Whatever. A Transdisciplinary Journal of Queer Theories and Studies

ARCHIVIEROTICA

Luca Cavallin — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Starting from a small amateur archive of erotic images collected over time by an Italian homosexual man from the fetish world, referred to as E., a theoretical and visual research has been developed that covers aspects of fetish and the associated visual culture. ARCHIVIEROTICA investigates this independent archive by combining text and graphic reworking, accompanying each paragraph with a selection of images from the said collection, repurposed as a new source to be reactivated. By exposing the archive, this article aims to demonstrate how a spontaneous practice conceals a subversive force that clashes with the power-institution it mimics. The paragraph entitled FETISH will define this concept and locate the chronological references found in the archive, while the second, SENSITIVITY, will navigate between analogue, digital, and the synaesthetic image that depicts the fetish; the following, COMMUNITY, starts from a conversation with E. and considers the image-for-attracting and the precarious digital archiving modes; the fourth paragraph, PUBLIC, will deal with the digital censorship of sexuality and (queer) rage that can be reclaimed.

A dissident archive: emergence and dissemination of sexual dissidence in Chilean student movement between 2008 and 2018

Sergio Fiedler, Cristeva Cabello — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The purpose of the article is to carry out a historical and political reconstruction of sexual dissidence in student spaces through an exploratory review of testimonies and scattered memories produced by organizations, groups and active in Chile during the period of mayor student revolts between 2008 and 2018 in. Conceptually, it seeks to present a notion of sexual dissent that is not only distinct from the politics of sexual diversity by the official organizations of the LGTBI+ movement, but also allows for the elaboration of a new perspective to understand queerness/cuirness and its relationship with the process of social mobilization in the country from a Latin American perspective. The originality of the study consists in queerizing the recent history of the Chilean student movement through a periodization of counter-hegemonic actions, specifically performances, assemblies and occupations. It is concluded that the practices of sexual dissent and activism understand social movements as a direct political result of encounters and interaction between bodies and affections and whose street performativity questions the forms of heteropatriarchal political action in the context of neoliberalism in Chile.

A discursive approach to hate speech: an analysis of transgendered Facebook posts

María Gabriela Mazzuchino — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This exploratory work, framed in a broader investigation on identities, violence and hate speech (HS) in social networks, investigates the construction of hate within trans-exclusionary discourse displayed on Facebook by a group of radical feminists, sepecifically targeting a trans athlete. Contrary to previous works that limit HS to the clean presence of certain words and the call to kill the vulnerable, the analysis provides linguistic and semiotic evidence revealing how hate permeates online discourses to varying degrees. It highlights that hate is not merely an individual passion, but a social construction echoing shares ideas and emotions. Moreover, it warns that hate is not always overtly said, but suggested by various linguistic and semiotic means. Within the framework of the approval of the Spanish “Trans Law”, the examined comments create a cohesive front of homogeneous thought, rooted in a conservative, essentialist, biological, and fixed conception of “being a woman”, which denigrates (even with verbal resources typical of the misogynistic discourse) trans women, whom they describe as a threat or an enemy: they are non-women, animals, insects and even monsters.

The merits of a masculine mother

Nicoletta Mandolini — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Nicoz Balboa is an Italian artist based in France. In his graphic novel, Play wih fire, Balboa undisclosed his queer sexual orientation and gender identity by portraying himself as a lesbian woman in the first part of the book and as a non-binary subject ready to undertake an FtoM gender transition in the second. The artist’s autobiographical effort to communicate the troubles of gender dysphoria and the socio-relational issues that generally accompany it are further complicated by the representation of the author/narrator/protagonist’s role as mother. The article aims at reading Play with fire, Born to lose (2017), and his last work Transformer and the connected production of vignettes Balboa posts on his Instagram page through the lens of theories on motherhood and queer motherhood that insist on the political value of making non-heterocisnormative parenting visible. Coupling this theoretical framework with a methodology that employs the tools of comics semiotics, the study argues that Balboa’s graphic narratives contribute to partially de-essentialize motherhood by visually challenging its association with femininity. At the same time, the author’s self-representation as a masculine mother fruitfully problematizes (trans)gender identity using a portrayal that explicitly criticizes the rhetoric of the “wrong body” and questions gender binarism.