Artykuły w czasopismach na temat „Sexual orientation – fiction”

Vladimir Nabokov's novels provoke a unique anxiety of interpretation that fuses hermeneutic and sexual anxieties. The article explores the simultaneous desire to interpret and the fear and shame of interpretation that Nabokov's fiction works to produce. This double bind leads to a condition of interpretive panic that takes other critics as objects of aggression and transposes to a metafictive plane the dynamics of reaction more commonly associated with anxious responses to homoerotic attraction.

Sarah Walker's 'Camphor Laurel' demonstrates that the text is one of a few Young Adult fictions which destabilise cultural assumptions concerning a normative heterosexuality, as it engages with male-centred discourses that have attempted to reconcile feminine desire with sexual orientation and categorisation. The novel's representation of same-sex desire by young female characters moves beyond the models of maturational development and identity politics, which inform most mainstream fiction.

Twenty-first-century children's literature research has witnessed a material turn in strong response to the 1990s perception of childhood and the fictional child as social constructions. Cultural theories have generated fruitful approaches to children's fiction through the lenses of gender, class, race and sexual orientation, and psychoanalytically oriented theories have explored ways of representing childhood as a projection of (adult) interiority, but the physical existence of children as represented in their fictional worlds has been obscured by constructed social and psychological hierarchies. Recent directions in literary studies, such as ecocriticism, posthumanism, disability studies and cognitive criticism, are refocusing scholarly attention on the physicality of children's bodies and the environment. This trend does not signal a return to essentialism but reflects the complexity, plurality and ambiguity of our understanding of childhood and its representation in fiction for young audiences. This article examines some current trends in international children's literature research with a particular focus on materiality.

Abstract This paper will explore the representation of men’s aging experiences in contemporary U.S. fiction. While most gender-ed approaches to aging have focused on women, which has contributed to the cultural invisibility of older men, this study focuses on men’s aging experiences as men, thus challenging the inverse correlation between masculinity and aging. To do so, the study draws on a selected number of contemporary U.S. male-authored fictional works, which question the widely-held assumption that aging is a lesser concern for men, or that men and women’s aging experiences may be simply defined as opposed. The literary corpus includes male authors from different backgrounds so as to illustrate how (self-)representations of aging men vary according not only to gender but also class (Richard Ford), race (Ernest Gaines), and sexual orientation (Edmund White), amongst other factors. The presentation will thus end up challenging the conventional equation of men’s aging processes with (sexual) decline, exemplifying their plurality as well as irreducible contradictions.

Since the 1990s Islam in Indonesia has shifted in orientation and gradually shed its depoliticized position. After the fall of the New Order in 1998 many female authors came to the fore and voiced their opinions about societal expectations, gender roles and norms that regulate female sexuality. Muslim women have addressed in their fiction issues regarding Islam, modernity and how to balance Islamic teachings with globalized forces that have changed Indonesian ways of living. This article analyzes three novels by Muslim author Abidah El Khalieqy in which the protagonists search for ways to shape new female identities and forms of selfhood that are in accordance with Islam and also suit the modernized world. The novels speak openly and in great detail about sexual relations. They critique polygyny and patriarchal attitudes that treat women as sexual objects and inferior beings, and disrupt taboos such as domestic violence and (marital) rape while endorsing women’s activism to advocate gender equity and social justice. They also demonstrate how women find pleasure in sexual intimacy. Abidah's fiction does not shy away from topics such as homosexuality and pre-marital sex but eventually hetero-normativity prevails. In significant ways Abidah's fiction contributes to debates on women's rights and gender expectations within Indonesia's Muslim community.

Research shows that some heterosexually identified men engage in sex with men; however, they remain largely hidden and little understood. Despite long-standing scholarly recognition that sexual identity and orientation do not always neatly coincide, the culturally normative heterosexual/homosexual binary tends to shape mainstream perceptions of such men as well as render them invisible in sexual health systems reliant on stable sexual identity categories. This invisibility, in turn, perpetuates the fiction of the binary. We explore perspectives on heterosexually identified men who have sex with men, drawing on recent research literature and on qualitative interviews with “key informants” in the Australian sexual health field who have frontline knowledge of these men. We consider the limitations of inventing a label to “encapsulate” these diverse men but also the significance of finding a language that meaningfully acknowledges their sexual realities and highlights heterosexuality as more varied and fluid than social attitudes and traditional sexual identity categories permit.

This editorial delivers an introduction to the <em>Media and Communication </em>thematic issue on “Communicating on/with Minorities” around the world. This thematic issue presents a multidisciplinary look at the field of communicating on and with different members of minority groups who, based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or a background in migration, experience relative disadvantage and marginalization compared to the dominant social group. The contributors to this thematic issue present a variety of professional contexts (i.e., portrayals in journalistic content, in fiction and non-fiction audiovisual content, on social media platforms and in health care). Taken together, the contributions examine various theoretical angles, thereby adopting new research directions through the use of quantitative, qualitative or mixed methodologies.

In Queer Phenomenology, Sara Ahmed discusses the spatial dimensions of orientation, asking not only ‘What does it mean to be oriented?’ but also ‘What does it mean for sexuality to be lived as oriented? What difference does it make what or who we are oriented toward in the very direction of our desire?’ (1). This article uses Ahmed's idea of sexual orientation as a form of way-finding to consider how masturbation might be considered a form of orientation that is particularly relevant for teenagers learning to understand their pubescent bodies and their desires. The concept is developed through an analysis of how Emilia – the teenage protagonist of the Finnish novel Huhtikuun Puutarha [April garden] by Leena Leskinen – uses her desire to find her way. The novel contains several erotic descriptions of sexual acts, designed to titillate the readers of the novel. Drawing on research within the field of embodied cognition, the article concludes with an examination of how the written word stimulates the body. The aim is to see how onanistic reading is promoted in Finnish YA fiction and to suggest that erotica for teens has many benefits.

There is an emerging Ugandan queer writing tradition that adopts an activist stance to imagine an alternative Ugandan queer subjecthood beyond popular and polarising perspectives of this subjectivity that were instantiated by the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014. This emerging archive of Ugandan writing, often deploying the short fiction genre, weaves intricate tales of queer Uganda that sidestep the censorship of an ostracised sexuality deemed sinful, dangerous, and unUgandan to claim the agency and humanity of Ugandan homosexuals. While this archive of Ugandan queer short fiction has attracted significant critical attention from scholars such as Edgar Fred Nabutanyi (2017, 2018), Ken Junior Lipenga (2014) and Ben de Souza (2020), who focus on the political activism of these texts in Ugandan sexuality debates, little critical attention has been paid to how writers deploy sociolinguistic tools to empower their characters to author their agency and life experiences as same-sex loving Ugandans. Using sociolinguistic discursive tools, I refer to a textuality that includes illocutionary techniques such as letter writing, dialogue, and stream of consciousness that subversively empower excluded and muted subjects to articulate their essence and humanity. Deploying textual analysis of selected short stories, their analyses, and Ugandan queer theoretical treatises, I read Monica Arac de Nyeko’s ‘Jambula tree’ (2006) Beatrice Lamwaka’s ‘Pillar of love’ (2016) and Anthea Paleo’s ‘Picture frame’ (2013) using a sociolinguistic lens to unveil how the selected writers’ subversion of patriarchal tropes of an amorous letter, an ideal heterosexual family, and a romantic date critique the ostracisation of a sexual orientation.

This study aims to explain the differences and similarities of masculinity depicted in the 17th American novel The Best of Me (2011) by Nicholas Sparks which is ranked 2 of the top 10 lists in weekly publishers, with romance and fiction genres, with Novel A Little Life (2015) the work of the United States novelist Hanya Yanagihara who won both the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the Goodreads choice awards for the best fiction category and the national book award for fiction. Using the fiction genre, this research is comparative literature. It uses gender theory with masculine concepts from John Beynon (2002) which is written in his book entitled Masculinities and Culture. This study uses a context-oriented approach,Data Collection Techniques using literature study by reading, taking notes, and documenting data. After the data is collected, data reduction is carried out. The data that has been selected will be classified to take action to analyze the differences and similarities of masculinity in the male main character Dawson Cole in the Novel The Best of Me with Jude in the Novel A Little Life. The author finds some differences in reading aspects of masculinity according to John Beynon in the two characters. The difference lies in aspects: Age & Physical, Education, Sexual Orientation, Class & Occupation, Status & Lifestyle. The author finds similarities in reading aspects of masculinity according to John Beynon in Dawson and Jude in the Historical Location aspect. Both of them have pasts that they dont not want to open up.

This paper reviews four books, all dedicated to the study of the science fiction genre and the biography of science-fiction writers. They were published in Russian in an extremely limited number. These books include a collection of articles by Wojciech Kaitoch, biographies of Arthur Clarke and Robert Heinlein written by Neil Mcaleer and William H. Patterson, respectively, as well as a biography of Stanisław Lem compiled by his son Tomasz. The authors of all biographies come from fundamentally important circumstances in the lives of the writers. The main approach to exploring the biographies under consideration is annual chronicle, which allows getting involved in the most diverse materials. For American biographers, a very important part of the biography is also sexual orientation and preferences. On the contrary, the Polish literary critic W. Kaitoch uses the modern methods in his literary research and turns towards the biographical approach only when there is no way to otherwise explain the features of the analyzed text. W. Kaitoch is skeptical of the idea about any possibility of revealing the author’s intention. Based on the obtained results, it was concluded that, under the conditions of media sphere dominance, specialized limited-edition publications in the field of the humanities are of interest to an extremely small number of specialists and literary fans.

