Beyond boundaries: Navigating fluidity, power dynamics, and erasure in contemporary lesbian identities (2025)

Just Between Us Girls: Discursive Spaces from America's First Gay Magazine to the World's Last Website for Queer Women, 1947-2019

2019

Dissertation supervised by Dr. James P. Purdy Just Between Us Girls charts the diffusion of queer theory outside of the academy, using convergence theory to examine communication technologies like periodicals and the Web to argue for a conception of queer theory that includes discourse between queer women about queerness. In making this argument, this project creates a lineage of discursive spaces by, for, and about queer women, putting content from these spaces in conversation with canonical queer theorists like Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, and Jack Halberstam. Analyzing and contextualizing discursive spaces like Vice Versa (1947-1948), The Ladder (1956-1972), The Furies (1972-1973), AfterEllen, and Autostraddle demonstrates not only that queer women have depended on communication technologies for identity and community formation long before the Web but also that queer women v have historically invested in and theorized concepts significant to queer theory, like coming out, the relationship between gender and sexuality, and heteronormativity. vi DEDICATION For those who did and those who would have. To James and Doris Matthews. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Every idea, every project has a community behind it, and Just Between Us Girls is no exception. This project would not have been possible without the support and guidance of my director, Dr. James P. Purdy, whose careful scholarship and intellectual openness have demonstrated the type of scholar and teacher I'd like to be. Thank you as well to Dr. Judy Suh and Dr. Kara Keeling for their time and feedback on this project. My gratitude also goes to the Duquesne English Department for the 2018-2019 Dissertation Fellowship and for the Department's financial support during my visit to the UCLA archives; the opportunity to focus on my scholarship has been invaluable. I am grateful to my students for having the courage to learn and for continuing to remind me of the classroom's potential. And, most of all, to my brilliant wife, Rebekah Lynn, whose insights, joy, and passion have enriched my project and my life beyond words. viii

Towards trans-feminist coalitions in the post-Yugoslav space: Building feminist radical solidarities

European Journal of Women's Studies

The conflict between trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) has recently erupted in the post-Yugoslav space, adding to the urgency of embracing trans-feminism. In order to forge the ground for such a feminist orientation, this paper interweaves two theoretical reflections: the subject of feminism, and the historical lesbian experience of becoming ‘included’ with/in it. Beginning with the idea that, similarly to trans, it also took time and effort for lesbianity (see discussion on this concept in the article) to be recognised as a ‘legitimate’ subject of feminist emancipation, I extend Wittig's negation of lesbian womanhood to trans women. With this in mind, I argue that feminist radical solidarity requires an open-ended, liminal conception of gender. I then draw upon nine interviews with predominantly cis-gender lesbian activists from the post-Yugoslav space to explore the ways in which they endeavoured to bring about feminist radical solidarity in thei...

'An abundance of cakes': Assigned female at birth queer joy and queer ethics across generations

Sexualities

This paper charts how, in interviewing across generations of assigned female at birth (AFAB) queers in 'Australia' about their experiences of lateral violence in LGBTQ+ communities, we found dominant narratives of joy, solidarity and empathy across differences, generations and intersections that demonstrate the ongoing world-making inherent to queer communities. We chart the future-oriented, more utopian themes that came out, in particular around queer (as opposed to LGB) communities and the positive ethics and politics that emerge from and are forged in them.

Queering Family Violence: Introduction to Queer Family Violence Studies

Journal of family violence, 2024

Exploring TERFnesses

DiGeSt - Journal of diversity and gender studies, 2023

"A View on Queer and Feminism in Italy: Conflicts and Alliances". Gender/sexuality/Italy 6 (2019)

Gender/sexuality/Italy 6, 2019

This article explores some aspects of the relationship between feminism and queer in Italy today. There are significant areas where these two discursive and political paradigms have established and continue to establish productive, mutually reinforcing conversations and alliances. In other contexts, however, a sheer tension has emerged between the two, rooted in diverging views of the pivotal notion of "sexual difference." The article sets out to investigate and compare queer and feminist approaches to difference, reflecting critically on a number of scholarly, newspaper and blog articles that inform the current queer-feminist debate in Italy. On the one hand, it asks whether queer theory and activism have been misrepresented in these contexts, and how queer studies have responded to the critiques that have been addressed to queer theory and political practice. On the other hand, it points out how queer discourses have also partly misconstrued the positions and motivations of "sexual difference" feminism, at times relying on a form of linear temporality whereby queer fluidity would replace an "outdated" feminism. The article then looks at instances where a fruitful relationship between queer and feminism is established in academia and activism, especially in the recent development of transfeminism and the national network of Non una di meno.

Lesbian Activism in Portugal: Facts, Experiences, and Critical Reflections

2014

Facts, Experiences, and Critical Reflections THE PERSONAL IS political, and this critical reflection on Portuguese lesbian activism is deeply rooted in my personal experiences. I have been an active member of Clube Safo, the only nationwide lesbian association in Portugal, and I am a founding member of the LES (Discussion Group on Lesbians Issues). Besides activism, my academic research is also intrinsically connected to lesbian issues; my PhD thesis explored the potentialities of collaborative web mapping to foster lesbian visibility in public spaces. Academic practices intersect power, knowledge, and subjectivity. Activism is not an isolated practice in certain spaces and moments of life; it is a continuum in the diverse life contexts and is embedded in academic activity (Ruddick 2004). The boundaries between academia and activism are diffuse; there are overlaps between being an activist and an academic, between research practices and political actions (Silva and Ferreira 2011). This article presents a critical reading of lesbian activism in Portugal, based on publications, archives, semi-structured interviews, and online debates with people inside the LGBT movement, as well as my personal experience as a lesbian activist. The main questions addressed are: What kind of lesbian activism is there in Portugal? How is it inscribed in the social landscape of the LGBT activism 1 and the feminist movement? Which are its main alliances, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Is

Global South Perspectives on Stonewall after 50 Years, Part II—Brazilian Stonewalls: Radical Politics and Lesbian Activism

Contexto Internacional

The riots against a New York City police raid at the Stonewall Inn bar in June, 1969, are often identified as having sparked the movement for LGBT rights, and the commemoration of the riots one year later in June, 1970, inaugurated a series of annual LGBT Pride events that continues to this day worldwide. In this two-part Forum, we reflect on the contradictory effects of Stonewall’s international legacy. In this second part of the Forum, Ferreira and Belmont investigate the ways in which ‘Stonewall’ has been appropriated specifically in Brazil, both during the civil-military dictatorship and in the current fraught political moment. Belmont locates current mismatches between LGBT and queer struggles in Brazil by juxtaposing more mainstream visions of LGBT politics with the margins they create, especially the marginalization of travestis. Belmont exposes the way that dominant LGBT discourse and practices reinforce the continuous violence over dissident bodies and proposes that we look...

Conducting research within the acronym: Problematizing LGBTIQ+ research in psychology

Journal of Social Issues, 2024

LGBTIQ+ research and activism and using examples from intersex studies, intersectionality, and political actions, we explore tensions between the collective identities that make up the LGBTIQ+ acronym. We further offer suggestions for reimagining LGBTIQ+ research, advocating for community-driven approaches that respect the situated knowledge of LGBTIQ+ individuals, and use adaptable and inclusive research practices that bridge academia and activism that aim to improve the lives of the marginalized.

Inescapable Essentialism: Bisexually-Identified Women's Strategies in the Late 80s and Early 90s

thirdspace: a journal of feminist theory & culture, 2002

Essentialism is both challenged and incorporated within sexually marginalized groups and politics.