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In this article, I consider a selection of photographs of a man of color from a luxury book of male nudes, Images (1982), aimed at white gay men and published in South Africa by Alternative Books (AB) in the late apartheid period. Given the exclusive association of assimilable homosexuality with whiteness in the national gay press and other homoerotic commodities available in South Africa at the same historical juncture, I propose that these photographs, which interrupted longstanding, racist homoerotic iconographies, elicited experiences of ambivalence (and thus critical reflection) amongst their historical audiences. To this end, I analyze the editorial and commercial content of the newspapers Link/Skakel and Exit for the period that AB was active (1981–1991), anticipating an overlap of readership between these papers and the publisher's titles. More precisely, I discuss the prevalence of the figure of the "good homosexual" and representations of classical (that is, white) male beauty in these papers to plot how apartheid logic was broadly reproduced (and same-sex desire disciplined according to such dictates) in mainstream South African gay movements, institutions, and print cultures during this time, but, notably, not in Images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gay or queer relationships in Zimbabwe remain a site of discursive contestation. The rise in human rights advocacy has re/located the subject within the human rights premise, shifting the discussions away but not disconnected from the religious, political and cultural representations. This paper examined the societal constructions and attitudes toward homosexuality by analyzing Twitter exchanges that followed the disclosure on the 21st of September 2018, by a teacher (Neal Hovelmeier) of St John's College in Zimbabwe, that he was gay. The disclosure prompted substantial online and offline debates on gay and queer relationships (what is popularly known as homosexuality in Zimbabwe) and produced two discursive divisions. The first division was against homosexuality and galvanized support across cultural, political, traditional, religious and social constructions. Though less popular, the other division found support from within the gay or queer community itself, the global North diplomatic missions resident in Zimbabwe, liberal left-leaning and some civil society organizations. The former's key feature is societal resistance to homosexuality which is constructed by way of inferences to Christianity and traditional belief systems about binary gender and sex categories and sexual relations. The latter has constructed homosexuality from the premise of human rights, acceptance and tolerance.

This paper stems from the hypothesis that there are various key factors rooted in economic, political, and social grounds which actively influence and determine the adoption and evolution of LGBT+ rights in the legal framework of any country. The goal of this research is to analyze these factors and understand how they channel the LGBT+ legislation in our present world. Assuming there is an asymmetry in this application and by extension in LGBT+ individuals’ human rights, which are often ignored if not deprived in many parts of the world, this study seeks to understand the reasons behind that asymmetry. Based on a sample of 127 countries, a correlation analysis and a Panel data model were developed to analyze the real impact of these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) are integral to and manifest in LGBTIQ rights including homosexuality and same-sex marriage. International law promotes these rights and prohibits discrimination on these grounds. Many western countries endorse these rights and prohibitions in parliamentary legislation or judicial fiat. In comparison with all other jurisdictions worldwide, and within the African sub-region, only South Africa specifically prohibits unfair direct or indirect discrimination based on "sexual orientation" in its national constitution. This paper explores African approach to SOGI and LGBTIQ rights including homosexuality and same-sex marriage. It argues that despite the threat of homocapitalism, prevalent Afrocentrism and religions reject these form of "new rights" for being immoral, ungodly, unnatural and un-African, thereby underlining the limits of human rights in the sub-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Government appointed a departmental committee to review anti-homosexuality laws in 1954 following a marked increase in the number of arrests for homosexuality after World War II. The committee invited the British Medical Association (BMA) and other institutions to provide scientific and medical evidence relating to homosexuality. In 1954, the BMA established the Committee on Homosexuality and Prostitution to present its view on how the law impacted upon homosexuals and society. This paper analyses the BMA's attitudes to homosexuality by examining its submission to the Departmental Committee. Whilst the BMA supported implicitly the decriminalization of certain homosexual acts, it remained strongly opposed to homosexuality from a moral perspective and insisted that it was an illness. It is concluded that the BMA's submission was driven primarily by a desire to control the "unnatural deviant" behavior of homosexuals and to protect society from that behavior rather than to protect homosexuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools are places where youth do work on the construction of their sexual identities which is intimately connected with issues around gender. Using one-on-one in-depth interviews, this article addresses how queer youth navigate dominant understandings of gender and sexuality in the context of their identity and practice. Cognizant of how gender remains a significant force in organizing social relations in schools, the youth parody and abnormalize heteronormativity calling into question the fragility of hegemonic heterosexuality. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that despite evidence that associates schooling with social exclusion, the queer youth's accounts highlight, strikingly, that queer identity and inclusion are not necessarily separate storylines. Offering an alternative view of the schooling experiences of queer youth, the paper motivates that within exclusion, in a matter of speaking with all its unduly assemblages, is inclusion.