In 2020, Yiwen Wang published an article about gender-switching videos, a Chinese gender subculture in the digital media environment. Different from Wang, who identified gender-switching videos as an example of the slash (especially boys’ love) subgenre, through a more comprehensive investigation of this subgenre this study found that gender-switching videos—which can be divided into two categories of complete and selective—involve homoerotic (including both boys’ love and girls’ love), heteroerotic and queer narratives. This article starts by demonstrating the multi-gender/sexual orientation narrative in gender-switching videos, and further analyses their social and cultural functions as a gender subculture in reconstructing gendered relationships in traditional Chinese aesthetics and narratives. The theory of feminist utopian narratives is further introduced to better understand how Chinese women intervene in the grand historical narrative as an important force to influence the development of history and story plots via fiction content creation in the digital media environment.

AbstractThis essay explores the thematic use of music in the science-fiction writings of two African American authors, Henry Dumas and Samuel R. Delany. Each author visited this theme in more than one work, and in at least one work centered the Afro-technological focus upon a special musical instrument: the “afro horn” in Dumas's story “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” and a machete/flute in Samuel R. Delany's novel The Einstein Intersection. Both writers treat music itself, without regard to a material instrument, as a technology. Dumas depicted black music as a tool that enabled black people to kill their enemies, and Delany represented music as a technology capable of avenging the wrongs committed against the politically and socially marginalized. Whereas Dumas's protagonists were more likely to be social pariahs because of their class or their sexual orientation than because of race, his descriptions specifically reference black music and its attendant rituals. Both writers portray music as a technology capable of creating and healing as well as avenging and destroying.

Critics agree that Sarah Waters’ fourth novel, The Night Watch (2006), marks a turn in her fiction, away from the farcical tone of her first three neo-Victorian novels and towards an ever-more serious concern with the changes in class structures and gender roles brought about by the fact of war. The novel tells the parallel stories of three women and one man living in various areas of London in the 1940s. Though they have different social status, ideology, and sexual orientation, they share similarly traumatic experiences as, together with war trauma, they harbour individual feelings of loss and/or shame related to their deviance from patriarchal norms. The article seeks to demonstrate that the palimpsestic and backward structure of the novel performs formally the ‘belatedness of trauma’ (Caruth 1995, pp. 4–5), in an attempt to respond aesthetically and ethically to the ‘mnemonic void’ (Freud [1014] 1950) or ‘black hole’ (Pitman and Orr 1990; Bloom 2010; Van der Kolk and McFarlane [1998] 2004) left both in the characters’ traumatised psyches and in our cultural memory of the 1940s by the erased memories of the decade’s non-normative or dissident others.

This is an exciting time for North American Jewish literature. In the past ten years, there has been an explosion of writing by new and established authors. In the field of fiction alone, the shelves have filled with titles by such fine talent as Pearl Abraham, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Michael Chabon, Nathan Englander, Myla Goldberg, Ehud Havatzelet, Dara Horn, Jonathan Safran Foer, Joan Leegant, Tova Mirvis, Jon Papernick, Jonathan Rosen, Aryeh Lev Stollman, and many others, as well as new works by veteran writers such as Allegra Goodman, Thane Rosenbaum, and Steve Stern. Add to these names the preeminent Cynthia Ozick, and don’t forget Philip Roth, whose productivity continues unabated and whose latest novels include some of his strongest work ever. A variety of striking themes has come to the fore in this new wave of literary creativity. Notable trends include an unprecedented attention to religion (especially Orthodox Jewish life); a fascination with women’s lives and with questions of gender and sexual orientation; a concern with the experiences of the second and succeeding generations of the Holocaust; a nostalgia for and rediscovery of the old country; a consideration of new Americans in the 1980s and 1990s; and a rethinking of what it means to be a Jew in Israel and in the Diaspora.

Social discrimination is a never-ending issue that happens not only in reality but also in fiction novels. It is described as perpetual inequality of people based on their disability, illness, sexual orientation, religion, or any other. Hence, literature as a cultural product has a potential to deliver social discrimination discourse. This research aims to discuss how the social discrimination depicted in Kiera Cass’ The Selection. The Selection is a story about an event to find a prince’s bride in Illéa. The caste system and absolute monarchy exist in Illéa’s kingdom. Depending on their jobs, people are divided into eight castes. In this research, the representation theory by Stuart Hall is applied. The study’s analysis is qualitative with the novel as primary data and other supporting sources as secondary data. The collected data are used to indicate how social discrimination between castes constructed in the novel, how it is related to the condition in the United States of America in 1900s, and where the author took a side with. The result of the research shows that social discrimination occurs as the absolute position of the caste and it is difficult to change this situation. The novel’s social discrimination is also related to the real condition of the United States of America in the early 1900s, which includes job, partner, and lifestyle aspects. The author appeared to position herself more on the side of the lower caste at first, but no solution is offered as a result of the lower caste’s work.

“OUT OF THE CLOSET, ONTO THE BOOKSHELF”: ON GROWING UP AND COMING OUT IN CROATIAN QUEER LITERATURE In the contemporary Croatian queer prose, growing up is represented as a process with uncertain outcomes. Contemporary writers do not describe gay and lesbian identities as already shaped, finalized, and unquestionably different from heterosexuality. Their poetics have many predecessors, Bildungsroman, the 19th-century genre that, despite conventional epilogues, depicts youth as a period of the adventure and overturn, being the oldest one. The second important influence are foreign coming out novels (texts that describe the articulation of gay and lesbian identities in the family and community) or narratives of affirmation, and the third Yugoslav young adult prose. The publication of the Croatian queer prose has increased dramatically since the first Gay Pride in Zagreb (2002) and the Queer Zagreb festival the following year. In the short story collection Poqureene priče [The queered stories] (2004) growing up is one of the prevailing topics with eventually popularized motifs such as coming out, moving away / traveling, cultural signifiers of gay identity, and crossings of sexual orientation with gender and class. Writing in the first person is also very popular. Vladimir Stojsavljević’s oeuvre is important because the author depicts growing up in three contexts, during Yugoslavia, in the war-time, and in post-transition, and texts by Nora Verde are a novelty because she writes about queer women as belonging to lesbian community. Young authors Mirta Maslać and Viktorija Božina reveal an interesting autobiographical discourse and share a tendency towards using diverse cultural references. This paper aims to show how the encounter of local gay and lesbian culture, foreign fiction, and already present genres has shaped the current texts about queer identity that manage to avoid writing about sexuality within simplistic, binary oppositions.

The present multimethod research examines different stereotypes about race via a comic book superhero lens. This study focuses on the ascription of traits to a superhero figure developed specifically for this research, examining differences in trait ascription based on the race and sexual orientation of the hero. A diverse sample of participants (N= 371) were presented random drawings of either White, African American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asian, or Native American superhero images and asked questions about their perceptions of the hero’s traits, character role (hero, villain, sidekick), powers, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, hero sexual orientation was manipulated (Heterosexual x Gay), bringing 12 conditions of hero identity that were randomly assigned to participants in a 6 (Race: White x Black x Latinx x Asian x Arab x Native American) x 2 (Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual x Gay) cross-sectional design. Results indicated that participants ascribed certain traits differently based on the race of the hero as well as how race and sexuality of the hero interacted. Additionally, results supported the use of original, fictional images as a means of examining participant perceptions of race and sexuality. These empirical findings can be helpful in the creation and real-world adaptations of comic book superhero media and understanding effects of comic media on the development and dissemination of stereotypes.

With the issuance of Minister of Health Regulation Number 9 of 2020 concerning Guidelines for Large-Scale Social Restrictions in the Context of Accelerating the Handling of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), the government recommended that all community activities be carried out from home (work from home). The amount of time spent at home causes people to become bored and need entertainment, one of which is by spending time to watch film. One of the shows that is currently booming is Boys' Love which is a fictional media (manga, anime, series) that focuses on homoerotic and homoromantic relationships between men. This article discusses how audiences are attracted to, respond to, and question their sexual orientation. Using qualitative approach, this study combined in-depth interview and observation as data collection methods. his research was conducted online through the brightforwin fanpage community which took place from August 2021 to February 2022. There are eleven informants involved in this study who are the audiences of Boys’ Love. They vary according to age (between 19 and 42 years), sex (eight women and three men), and status (three housewives and eight college students). The study shows that Boys' Love series became popular because it is not only focused on sexual activity, but also on how to build relationships between characters, to express sexuality, and to deepen relationships between viewers. The public's response to this series was varied, some were suddenly interested and became big fans of the Boys' Love series, some didn’t care, and others clearly reject this series. In regard to the sexual orientation of Boys' Love audience, there are differences between male and female audience. Male audience of Boys' Love series is considered as transgender or gay. For female audiences, there is a difference between married and single women. For married women, their sexual orientation is not questioned because of their marital status, while for single women, their orientation is questioned by others. But, as the fan and viewer of Boys’ Love some single men and women also question their sexual orientation.

This essay examines Arthur Symons’ short story, ‘Christian Trevalga’ from his Spiritual Adventures (1905). It aims to a) situate it in the context of wider late-Victorian considerations of pianistic performance and Symons’ adulation of Vladimir de Pachmann, b) examine its application of Symons’ theories about music, as advanced in his contemporaneous critical essays, and c) investigate the ways in which the story makes a suggestive link between music and sexual orientation with especial reference to the fictional encounter between Trevalga and Tchaikovsky in the Vienna of the 1890s.

