islamicate - Waseelah Smedley
Music in Islamic law is often criticised because of its association with impious practice. However, scholarship neglects to discuss the foundations of these debates where music was closely associated with the musical institution of singing slave women, the qiyān. As slaves, the qiyān were women who had limited agency and had little choice but to sing profane music and be concubines. Despite this lack of agency being publicly acknowledged, in the 8th century, sources show how qiyān were subject to the censure of pietists and tormented with state violence. Yet, their owners remained untouched. This paper therefore suggests that this persecution was only partly related to music, but more likely used symbolically to indirectly criticise the piety of their owners, and the qiyān’s interactions with politics and the changing power of the caliphate.
The nature of the persecution of musicians and singing women changed between the 8th and 10th centuries, moving from state violence to vigilantism, as well as becoming a topic in popular epistles. Despite the caliphate’s efforts to retain it, religious authority migrated to scholars. Further, qiyān became prized possessions and those purchased by the caliph were able to establish themselves as authorities in the harem, some qiyān becoming queens, manipulating political power. Therefore, the censure of the qiyān is not only a criticism of impious practice, but also the elite whose behaviour with qiyān threatened an already fragile hold on power and legitimacy.
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Waseelah is a masters student in Global History, exploring intersections of religion, gender and music. As a musician, she is active in the British Muslim arts community and writes to refute ahistorical and misogynistic narratives around music in Islam, and encourage music making in minority groups.
Panel Four
Literary & Cultural Representations II
Superqueeroes: MCU’s queerbaiting in the Captain America and Avengers movies
This paper aims to reflect upon the alleged practices of queerbaiting in Marvel Studios’ MCU. I will focus on the relationship between Bucky Burnes and Steve Rogers (as well known as Stucky), for the numerous accusations of queerbaiting that has prompted among the fans. I will start by analysing the theories surrounding the concept of queerbaiting, as well as its theoretical complexity. Then, I will build on the work of Eve Ng, who provides a model by which analyse queerbaiting focusing on texts, subtexts and paratexts. I will apply the theory of Ng and study different Marvel’s movies with the aim of exploring how queerbaiting practices and queer representation are being managed in one of the most successful franchises of all time.
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Fernando Castellano-Bañuls is graduated in English Studies at the University of Valencia and is studying a MA in Comparative Literature and Critical Studies at the University of Birmingham. He is currently employed at Aberystwyth University as a language instructor. His academic interests include Hispanic and Anglophone popular culture, queer and gender studies, as well as its intersections.
Queer interspecies: dismantling borders and dualisms in the Dominican Republic - Jess White
Speculative literature is often written from places of struggle and is born of a fight for equality and visibility. This genre facilitates the demonstration of the ways in which the past can be rewritten through a future lens. Although the subject of little scholarship within this field, the Dominican Republic is an inherently fruitful context and makes a vital contribution to discussions on race, gender and sexuality within the realms of the speculative. This paper will examine queer politics and the porous boundaries of gender and sexuality and oppression rooted in hierarchies of gender, race and class in La Mucama de Omincunlé, a novel by multidisciplinary artist and writer, Rita Indiana. It will trouble the notion of the binary and traverse dualisms of gender and sexual identities, establishing the ways in which this work creates a space with borders porous enough to allow for the coexistence of the Queer, Black, Brown and the Other within this context. Based on capitalism, colonialism and slavery, the Dominican Republic is a vital backdrop for discussions of race and LGBTQIA+ identities, as these questions are still very much taboo. This paper explores explore this novel in the context of Afro-spirituality and its significance within discussions of queerness and gender, in particular transgender bodies and androgynous, non-binary figures.
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Jess White is a translator and PhD student in Hispanic Studies. They research disruptions of dominant discourses of identity in Africanfuturism, Afro-Latinx futurism and Cyborg identities to create, reclaim and own space that is capacious and transformative for new identities and possibilities, amplifying voices otherwise erased by hegemonic discourse.
Nobody Dies at the End: The Intersection of Race, Sexuality and Class in Rainbow Milk (2020) and Real Life (2020) - Andy Irwin
This paper explores Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk (RM) and Brandon Taylor’s Real Life (RL), two debut novels by Black gay authors published in 2020 centring Black gay protagonists. There are interesting elements of symmetry, both novels explore themes relating to race and racism, homosexuality and homophobia, growing up in, and leaving behind, a working-class family. There are also powerful elements of difference between the two novels which make for a rich and fruitful analysis. RM’s Jesse grows up with his Jehovah’s Witness family in Wolverhampton, a post-industrial midland town in England before running away to London to escape their homophobia and neglect. In RL, Wallace grows up in rural Alabama in the United States before moving to an unnamed midwestern city to attend graduate school, also moving away from a neglectful mother, an inadequate father, and a history of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of both men and boys. This research is adapted from a longer paper that is among the first to critically analyse these texts. My focus is primarily an analysis of the texts themselves, however I do also briefly address broader themes in Black gay writing and the critical scholarship of that field. In this revised paper, I focus primarily on the representation of lived experiences of racial microaggressions in both texts, with a brief commentary on the presence (or not) of ‘queer optimism’ (Snediker, 2006) in each text.
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Andy is studying for an MRes Sexuality and Gender Studies at the University of Birmingham. He has research interests in contemporary anglophone fiction from the 1980s onwards, fantasy fiction, and in representations of queerness and masculinity within these types of fiction. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.