Recent discussions of gay male bottom identity have been cautious about positioning bottoms in relation to a gendered identity, and thereby colluding with stereotypes about gay bottoms being effeminate and effeminate gays being bottoms. In wider LGBTQ media in Europe and North America there is an effort to destigmatize effeminate gay men in a dating culture that privileges "masc4masc." While this is welcome, it obscures the existence of effeminate gay bottom fantasies that are gender stratified and which insist on a connection between sex role preference, sex object choice, and gender presentation. This paper analyses sexual fantasy narratives on the social media platform, Tumblr, and interrogates a deep structure of gender-stratified male androphilia that finds thematic similarities in non-Western settings, where "egalitarian" or Western "gay" expressions of male same-sex unions compete with traditional "heterogender" forms. It concludes by reaffirming the need to consider gender positionality among gay bottoms' narratives in Western contexts, and for further research on Western gay men to recognize the heterogeneity of gay identities and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Non-religious have been growing in numbers in the United States over the past decade. Yet even with their now large numbers we know little about the differences between various versions of non-religious affiliation. Using 2014 survey data from the Public Religion Research Institute this paper examines the attitudes toward same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption of the non-religious. Two non-religious groups are examined Non-theists (atheists and agnostics) and the Religiously Disengaged (non-religious but not atheist or agnostic). Our hypotheses ask if Non-theists are more likely to support same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption than the Religiously Disengaged. The hypotheses are tested across regression models that account for lingering religiosity, religious upbringing, and knowing a homosexual person. The data indicate that there are significant differences between Non-theists and the Religiously Disengaged across all models, with Non-theists being more likely to support same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption than the Religiously Disengaged.

This analysis uses trial records from the 1860s to explore a same-sex male relationship that devolved into panic and murder. The paper's goal is to better understand how, during the middle of the nineteenth century, men who had sexual feeling for other men were forced into spaces that were qualitatively different than our current understanding of "the closet." The paper concludes that what we now call "coming out" was not an option during this era. In telling the story of how Samuel Andrews killed his best friend, Cornelius Holmes, this paper shows that the categories ordinarily presented as symmetrical binary oppositions in contemporary times-homo/heterosexual, closeted/out-did not work for Andrews and Holmes, and probably did not and could not have worked for others living under similar conditions.

In March of 2017, the Russian LGBT Network received their first reports of police violence against individuals in Chechnya because of their perceived sexual orientation. In the following months, news spread of a campaign of forced disappearances and torture specifically targeting suspected homosexual men. Between December, 2018 and February, 2019, police carried out another wave of unlawful detentions of men on the basis of their sexual orientation. The reports of unlawful detentions and extrajudicial killings of queer men may seem surreal in a world that has slowly grown more progressive with regard to LGBT rights issues. And yet, this violence is the reality faced by gay and bisexual men in Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov, the hypermasculine Chechen leader. This paper explores the ways in which religious practice, imaginations of nature, and conceptions of gender have influenced Chechnya's current anti-LGBT climate.

Little is known about the lived experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer (LGBTQ) Muslims living in Canada. Using an intersectional theoretical perspective and a qualitative methodology, this paper examines key themes emerging in the stories of six LGBTQ Muslim women and men living in Canada. The key themes emerging in this research were the tension between perceived family obligations and religious values, the ambiguous relationship with Islam, and coping with mental health issues. The research points to the importance of understanding such experiences as occurring in a matrix of identities and processes, as postulated by intersectionality theory.

This paper focuses on the affective economies which materialize around race, sexuality and queerness in the British context to enable the production and mobilization of an exceptionalist discourse of gay-friendly and post-homophobic Britain (i.e., pinkwashing). The author investigates the discursive workings of pinkwashing coupled with the racialization of homophobia, through a critical reading of the BBC Two documentary Out There (2013a), written and narrated by British gay-identified writer, activist and artist, Stephen Fry. The documentary captures and is in fact captured within a global moment of human rights speculation in which some European nation-states have invested in affective discourses of queer futurities as a marker of their capacity for tolerance, in contrast to predominantly racialized subjects/communities within and outside of Europe, increasingly naturalized as always already homophobic (i.e., racializing homophobia). My reading of the documentary demonstrates the interconnection between pinkwashing and racialized homophobia as discursive inventions which depend on the mobilization of affects such as love, pride, terror, hate and (un)happiness, as currencies of governance. Far from being universal or abstract, I contend that British LGBTQ human rights speculative discourse draws on a highly racialized affective economy-which constructs racialized communities within Britain and racialized populations and states outside the West, as excessively homophobic, rendering pre-dominantly gay male British subjects (and homopatriarchy) as exceptional patriots.