Adults in the U.S. (undergraduate college students and adults recruited online) read vignettes about a fictional individual seeking to adopt an infant. Based on random assignment, participants read versions in which the prospective adoptive parent described was either an implied male or female and single, married to someone of the opposite sex, or married to someone of the same sex. After reading the vignettes, participants rated their expectations of the prospective parent’s ability to parent and their perceptions of the prospective parent’s personal characteristics. Female participants reported significantly (p < .05) higher expectations of general ability to parent and perceived higher responsibility, greater likeability, and less selfishness. Both sexes endorsed significantly lower anticipation of ability to parent and less responsibility when the prospective parent was designated as single or in a same-sex marriage. Same-sex prospective parents were additionally rated as significantly higher in immorality. Prospective fathers were rated as less likeable than prospective mothers and participants approved less of their plan to adopt. The authors discuss findings as relevant to bias favoring traditional families headed by a man and a woman with the wife taking the lead in the transition to parenthood.

The writer Elena Fortún (Madrid, 1886-1952) is famous for her paradigmatic fictional character for children: the imaginative, frisky Celia. This article aims to analyze the most alternative work of the author, Oculto camino, published for the first time in 2016 after decades hidden in a suitcase: the author did not want to have it published while she was alive. It is an autobiographical work where Fortún uses the character of the painter María Luisa Arroyo to talk about her own process of discovering a sexual orientation that an authoritarian mother, marriage and social pressure prevented her from fully living. This article studies the link between the concept of «modern woman» and the taking up of an androgynous aesthetic, based on the story of María Luisa.

This introduction establishes the main perspectives of the special issue on the relationship between loneliness and nerds. We argue that the stereotype of the lonely nerd is becoming increasingly reductive in the technological age at the turn of the 21st century, in which being a nerd is not only perceived as cool but in which nerds also occupy central positions of power. We also stress the transnational perspective of the special issue. While the majority of studies on fictional representations of nerds focuses on the Anglo-American context, the issue moves away from this hegemony, also engaging with studies on narratives of nerds produced in other cultural contexts, ranging from Europe to Asia. This informs the issue’s interdisciplinary approach, whereby intersections between different cultural contexts are reflected in connections across various media that have shaped the perception of lonely nerds. Finally, we challenge the traditional perception of the nerd as white, male, heterosexual, and middle class and establish five analytical categories that will help us to present a more diverse image of the nerd, particularly with regard to race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Cultural Studies have played a pivotal role in understanding and evaluating the power dynamics of the social, political, economic and ethical world order by empirically engaging and focusing on the present-day culture, tracing its historical roots and explicating its attributes with reference to a particular literary text and its reception in a society. Arvind Adiga, the Man-Booker Prize winning Indo-Australian author, in Selection Day, has adroitly detailed how cricket as an individual entity impacts the cultural phenomena of a society by confronting its inherent myriad issues. The narrative delves deep into the lives of two siblings – Radha and Manju, witnesses the dramatic turnaround of events and tries to capture the themes of unfulfilled desires and preordained destinies. The novel also explores how the sport holds different meanings and significance for different characters, each of whom view the game in the light of their own ideology. The author foresees and sensitizes the theme of homosexuality, which is still a taboo and been unheard of, within the sports fraternity. Adiga’s critique of the parental felony, embodied in Mohan Kumar, and its repercussions is the most compelling theme at the heart of this work of fiction. Selection Day powerfully binds together the societal phenomena of class construction, unquenchable thirst for money, sexual orientations and ideologies with a single thread and studies how culture, in itself, is an ever-evolving phenomenon.

Understanding the diversity of sexuality is still taboo in Indonesia. This directly leads to the practice of marginalising groups with homosexual sexual orientation. Those who have homosexual tendencies cannot freely express themselves, both in the virtual and real worlds. This hegemony of heteronormativity then began to receive a kind of counter-hegemony from various parties, one of which was from the writers and readers of the Alternative Universe (hereinafter referred to as AU) Harry Potter on Twitter. Harry Potter itself is a fictional story with the theme of the wizarding world written by J.K. Rowling, which is often reproduced by fans through various media; AU is one of them. Through AU, fans can imagine creating their own stories using the characters in the Harry Potter story series. One of the highlights of this AU version is when fans make the people in the Harry Potter characters homosexual. Not only does it involve fantasy and imagination, fans also pay attention to their personal identity when interacting with homosexual stories. This study aims to find out how writers and readers of Harry Potter AU stories on Twitter play out homosexual fantasies, as well as how privacy management is used to feel safe interacting with homosexual subjects. To answer these questions, the author conducted research using the netnography method on Twitter. In the process, the author not only looked at user interactions on each Harry Potter AU story but also distributed questionnaires and interviews to the author and readers of the AU story. As for data analysis, the author uses the concept of schizoanalysis from Deleuze and Guattari and combines it with Sandra Petronio's communication privacy management theory. The results of this study show that writers and readers of Harry Potter AUs with homosexual characters have a tendency to want to hide their personal information. They do not want to be recognised when interacting with homosexual stories, even though they are actually very interested in them. This is partly due to social pressure that still upholds heteronormativity.

Spanish crime fiction develops from a male gaze. In these novels, the detective is identified with man/reason, and the victim with woman/death; therefore, crime fictions reinforce and maintain gender identities. The genre also confirms the heteronormative system and ensures its continuity. The novel, El Final del Hombre (2017), written by Antonio Mercero, breaks this sexist structure of the genre and opens the concept of identity itself to question through a transsexual detective. This article aims to determine the deviations in Spanish crime fiction by examining the first transsexual detective figure in the context of Queer Theory. As a result, it reveals that sex, gender, sexual orientation, desire, and sexual identity are not static and innate. The sexist structure of Spanish crime fiction is reversed thanks to the queer detective Sofía Luna. The concept of identity is problematized and the heteronormative system, through which the genre also maintains, is defeated.

Associative discrimination is a consequence of the open formulas used in the UK (and EU) equality legislation to define direct discrimination. The treatment needs only to be ‘because of a protected characteristic’ (such as race, sexual orientation, etc) rather than because of his (or her) protected characteristic. Hence, a white worker dismissed for marrying a black person could sue for direct (racial) discrimination. The open formula is not limited to such cases and, so, treating associative discrimination as a term of art is a mistake, as this could unnecessarily restrict the reach of the deliberately open legislative formula. This article identifies the Supreme Court judgment in Lee v Ashers as an example of this mistake. It further asserts that any compromise for conflicting rights is found in the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998), and not by distorting the definition of discrimination.

Driscoll argues that contemporary fiction and current criticism are no longer concerned with social class in general and the working class in particular. Identity now uses more flexible parameters, such as sexual orientation, a term that defines the individual as agent. He analyses a wide range of literary fiction and film in order to highlight that ‘class’ often means middle class. When authors do focus on the working class, their angle is predominantly negative.The second half of this article strives to see to what extent the Driscoll hypothesis is valid through applying his findings to Seiffert’s very recent novel. It refutes the argument that postmodern techniques necessarily produce apolitical texts, and puts into question other assumptions.

In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of LGTBIQ+ characters and storylines appearing in serialized fiction in the United States. This has gained importance due to the effects of media discourses on social imaginaries with regard to the sexual diversity of a community that suffers a high degree of social, political and labor discrimination. The objective is to critically analyze which are the general trends in recent years. Hence, this research is based on a critical discourse analysis of fictional series from the last decade, from two levels: first, the macro-level, in which the discourse around which the storylines are based is analyzed; and a second micro-level, which addresses the issues of lexicalization, focus and conceptual polarization. The results suggest the existence of a dual pattern in these characters, whereby they are based within the construction of a homonormative narrative and/or otherwise placed in marginal or socially excluded settings. Moreover, many traditionally common stereotypes are maintained, and sexual identity and orientation continue to feature prominently among the main story arcs of these characters. It is thus concluded that quantitative growth is insufficient if it is not accompanied by greater normalization.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is both a successful series of novels and a television series which ran for one series on the BBC in 2008. While the books have been criticised on a number of aspects, including its representation of Botswana, the television series has received very little academic attention at all. The television series was an international co-production between the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa, using a mix of American and South African actors in regular and recurring roles with British guest artists and production team despite being shot in Botswana. While the main features of the adaptation were primarily related to a reordering of vignettes from the books into the series, the television series added in a new character, the camp, gay hairdresser BK. At the time the series was airing, same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Botswana though that has since been changed. As such, this paper will discuss the addition of this liminal character into the series through close reading of the text and paratexts (including industrial context). Ultimately the paper will contextualise the addition with regard to both national and sexual identity and debates surrounding African queer identities.

Nelson, Jandy. I'll Give You the Sun. New York: Dial Books, 2014. Print.At thirteen, twins Noah and Jude seem to share an unbreakable bond that goes beyond a typical sibling relationship. Three years later, at sixteen, they are barely speaking to each other; each holding on to secrets that could completely destroy or heal their fractured relationship.A winner of the 2015 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and a 2015 YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, I’ll Give You the Sun, is an absorbing, coming-of-age tale told from the alternating perspectives of Jude and her brother Noah. Nelson skillfully pieces together a picture of the lives of the two protagonists as they struggle to come to terms with love, loss and alienation.Nelson blends poetic phrases and description with believable dialogue creating two distinct characters that readers will quickly identify with. The voices of Noah and Jude are so finely crafted that readers will find themselves drawn to the struggles and triumphs of these two characters. The use of non-linear plot progression will keep readers absorbed until the last page.I’ll Give You the Sun is an excellent choice for the high school reader, particularly those ready to transition to adult contemporary fiction. Nelson sensitively and frankly deals with issues such as sexual abuse, sexual orientation, bullying and infidelity. Due to the themes and topics of the book, it should be considered a mature read.Readers who enjoy authors such as John Green or A.S. King will be drawn to the writing of Jandy Nelson and I’ll Follow The Sun.Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Rachel WildRachel Wild is an English teacher at Parkland Composite High School in Edson, Alberta. She is currently enrolled the Teacher Librarianship Masters degree program through distance education. Reading and reviewing a plethora of young adult novels has renewed her interest in and passion for this genre.

Author, poet, essayist, biographer, and activist, Alice Malsenior Walker is a multi-faceted African-American literary figure. This Pulitzer Prize-winning author has written extensively about racial and gender problems. Her best-known work is The Color Purple (which won her the Pulitzer Prize for fiction). Alice Walker's personal experiences as a representative of African American women authors have influenced her distinct psychological perspective. In her work, she often employs the symbolism that is popular in dark literary works. Presently in domestic academia, there are only a small number of research on the novel's creative features and expression approaches that concentrate only on the novel's symbolic meanings of the colour picture. The book has an overall focus on the construction of language, the execution of voice, the evaluation of sexual orientation, and the redefining of identity of the narrative's female characters, particularly heroine Celie. The Bildungsroman thesis states that a character's environment, experiences, issues, and oppression all contribute to his or her psychological strength. A bildungsroman is a novel that aims to mould the reader's mind and soul via their experiences in the world. She draws inspiration from Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

The fact that same-sex sexuality is a topically combustive issue in Ugandan public discourse is reflected in debates it inspires. The debates that rage in Uganda regarding this topic are ferociously polarised around one camp that evokes the protection of minors from exploitation by “foreign” gays and upholding Ugandan culture to support the criminalisation of a sexual orientation, and another that cites modernity and Universalist’s human rights discourse to advocate for the fundamental human rights of individuals who choose to engage in same-sex relationships. The intense national anxiety around this topic is perhaps best illustrated by the controversial 2009 Anti-homosexuality Bill and the debates it produced. Granted, many Ugandan commentators, like politicians, journalists, religious leaders, traditional leaders and medical practitioners have joined in this debate to advance particular standpoints regarding this topic. However, one group of public intellectuals whose critique of this debate has attracted little scholarly attention, comprises Ugandan writers. In this article, I investigate how Ugandan short story writers have utilised fiction to map out the essence of queerness in Uganda. I argue that Lamwaka’s ‘Pillar of Love,’ (2012) Arac’s ‘Jambula Tree’ (2007) and Paelo’s ‘Picture Frame’ (2013) deploy subtle and nuanced discursive strategies to foreground the presence/absence paradox that is inherent in Ugandan discourse of same-sex sexuality.