A burgeoning canon of Maghrebian writers in self-imposed exiled in France has in the last decade begun to openly broach the subject of homosexuality in Arab-Muslim communities of the Maghreb. Novels of writers like Abdellah Taïa, Rachid O. and Eyet-Chékib Djaziri reflect a fascinating trans-Mediterranean construction of homosexual identity. Drawing on Svetlana Boym's critical work, particularly her observation that nostalgia "charts an affective geography of the native land that often mirrors the melancholic landscapes" of the exiled, this paper analyzes the construction of homosexuality against the notions of exile, nostalgia, and marginality. The novels of these Maghrebian writers highlight nostalgia as both cathartic and paralyzing for "gay" migrant protagonists who find themselves trapped in the subtle seam between a cherished Maghreb that is framed as homophobic in the sexual clash of civilizations and a more liberal yet inauspicious France. The nostalgic contemplation of the constitution of a homosexual subjectivity is read as a critical performance and mainstreaming of hitherto marginalized voices that now subvert and fight back against normalizing discourses of ethnicity, sexual and gender identity as well as nationality.

Until 1985 Essex was mostly preoccupied with helping his friend Joe Beam put together what would be the pathbreaking Black gay anthology I In The Life i , and in enjoying a live-in love affair with a naval career officer who broke it off after several years, leaving Essex sadly missing what he called "the domestic repetition of beauty that is found in caring for and being cared for by a lover." In 1980, Miller arranged for Essex and the Black lesbian poet/filmmaker Michelle Parkerson-she and Essex immediately bonded and became lifelong friends-to share a bill together at a poetry reading series at Howard University.[5] From that point on, Essex's contacts and publications proliferated. For additional material I'm indebted to Frances Goldin, Essex's literary agent (and at the time, my own), who located Essex's early poems for me in her back files, as well as the manuscript of his long-lost novel, "Standing in the Gap." 20 For this and the following three paragraphs: Michelle Parkerson to me, April 8, 2013; Hemphill to Assotto Saint, June 10, 1993, Assotto Saint (Yves Lubin) Papers, Schomburg Library; Goldin to Hemphill, Sept. 1, 1992, Jan. 13, 1993; Goldin to Peter Borland (NAL), Nov. 4, 1992; Hemphill to Goldin, Dec. 21, 1992, Feb. 16, July 28, Sept. 1993-all courtesy Goldin. [Extracted from the article]

Sexual dysfunction is a common side effect of prostate cancer (PCa) treatment, yet it remains poorly defined in the literature. Current definitions are based on heteronormative assumptions which do not consider the unique experiences of gay and bisexual (GBM) PCa survivors. The purpose of this paper is to use Walker and Avant's method to conduct a concept analysis of sexual dysfunction among GBM in the context of PCa survivorship. The review included 46 articles published between 2002–2019. The following attributes were identified: (1) erectile dysfunction, (2) ejaculatory change (anhedonia/anejaculation), (3) urinary incontinence/climacturia, and (4) anodyspareunia. For GBM PCa survivors, sexual dysfunction involves reduced or abnormal functioning of four core elements of a sexual encounter, which inhibit GBM from engaging in and being satisfied with sexual activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uncovers the ways Thai lesbians negotiate and construct their sense of self as "lesbian," particularly, in the process of "coming out." It incorporates concepts such as perception and communication of self, as well as their relationships with partners and their families. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with a sample of 13 self-identified lesbians, all of whom come from a middle-class background and engage in several professions. The results indicated that they constructed their lesbian identities while attempting to negotiate around established conformist and heteronormative structures. Respondents placed considerable emphasis on "not being different" with the notions of loving companionship, faithful relationships, and daughter obligations indicated the sameness. Conventional gender roles stemming from a dominant patriarchal culture continue to bind reported aspects of female same-sex practices. Thai lesbians continue to struggle, continuing to re-construct and deconstruct their identities even within the seemingly inclusive outlook of contemporary Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how South Korean (SK), evangelical media discuss two outgroup categories: North Korea and homosexuality. Analysis of SK media over two decades—mainly longitudinal analysis of evangelical newspaper Kidok Sinmun (1998-2019)–generates several findings. First, homosexuality is catching up to North Korea as the leading outgroup in SK Christian discourse. Second, both outgroups are subjects of dual, competing narratives: one (threat) frames outgroups, and their supporters, as threats to the liberties and/or values of Christians; another (outreach), as subjects of Christian love and personal relationship. The threat and outreach narratives, in turn, are, respectively, associated with right-wing and non-right politics on the outgroup. We argue that the dual narratives are shaped by American evangelical culture; cross-national communications (e.g., South Korea and USA); and cross-national events (e.g., presidential elections) that influence the perceived threats posed by, or opportunities to outreach to, outgroup members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]