What began as a simple request for a book by one of my former students, at times, has not been so simple. The student, whom I refer to as Carla (name changed), hoped to read about characters similar to herself and her friends. As a teacher, I have often tried to hook my students on reading by presenting books with characters to which they can relate. These books can help increase their overall knowledge of the world, open their minds to multiple realities and variations of the human experience and provide scenarios in which they can live vicariously. Carla’s request was a bit more complicated than I had imagined. As a “Deaf” student who attended a state school for the Deaf and who viewed herself as a member of a linguistic cultural minority, she expected to read a book with characters who used American Sign Language and who participated as members within the Deaf Community. She did not want to read didactic books about deafness but wanted books with unpredictable plots and believable characters. Having graduated from a teacher-preparation program in Deaf Education, I had read numerous books about deafness. While memoirs and biographical selections had been relatively easy to acquire and were on my bookshelf, I had not once read any fictional books for adolescents that included a deaf character. (I refer to ‘Deaf’ as representing individuals who identify in a linguistic, cultural minority group. The term ‘deaf’ is used as a more generic term given to individuals with some degree of hearing loss. In other articles, ‘deaf’ has been used pejoratively or in connection to a view by those who believe one without the sense of hearing is inferior or lacking. I do not believe or wish to imply that. ) As a High School teacher with so many additional work responsibilities outside of classroom teaching, finding fictional books with deaf characters was somewhat of a challenge. Nevertheless, after some research I was able to recommend a book that I thought would be a good summer read. Nancy Butts’ Cheshire Moon (1992) is charming book about thirteen-year-old Miranda who is saddened by her cousin’s death and furious at her parents' insistence that she speak rather than sign. The plot turns slightly mystical when the teens begin having similar dreams under the “Cheshire moon”. Yet, the story is about Miranda, a deaf girl, who struggles with communication. Without her cousin, the only member of her family who was fluent in sign language, communication is difficult and embarrassing. Miranda feels isolated, alienated, and unsure of herself. Because of the main character’s age, the book was not the best recommendation for a high school student; however, when Carla finished Cheshire Moon, she asked for another book with Deaf characters. Problem & Purpose Historically, authors have used deafness as a literary device to relay various messages about the struggles of humankind and elicit sympathy from readers (Batson & Bergman; Bergman; Burns; Krentz; Panara; Taylor, "Deaf Characters" I, II, III; Schwartz; Wilding-Diaz). In recent decades, however, the general public’s awareness of and perhaps interest in deaf people has risen along with that of our increasingly multicultural world. Educational legislation has increased awareness of the deaf as has news coverage of Gallaudet University protests. In addition, Deaf people have benefited from advances in communicative technology, such as Video Relay (VRS) and instant messaging pagers, more coordinated interpreting services and an increase in awareness of American Sign Language. Authors are incorporating more deaf characters than they did in the past. However, this increase does not necessarily translate to an increase in understanding of the deaf, nor does it translate to the most accurate, respectably, well-rounded characterization of the deaf (Pajka-West, "Perceptions"). Acquiring fictional books that include deaf characters can be time-consuming and challenging for teachers and librarians. The research examining deaf characters in fiction is extremely limited (Burns; Guella; Krentz; Wilding-Diaz). The most recent articles predominately focus on children’s literature — specifically picture books (Bailes; Brittain). Despite decades of research affirming culturally authentic children’s literature and the merits of multicultural literature, a coexisting body of research reveals the lack of culturally authentic texts (Applebee; Campbell & Wirtenberg; Ernest; Larrick; Sherriff; Taxel). Moreover, children’s books with deaf characters are used as informational depictions of deaf individuals (Bockmiller, 1980). Readers of such resource books, typically parents, teachers and their students, gain information about deafness and individuals with “disabilities” (Bockmiller, 1980; Civiletto & Schirmer, 2000). If an important purpose for deaf characters in fiction is educational and informational, then there is a need for the characters to be presented as realistic models of deaf people. If not, the readers of such fiction gain inaccurate information about deafness including reinforced negative stereotypes, as can occur in any other literature portraying cultural minorities (Pajka-West, "Perceptions"). Similar to authors’ informational depictions, writers also reveal societal understanding of groups of people through their fiction (Banfield & Wilson; Panara; Rudman). Literature has often stigmatized minority culture individuals based upon race, ethnicity, disability, gender and/or sexual orientation. While readers might recognize the negative depictions and dismiss them as harmless stereotypes, these portrayals could become a part of the unconscious of members of our society. If books continually reinforce stereotypical depictions of deaf people, individuals belonging to the group might be typecast and discouraged into a limited way of being. As an educator, I want all of my students to have unlimited opportunities for the future, not disadvantaged by stereotypes. The Study For my doctoral dissertation, I examined six contemporary adolescent literature books with deaf characters. The research methodology for this study required book selection, reader sample selection, instrument creation, book analysis, questionnaire creation, and data analysis. My research questions included: 1) Are deaf characters being presented as culturally Deaf characters or as pathologically deaf and disabled; 2) Do these readers favor deaf authors over hearing ones? If so, why; and, 3) How do deaf and hearing adult readers perceive deaf characters in adolescent literature? The Sample The book sample included 102 possible books for the study ranging from adolescent to adult selections. I selected books that were recognized as suitable for middle school or high school readers based upon the reading and interest levels established by publishers. The books also had to include main characters who are deaf and deaf characters who are human. The books selected were all realistic fiction, available to the public, and published or reissued for publication within the last fifteen years. The six books that were selected included: Nick’s Secret by C. Blatchford; A Maiden’s Grave by J. Deaver; Of Sound Mind by J. Ferris; Deaf Child Crossing by M. Matlin; Apple Is My Sign by M. Riskind; and Finding Abby by V. Scott. For the first part of my study, I analyzed these texts using the Adolescent Literature Content Analysis Check-off Form (ALCAC) which includes both pathological and cultural perspective statements derived from Deaf Studies, Disability Studies and Queer Theory. The participant sample included adult readers who fit within three categories: those who identified as deaf, those who were familiar with or had been acquaintances with deaf individuals, and those who were unfamiliar having never associated with deaf individuals. Each participant completed a Reader-Response Survey which included ten main questions derived from Deaf Studies and Schwartz’ ‘Criteria for Analyzing Books about Deafness’. The survey included both dichotomous and open-ended questions. Research Questions & Methodology Are deaf characters being presented as culturally Deaf or as pathologically deaf and disabled? In previous articles, scholars have stated that most books with deaf characters include a pathological perspective; yet, few studies actually exist to conclude this assertion. In my study, I analyzed six books to determine whether they supported the cultural or the pathological perspective of deafness. The goal was not to exclusively label a text either/or but to highlight the distinct perspectives to illuminate a discussion regarding a deaf character. As before mentioned, the ALCAC instrument incorporates relevant theories and prior research findings in reference to the portrayals of deaf characters and was developed to specifically analyze adolescent literature with deaf characters. Despite the historical research regarding deaf characters and due to the increased awareness of deaf people and American Sign Language, my initial assumption was that the authors of the six adolescent books would present their deaf characters as more culturally ‘Deaf’. This was confirmed for the majority of the books. I believed that an outsider, such as a hearing writer, could carry out an adequate portrayal of a culture other than his own. In the past, scholars did not believe this was the case; however, the results from my study demonstrated that the majority of the hearing authors presented the cultural perspective model. Initially shocking, the majority of deaf authors incorporated the pathological perspective model. I offer three possible reasons why these deaf authors included more pathological perspective statements while the hearing authors include more cultural perspective statements: First, the deaf authors have grown up deaf and perhaps experienced more scenarios similar to those presented from the pathological perspective model. Even if the deaf authors live more culturally Deaf lifestyles today, authors include their experiences growing up in their writing. Second, there are less deaf characters in the books written by deaf authors and more characters and more character variety in the books written by the hearing authors. When there are fewer deaf characters interacting with other deaf characters, these characters tend to interact with more hearing characters who are less likely to be aware of the cultural perspective. And third, with decreased populations of culturally Deaf born to culturally Deaf individuals, it seems consistent that it may be more difficult to obtain a book from a Deaf of Deaf author. Similarly, if we consider the Deaf person’s first language is American Sign Language, Deaf authors may be spending more time composing stories and poetry in American Sign Language and less time focusing upon English. This possible lack of interest may make the number of ‘Deaf of Deaf’ authors, or culturally Deaf individuals raised by culturally Deaf parents, who pursue and are successful publishing a book in adolescent literature low. At least in adolescent literature, deaf characters, as many other minority group characters, are being included in texts to show young people our increasingly multicultural world. Adolescent literature readers can now become aware of a range of deaf characters, including characters who use American Sign Language, who attend residential schools for the Deaf, and even who have Deaf families. Do the readers favor deaf authors over hearing ones? A significant part of my research was based upon the perceptions of adult readers of adolescent literature with deaf characters. I selected participants from a criterion sampling and divided them into three groups: 1. Adults who had attended either a special program for the deaf or a residential school for the deaf, used American Sign Language, and identified themselves as deaf were considered for the deaf category of the study; 2. Adults who were friends, family members, co-workers or professionals in fields connected with individuals who identify themselves as deaf were considered for the familiar category of the study; and, 3. hearing adults who were not aware of the everyday experiences of deaf people and who had not taken a sign language class, worked with or lived with a deaf person were considered for the unfamiliar category of the study. Nine participants were selected for each group totaling 27 participants (one participant from each of the groups withdrew before completion, leaving eight participants from each of the groups to complete the study). To elicit the perspectives of the participants, I developed a Reader Response survey which was modeled after Schwartz’s ‘Criteria for Analyzing Books about Deafness’. I assumed that the participants from Deaf and Familiar groups would prefer the books written by the deaf authors while the unfamiliar participants would act more as a control group. This was not confirmed through the data. In fact, the Deaf participants along with the participants as a whole preferred the books written by the hearing authors as better describing their perceptions of realistic deaf people, for presenting deaf characters adequately and realistically, and for the hearing authors’ portrayals of deaf characters matching with their perceptions of deaf people. In general, the Deaf participants were more critical of the deaf authors while the familiar participants, although as a group preferred the books by the hearing authors, were more critical of the hearing authors. Participants throughout all three groups mentioned their preference for a spectrum of deaf characters. The books used in this study that were written by hearing authors included a variety of characters. For example, Riskind’s Apple Is My Sign includes numerous deaf students at a school for the deaf and the main character living within a deaf family; Deaver’s A Maiden’s Grave includes deaf characters from a variety of backgrounds attending a residential school for the deaf and only a few hearing characters; and Ferris’ Of Sound Mind includes two deaf families with two CODA or hearing teens. The books written by the deaf authors in this study include only a few deaf characters. For example, Matlin’s Deaf Child Crossing includes two deaf girls surrounded by hearing characters; Scott’s Finding Abby includes more minor deaf characters but readers learn about these characters from the hearing character’s perspective. For instance, the character Jared uses sign language and attends a residential school for the deaf but readers learn this information from his hearing mother talking about him, not from the deaf character’s words. Readers know that he communicates through sign language because we are told that he does; however, the only communication readers are shown is a wave from the child; and, Blatchford’s Nick’s Secret includes only one deaf character. With the fewer deaf characters it is nearly impossible for the various ways of being deaf to be included in the book. Thus, the preference for the books by the hearing authors is more likely connected to the preference for a variety of deaf people represented. How do readers perceive deaf characters? Participants commented on fourteen main and secondary characters. Their perceptions of these characters fall into six categories: the “normal” curious kid such as the characters Harry (Apple Is My Sign), Jeremy (Of Sound Mind) and Jared (Finding Abby); the egocentric spoiled brat such as Palma (Of Sound Mind) and Megan (Deaf Child Crossing); the advocate such as Harry’s mother (Apple Is My Sign) and Susan (A Maiden’s Grave); those dependent upon the majority culture such as Palma (Of Sound Mind) and Lizzie (Deaf Child Crossing); those isolated such as Melissa (Finding Abby), Ben (Of Sound Mind), Nick (Nick’s Secret) and Thomas (Of Sound Mind); and, those searching for their identities such as Melanie (A Maiden’s Grave) and Abby (Finding Abby). Overall, participants commented more frequently about the deaf characters in the books by the hearing authors (A Maiden’s Grave; Of Sound Mind; Apple Is My Sign) and made more positive comments about the culturally Deaf male characters, particularly Ben Roper, Jeremy and Thomas of Of Sound Mind, and Harry of Apple Is My Sign. Themes such as the characters being dependent and isolated from others did arise. For example, Palma in Of Sound Mind insists that her hearing son act as her personal interpreter so that she can avoid other hearing people. Examples to demonstrate the isolation some of the deaf characters experience include Nick of Nick’s Secret being the only deaf character in his story and Ben Roper of Of Sound Mind being the only deaf employee in his workplace. While these can certainly be read as negative situations the characters experience, isolation is a reality that resonates in some deaf people’s experiences. With communicative technology and more individuals fluent in American Sign Language, some deaf individuals may decide to associate more with individuals in the larger culture. One must interpret purposeful isolation such as Ben Roper’s (Of Sound Mind) case, working in a location that provides him with the best employment opportunities, differently than Melissa Black’s (Finding Abby) isolating feelings of being left out of family dinner discussions. Similarly, variations in characterization including the egocentric, spoiled brat and those searching for their identities are common themes in adolescent literature with or without deaf characters being included. Positive examples of deaf characters including the roles of the advocate such as Susan (A Maiden’s Grave) and Harry’s mother (Apple Is My Sign), along with descriptions of regular everyday deaf kids increases the varieties of deaf characters. As previously stated, my study included an analysis based on literary theory and prior research. At that time, unless the author explicitly told readers in a foreword or a letter to readers, I had no way of truly knowing why the deaf character was included and why the author made such decisions. This uncertainty of the author’s decisions changed for me in 2007 with the establishment of my educational blog. Beginning to Blog When I started my educational blog Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature in February 2007, I did not plan to become a blogger nor did I have any plans for my blog. I simply opened a Blogger account and added a list of 106 books with deaf characters that was connected to my research. Once I started blogging on a regular basis, I discovered an active audience who not only read what I wrote but who truly cared about my research. Blogging had become a way for me to keep my research current; since my blog was about deaf characters in adolescent literature, it became an advocacy tool that called attention to authors and books that were not widely publicized; and, it enabled me to become part of a cyber community made up of other bloggers and readers. After a few months of blogging on a weekly basis, I began to feel a sense of obligation to research and post my findings. While continuing to post to my blog, I have acquired more information about my research topic and even received advance reader copies prior to the books’ publication dates. This enables me to discuss the most current books. It also enables my readers to learn about such books. My blog acts as free advertisement for the publishing companies and authors. I currently have 195 contemporary books with deaf characters and over 36 author and professional interviews. While the most rewarding aspect of blogging is connecting with readers, there have been some major highlights in the process. As I stated, I had no way of knowing why the deaf character was included in the books until I began interviewing the authors. I had hoped that the hearing authors of books with deaf characters would portray their characters realistically but I had not realized the authors’ personal connections to actual deaf people. For instance, Delia Ray, Singing Hands, wrote about a Deaf preacher and his family. Her book was based on her grandfather who was a Deaf preacher and leading pioneer in the Deaf Community. Ray is not the only hearing author who has a personal connection to deaf people. Other examples include: Jean Ferris, Of Sound Mind, who earned a degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology. Ferris’ book includes only two hearing characters, the majority are Deaf. All of her characters are also fluent in American Sign Language; Jodi Cutler Del Dottore, Rally Caps, who includes a deaf character named Luca who uses a cochlear implant. Luca is based on Cutler Del Dottore’s son, Jordan, who also has a cochlear implant; finally, Jacqueline Woodson, Feathers, grew up in a community that included deaf people who did not use sign language. As an adult, she met members of the Deaf Community and began learning American Sign Language herself. Woodson introduces readers to Sean who is attractive, funny, and intelligent. In my study, I noted that all of the deaf characters where not diverse based upon race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (Pajka-West, "Perceptions"). Sean is the first Deaf American-African character in adolescent literature who uses sign language to communicate. Another main highlight is finding Deaf authors who do not receive the mainstream press that other authors might receive. For example, Ann Clare LeZotte, T4, introduces readers to main character Paula Becker, a thirteen year old deaf girl who uses sign language and lipreading to communicate. Through verse, we learn of Paula’s life in Germany during Hitler’s time as she goes into hiding since individuals with physical and mental disabilities were being executed under the orders of Hitler’s Tiergartenstrasse 4 (T4). One additional highlight is that I learn about insider tips and am then able to share this information with my blog readers. In one instance I began corresponding with Marvel Comic’s David Mack, the creator of Echo, a multilingual, biracial, Deaf comic book character who debuted in Daredevil and later The New Avengers. In comics, it is Marvel who owns the character; while Echo was created for Daredevil by Mack, she later appears in The New Avengers. In March 2008, discussion boards were buzzing since issue #39 would include original creator, Mack, among other artists. To make it less complicated for those who do not follow comics, the issue was about whether or not Echo had become a skrull, an alien who takes over the body of the character. This was frightening news since potentially Echo could become a hearing skrull. I just did not believe that Mack would let that happen. My students and I held numerous discussions about the implications of Marvel’s decisions and finally I sent Mack an email. While he could not reveal the details of the issue, he did assure me that my students and I would be pleased. I’m sure there was a collective sigh from readers once his email was published on the blog. Final Thoughts While there have been pejorative depictions of the deaf in literature, the portrayals of deaf characters in adolescent literature have become much more realistic in the last decade. Authors have personal connections with actual deaf individuals which lend to the descriptions of their deaf characters; they are conducting more detailed research to develop their deaf characters; and, they appear to be much more aware of the Deaf Community than they were in the past. A unique benefit of the genre is that authors of adolescent literature often give the impression of being more available to the readers of their books. Authors often participate in open dialogues with their fans through social networking sites or discussion boards on their own websites. After posting interviews with the authors on my blog, I refer readers to the author’s on site whether it through personal blogs, websites, Facebook or Twitter pages. While hearing authors’ portrayals now include a spectrum of deaf characters, we must encourage Deaf and Hard of Hearing writers to include more deaf characters in their works. Consider again my student Carla and her longing to find books with deaf characters. Deaf characters in fiction act as role models for young adults. A positive portrayal of deaf characters benefits deaf adolescents whether or not they see themselves as biologically deaf or culturally deaf. Only through on-going publishing, more realistic and positive representations of the deaf will occur. References Bailes, C.N. "Mandy: A Critical Look at the Portrayal of a Deaf Character in Children’s Literature." Multicultural Perspectives 4.4 (2002): 3-9. Batson, T. "The Deaf Person in Fiction: From Sainthood to Rorschach Blot." Interracial Books for Children Bulletin 11.1-2 (1980): 16-18. Batson, T., and E. Bergman. Angels and Outcasts: An Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press (1985). Bergman, E. "Literature, Fictional characters in." In J.V. Van Cleve (ed.), Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People & Deafness. Vol. 2. Washington, D.C.: McGraw Hill, 1987. 172-176. Brittain, I. "An Examination into the Portrayal of Deaf Characters and Deaf Issues in Picture Books for Children." Disability Studies Quarterly 24.1 (Winter 2004). 24 Apr. 2005 < http://www.dsq-sds.org >. Burns, D.J. An Annotated Checklist of Fictional Works Which Contain Deaf Characters. Unpublished master’s thesis. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University,1950. Campbell, P., and J. Wirtenberg. How Books Influence Children: What the Research Shows. Interracial Books for Children Bulletin 11.6 (1980): 3-6. Civiletto, C.L., and B.R. Schirmer. "Literature with Characters Who Are Deaf." The Dragon Lode 19.1 (Fall 2000): 46-49. Guella, B. "Short Stories with Deaf Fictional Characters." American Annals of the Deaf 128.1 (1983): 25-33. Krentz, C. "Exploring the 'Hearing Line': Deafness, Laughter, and Mark Twain." In S. L. Snyder, B. J. Brueggemann, and R. Garland-Thomson, eds., Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2002. 234-247. Larrick, N. "The All-White World of Children's Books. Saturday Review 11 (1965): 63-85. Pajka-West, S. “The Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature”. The ALAN Review 34.3 (Summer 2007): 39-45. ———. "The Portrayals and Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature." Ph.D. dissertation. University of Virginia, 2007. ———. "Interview with Deaf Author Ann Clare LeZotte about T4, Her Forthcoming Book Told in Verse." Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature, 5 Aug. 2008. < http://pajka.blogspot.com/ 2008/08/interview-with-deaf-author-ann-clare.html >.———. "Interview with Delia Ray, Author of Singing Hands." Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature, 23 Aug. 2007. < http://pajka.blogspot.com/ 2007/08/interview-with-delia-ray-author-of.html >.———. "Interview with Jacqueline Woodson, author of Feathers." Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature, 29 Sep. 2007. < http://pajka.blogspot.com/ 2007/09/interview-with-jacqueline-woodson.html >. ———. "Interview with Jodi Cutler Del Dottore, author of Rally Caps." Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature, 13 Aug. 2007. < http://pajka.blogspot.com/ 2007/08/interview-with-jodi-cutler-del-dottore.html >. Panara, R. "Deaf Characters in Fiction and Drama." The Deaf American 24.5 (1972): 3-8. Schwartz, A.V. "Books Mirror Society: A Study of Children’s Materials." Interracial Books for Children Bulletin 11.1-2 (1980): 19-24. Sherriff, A. The Portrayal of Mexican American Females in Realistic Picture Books (1998-2004). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: 2005. Taxel, J. "The Black Experience in Children's Fiction: Controversies Surrounding Award Winning Books." Curriculum Inquiry 16 (1986): 245-281. Taylor, G.M. "Deaf Characters in Short Stories: A Selective Bibliography. The Deaf American 26.9 (1974): 6-8. ———. "Deaf Characters in Short Stories: A Selective Bibliography II." The Deaf American 28.11 (1976): 13-16.———. "Deaf Characters in Short Stories: A Selective Bibliography III." The Deaf American 29.2 (1976): 27-28. Wilding-Diaz, M.M. Deaf Characters in Children’s Books: How Are They Portrayed? Unpublished master’s thesis. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1993.———. "Deaf Characters in Children’s Books: How Are They Perceived?" In Gallaudet University College for Continuing Education and B.D. Snider (eds.), Journal: Post Milan ASL & English Literacy: Issues, Trends & Research Conference Proceedings, 20-22 Oct. 1993.Adolescent Fiction Books Blatchford, C. Nick’s Secret. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner, 2000. Deaver, J. A Maiden’s Grave. New York: Signet, 1996. Ferris, J. Of Sound Mind. New York: Sunburst, 2004. Matlin, M. Deaf Child Crossing. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2004. Riskind, M. Apple Is My Sign. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Scott, V. Finding Abby. Hillsboro, OR: Butte, 2000.

As memories began to fill my mind, reminding me of the details from my own experiences that I had forgotten, I realized just how well I know this topic. Had I forgotten? Or had I just pushed these memories to the corners of my mind? I awoke at 4:00AM, parched, while my mind recalled lines of interview data that resonated with my own experiences. Stories of trauma that consumed hours of carefully conceptualized research had begun leaching into my dreams. Universities with a history of exclusion now seek to recruit systemically marginalized early career researchers (ECRs) with expertise in equity-related research, requiring unique training and research practices. Given shifts to include systemically marginalized groups in faculty hiring, graduate-student recruitment, ethics protocols, and funding calls for community-based research, these ECRs are likely to conduct research within their communities, on topics of personal relevance (i.e., insider research). Qualitative methodological training, practice, and literature on the conduct of insider research places an emphasis on reflexivity in order to ensure rigour, trustworthiness, and ethical processes; however, the emotional and psychological demands of insider research on the researcher are seldom discussed. Greater attention to the impacts of insider research is critical for understanding how ECRs can prepare for and be supported in their training and research. I argue that as critical qualitative scholars, we consider how researchers are potentially impacted by the emotional and psychological impacts of their work, particularly those from systemically marginalized groups conducting insider research. As an illustrative example, I recount my experience as an insider on a qualitative research study investigating individuals’ experiences of conversion therapy, practices that attempt to suppress or change one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. This methodological reflection is based on analytical memos and field notes written during a research project completed as part of my research assistant work. Embodiment and creative non-fiction are used to articulate my experiences of conducting deeply personal qualitative interviews and engaging in a critical analysis of stories of trauma that mirrored my own. Specifically, I have narrated four vignettes that articulate my story of beginning insider research with confidence and stoicism and ending, for now, with a churning stomach and lingering state of mental arousal. The vignettes illustrate the emotionally and mentally charged task of conducting insider research on topics of inequity as a systemically marginalized researcher and call for an ethic of equity to account for this unique labour – labour from which the academy benefits at the expense of systemically marginalized ECRs’ wellbeing. Conducting qualitative research using interpretivist, constructivist, critical, or emancipatory paradigms, where insider research is commonly situated, goes beyond the conventional, intellectual exercise of disseminating written work that is seemingly void of emotion in an academic journal. Moreover, being an insider within these paradigms demands empathy, vulnerability, emotion, passion, and personal sacrifice on the behalf of the researcher. Finally, this paradoxically rewarding and taxing work necessitates adequate education in methodological courses, institutional support amidst austerity, and an openness to innovation when calling for diversity in the academy.

Despite the increasing societal acceptance of homosexual individuals, the perception of homosexuality by heterosexual individuals is polluted by personal bias. My study observed the interaction between 422 heterosexuals and the homosexual community. First, my subjects self reported their beliefs on the determinant of sexual orientation (genetic or lifestyle). Next, they took the Activism Orientation (AO) and Sexual Prejudice (SP) Scales as a baseline measure of their relationship with members homosexual community. Subjects were randomly assigned to listen to an interview of two fictional homosexual individuals that spoke of life experience which either supported or contradicted the subjects’ self reported beliefs. Additionally, subjects were assigned to a high or low empathy condition toward the interviewee. After listening to the interview, subjects were given the choice to allocate $0 - $8,000 in support of a pro - LGBT charity. Subjects then retook the AO and SP scales to measure for significant changes in perception of homsexuals after the fictional scenario. Results indicated a significant decrease in the AO of subjects that viewed interviews that contradicted their beliefs. Additionally, subjects assigned to the low empathy condition donated significantly larger amounts. The present study has two main implications: Heterosexual individuals’ generalize their advocacy toward the LGBT community based on the actions of a singular homosexual. Furthermore, many activists naturally approach issues regarding social justice from a place of empathy, it is more sustainable to approach social justice movements from a logical perspective to allow for more meaningful and long term participation in a social justice movement.

This paper explores the link between the improvisatory nature of blues music and resistance to socially prescribed expectations for gender and sexuality in Ann-Marie MacDonald’s first novel, Fall on Your Knees (1996). When Kathleen Piper, one of the main characters in the novel, leaves her home in Cape Breton in1918 to pursue a classical singing career in New York, she finds herself transfixed, and subsequently transformed, by a performance by Jessie Hogan (a fictional character clearly modeled on Bessie Smith), in large part because of her remarkable improvised vocals. Hogan’s performance points to the rich history of the great blues women of this time period, women who, through their songs, costumes, and improvised lyrics and melodies, explicitly and implicitly tackled issues such as domestic violence and poverty, and challenged normative ideas of black female identity and sexual orientation. This history provides a critical context for Kathleen’s growing sense of autonomy and sexual identity, and this paper argues that the representation of Bessie Smith in the novel (in the guise of Hogan) enables possibilities for improvising new social relations and sexual identities.

Gender and sexuality are two dominant aspects in queer and feminist studies. The idea of feminine masculinity has been extensively discussed in Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity (1998)[1] to bring attention to masculine manifestations by female actors in butch-femme interplay and drag king performances. Halberstam’s arguments are based on the prevalent socio-political and cultural monopolization of gender identity that endorses patriarchy as the dominating force of economic and state manipulations. In a bid to challenge the status quo, Halberstam has propagated the notion of an alternative masculinity evident in childhood tomboyism that may lead to gender fluidity, frequently reflected and enacted in lesbian films and the American nightclub theatricals within an emergent drag king culture. The present article contends that Halberstam’s arguments for a feminine masculinity in his non-fictional prose work Female Masculinity (1998) are flawed in view of biological science, fictional representations of sexual orientations in dramatic performances, and real-life experiences. The results of the study indicate that outstanding human performances do not erase gender identities evident in biological anthropology.

Studying fairy tales and their rewriting without addressing gender issues causes studies to be incomplete. The masculine elements in fairy tales provide a wealth of material to be evaluated within the framework of feminist theory. In the narrative structure consisting of characters acting with a limited number of stereotyped behaviour patterns, stereotyped understandings of gender representations and sexual orientation differences are maintained and reproduced. In order to make this sexist attitude visible and transform it, the tales that were born in the folk culture and survived until today are rewritten by the authors. The narrative of "Little Red Riding Hood", a European folk tale, based on events between a little girl and a wolf; It is one of the leading tales that maintain a sexist attitude, have a worldwide reputation and are rewritten. In the study, three different rewriting of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale will be examined in terms of form and content in the perspective of postfeminist criticism, the differences and similarities between the first written version and the later derived forms will be revealed, and it will be discussed whether the three texts examined apply a deconstruction to the first text. The texts will be analysed considering whether these tales provide alternative positions for children.

SCULLY: I said, I got the lab to rush the results of the Szczesny autopsy, if you're interested.MULDER: I heard you, Scully.SCULLY: And Szczesny did indeed drown, but not as the result of the inhalation of ectoplasm as you so vehemently suggested.MULDER: Well, what else could she possibly have drowned in?SCULLY: Margarita mix, upchucked with about 40 ounces of Corcovado Gold tequila which, as it turns out, she and her friends rapidly consumed in the woods while trying to reenact the Blair Witch Project.MULDER: Well, I think that demands a little deeper investigation, don't you?SCULLY: No, I don't.— The X-Files, “All Things” (0717) IntroductionMikel J. Koven argues that “The X-Files [1993-2002, films 2005, 2010, revived 2016-2018] was the American television series that defined the zeitgeist of the 1990s” (337) by tapping into “pre-millenium paranoia and the collapse of traditional beliefs” (338). In each episode, “True Believer” and FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and his partner, the skeptical and rational Dr Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), travel through a post-Cold War American landscape that is manifesting varying levels of anxiety about the century to come. The series is preoccupied with a series of questions that have, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, come to be answered fairly definitively. Have aliens visited Earth? (Well, if you believe a team of Harvard scientists, maybe [see Freeman], but there is no evidence of alien colonisation just yet.) Does the US government have its citizens’ best interests at heart? (In its current incarnation, no.) Will climate change have monstrous consequences? (Yes, we’re seeing them.) What do we do about the shady forces operating in post-Soviet Union Russia? (God knows, but they seem to be doing a good job of changing the shape of “democracy” in an increasing number of countries.)These broader socio-political aspects of The X-Files have been explored in a number of studies (see Koven; Moses; Wildermuth). In this article, I focus in more closely on some of the ways in which the character of Scully can be read as a complex engagement with a particularly 1990s version of third-wave feminism. I suggest that the type of feminism embodied in the character of Scully taps into the zeitgeist of the 1990s, a decade characterised not only by a growing media-driven “backlash” against feminism (see Faludi), but also by emergent third wave of feminism driven by movements such as “Riot Grrrl” (centred on openly feminist bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear) and the various, and often contested, feminisms endorsed by a new generation of writers like Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf, and even Katie Roiphe. Part of Scully’s longevity as a feminist icon can be attributed to the fact that while she is not without her own contradictions and complexities, she emerged from a televisual landscape dominated by particularly insipid representations of professional women. Scully, with her combination of lively wit and serious scientific mind, represented a radical imagining of professional femininity in the 1990s.Working against the Backlash: Scully and the Power of ProfessionalismBy the late 1980s, the political gains made by the second-wave feminism in the 1960s and early 1970s had come increasingly under fire in a “backlash” that “worked to revoke the gains made by the feminist movement” (Genz and Brabon 53). L.S. Kim argues this backlash is reflected in the fact that while strong female characters had always been a feature of US television (e.g. Mary Tyler Moore), in the 1990s televisual landscape feminism was often made popular in a type of “postfeminist discourse in which it is acceptable to be pro-woman but not to be feminist” (319). The quintessential example of this trend was David E. Kelley’s series about a Boston lawyer, Ally McBeal (1997-2002), in which McBeal’s primary dilemma is presented as being that she has “too many choices, too much freedom, and too much desire” which leads to “never-ending searching and even to depression and dysfunction” (Kim 319). McBeal’s professional success never seems to compensate for her various romantic disappointments and these remain the focal point of Kelley’s series.Part of what sets Scully apart from a character like McBeal is her unerring professionalism, and her strong commitment to equality in her relationship with Mulder. Scully displays none of McBeal’s neuroses, and she is unapologetically feminist in her disposition. She also understands implicitly the pivotal role she plays in the partnership at the heart of the X-Files. Scully is, then, a capable, professional woman who not only remains professional at all times, but who also works as a powerful grounding force to her partner’s more outlandish approaches and theories. As series creator Chris Carter has been forced to concede on numerous occasions, without the rational and practical figure of Scully in the morgue to (usually) prove and (sometimes) disprove Mulder’s theories, The X-Files as we know them would cease to exist. In fact, and somewhat paradoxically, in order to best understand Scully as a character, one needs to recognise the significance of the relationship between Scully and Mulder that lies at the heart of the series. The sheer force of Scully’s professionalism, and its resistance to being conscripted straightforwardly into a traditional romantic plot, becomes an important contributor to the powerful sexual tension between Mulder and Scully that came to define the series. Scully also, as critics and commentators were quick to point out, takes on the traditionally masculine role of skeptical scientist on the series, with Mulder positioned in the typically feminine role of intuitive “believer” (in, among other things, aliens, Chupacabra, big foot, and psychic powers). There are, of course, problems with this approach, but for now it is enough to simply point out that this positioning of Mulder and Scully is an important feature of the internal structure of The X-Files and speaks to an awareness of, and desire to challenge, the traditional association of women with intuition and men with rationality. Indeed, Linda Badley points out that the relationship between the two agents is “remarkably egalitarian, challenging traditional gender roles as portrayed on television” (63).Scully and Mulder’s relationship, a relationship that is at once personal and professional, is also grounded in genuine equality and respect. Mulder never undermines Scully, he (occasionally) knows when to bow to her superior scientific reasoning, and his eventual love for his partner is based in his understanding that Scully’s skepticism offers the perfect counterpart to his openness to the paranormal. In fact, one might say that Mulder, at least in part, falls in love with Scully’s professionalism and with her commitment to scientific reasoning. Mulder admits as much himself in the film The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998): “as difficult and frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person.” In this calculation, Scully is not only Mulder’s equal, she is his missing piece. While she might sometimes grumble about merely playing Watson to Mulder’s Holmes (see “Fight Club” [0720]), Scully’s role is much more important than this, and Mulder (and the viewer) knows it.In the context of the televisual landscape of the 1990s, this representation of Scully as a character who is every bit as intelligent and as integral to the action of the series as her male partner, was incredibly powerful. It marked Scully as a third-wave feminist character in an era dominated by women who seemed to conform to the kind of problematic post-feminism embodied by Ally McBeal. In a recent interview, Gillian Anderson acknowledged the significant role Scully played in opening up possibilities for the representation of women on television in the 1990s. She observed, “a lot of women felt that they saw something recognisable for the first time [in Scully and] there were a lot of young women whose eyes were opened to feeling like they were finally represented in some way on television” (Anderson in Idato n.p.) Many women saw themselves in this character, and there can be little doubt The X-Files spearheaded a shift towards a more representative approach to the writing of female roles in US television in which layered and complex characters such as Scully became the norm rather than the exception. Rosalind Gill, for example, notes that “quality television” has “evolved since the 1990s into a site of rich and complex representations of gender including Homeland, Veep, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Transparent, and The Good Wife” (620).One of the other pervasive positive effects associated with the character of Scully is that she functioned, and indeed continues to function, as a role model for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A recent report commissioned by 21st Century Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence found that “Scully’s media depiction of a high-achieving woman in STEM asked a generation of girls and women to imagine new professional options… Scully also influenced a generation of young women to study and pursue careers in STEM” (3). Although this report is not entirely impartial (21th Century Fox owns The X-Files), it found that “among women who are familiar with Scully’s character, 91% say she is a role model for girls and women” (5). This finding tallies with those of a variety of earlier online observers who noticed Scully had become a touchstone character “who inspired an entire generation of young women to pursue medical, scientific, and law enforcement degrees as positions” (Consalvi). To an extent not seen before in the history of television, Scully became an important role model for young women in the STEM professions. Scully’s fictional professionalism helped to create a new generation of real-life female STEM professionals.But it is worth remembering that in other respects, Scully is a complicated feminist heroine. This is largely because The X-Files’ production team’s own feminist credentials were often less-than-inspiring. The series was created by a man, and was written and directed predominantly by men in all of its various filmic and televisual incarnations. As Anderson herself pointed out on her Twitter feed for 29 June 2017, of the 207 episodes of X-Files produced, only 2 were directed by women (fig. 1). Famously, when the X-Files began in the early 1990s, Anderson was paid far less than her co-star Duchovny and was even asked to stand behind him on camera. The actor agitated successfully for equal pay after three years in the role, and for the right to stand beside her televisual partner, rather than behind him, even if, somewhat astonishingly, Twenty First Century Fox also offered Anderson less than Duchovny to reprise her famous role in 2016. (Anderson eventually received equal pay for equal billing.)Fig. 1: Gillian Anderson tweet, 29 June 2017.It ought to be remembered, then, that Scully’s feminism is predominantly a construction of men, overlaid with the undoubted feminine empowerment brought to the role by Anderson. As far back as 1998, Linda Badley noticed that for Scully/Anderson “the transference of ‘feminist’ characteristics between character and star is unusually strong—to the extent that a discussion of one must refer to the other. And Anderson/Scully is instantly recognisable as an icon of popular feminism” (62). But in more recent years, Anderson has made even clearer her own feminist leanings. She has done this through the publication (with Jennifer Nadel) of the explicitly feminist We: The Uplifting Manuel for Women Seeking Happiness (2017); by taking up more explicitly feminist roles, such as that of Stella Gibson in the acclaimed BBC series The Fall (2013-present); and through her Twitter feed. The significance of Anderson’s online feminist presence is highlighted by Lauren Modery, who notes: “the next time you’re having a day where you’re not sure if you’re being the best feminist you can be, just ask yourself “what would Gillian Anderson do?” and go to her Twitter account” (Modery). Scully’s 1990s Feminism in a Twenty-First Century ContextFor much of the series, Scully’s feminism can be viewed as a form of the “New Feminism” that Stephanie Genz and Benjamin Brabon associate with the late 1990s and with Natasha Walter’s book The New Feminism (1998). This “New Feminism” attempts to break from second-wave feminism by decoupling the personal from the political (64). Badley, for example, points out that Scully’s feminism is strictly based on individual empowerment: “rather than challenge patriarchy directly or join forces with women activists, Scully channels her anger/ambition into fitting into the system” (70). But equally, Scully’s feminism could be seen as a prototype of the kind of “neo-liberal” feminism that theorists such as Angela McRobbie associate with the present moment, a feminism which “discards the older, welfarist and collectivist feminism of the past, in favour of individualist striving” (4). Certainly, over the course of the 25 years, The X-Files has been in existence, we have seen little evidence that Scully has female friends (or indeed, that she interacts with anyone much outside of Mulder and her family).When other women do enter the picture, such as when Mulder’s one-time lover and co-founder of the X-Files, Diana Fowley appears in the fifth season of the series (see “The End” [0520]), Scully is often positioned in an antagonistic relationship with them. In this context, it is notable that “All Things,” a seventh-season episode directed and written by Anderson, places Scully’s interaction with Colleen Azar, a woman from the American Taoist Healing Centre, at the centre of the narrative. Azar’s exhortations to Scully to “slow down” are presented as the wise words of a female ally in this episode, and Scully does well to heed them. This episode, consciously I think, works as a counter to the more typical representation of Scully as being in competition with women for Mulder’s interest, evident in episodes like “Alpha” (0616) and “Syzygy” (0313). In this respect, Anderson appears to be aligning Scully with a feminism that is much more inclusive than it appears in other, male-written, episodes.From the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, one of the more problematic elements The X-Files has to do with its representation of sex and sexuality. Sex, in the world of The X-Files, is very 1990s in orientation. In fact, it echoes the way in which sex operated in the Clinton impeachment: denial, denial, denial, even in the face of clear evidence it took place. We see this most obviously in “All Things,” which begins with a shot of Scully getting dressed in front of a mirror, that pans to a shot of an undressed Mulder in bed. This opening seems to suggest the two had spent the night together, but nothing overtly sexual actually takes place in the episode. Indeed, any sexual activity that ever takes place in the X-Files happens off camera, but it is nonetheless worth pointing out that while the equally solitary Mulder is repeatedly characterised in the series by his porn fetish, Scully’s sexuality is repeatedly denied or diminished in the series. Moreover, any overt expression of Scully’s sexuality (such as in “Milagro,” [0618] where she falls for a writer living next door to Mulder) typically ends badly, with Scully placed in peril by her sexual desires.Scully’s continued presence in the twenty-first century, however, means that while her character is rooted in what we might call a “1990s feminist disposition” (she prides herself on being a “woman in a man’s world”; she demonstrates little interest in stereotypically feminine pursuits such as shopping or make up; her focus is on work, rather than romance), she has also been allowed the room to grow and develop. Perhaps most notably, the 2018 Scully is allowed to embrace her sexuality. Sexual activity still appears off screen, of course, but in “Plus One” (1103), we see her actively pursue sex with Mulder (twice!), while her vibrator makes an unapologetic cameo appearance in “Rm9sbG93ZXJz” (1107). Given that we live in a decade saturated in sexual imagery, it makes no sense for 2018 Scully to be as chaste and buttoned up as she was in the 1990s.Finally, in a series in which the wild speculation of the conspiracy theories is almost always true, Scully’s feminist commitment to rationality, science and the power of logic might appear to be undermined at every turn. Badley, for example, reminds us that while Scully may “have medicine and the law on her side ... Mulder’s vision is validated by Chris Carter, as the prologue to nearly every episode reminds us” (67). This is highlighted in “Field Trip” (0621) when Scully wonders, “Mulder, can’t you just for once, just ... for the novelty of it, come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or…” Mulder simply counters with:Scully, in six years, how … how often have I been wrong? No seriously, I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me that I’m not being scientifically rigorous and that I’m off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.95 of the time? I just think I’ve ... earned the benefit of the doubt here.Interestingly enough, however, it is Scully who solves the mystery at the heart of this particular episode of X-Files—Mulder and Scully are indeed trapped inside a giant fungus, being slowly digested by its gooey secretions.And while Mulder’s viewpoint is most often endorsed in the series, the chaos of the Trump administration illustrates perfectly the dangers behind the valorisation of the irrational over the rational. In a decade in which rationality itself is coming under increasing threat—by “fake news”; through a hostility towards the science of climate change; in the desire to wind back further the gains of the feminist movement—we need to remember the importance of the strong and abiding relationship between rationality and feminism. This is a relationship that goes at least as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), is at the heart of the feminist gothic writings of women like Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851). This commitment to the power of rationality lives on in the character of Dana Scully.Conclusion: Scully as Twenty-First-Century Feminist IconI have argued throughout this article that there are limitations of the kind of feminism embodied in Scully, but it is clear that she has come to represent a type of woman who refuses to let men dictate her behaviour, and who maintains her professionalism even under the most difficult of circumstances. A host of Scully memes now circulating on the web celebrate the character’s competence, intelligence, and compassion (figs. 2, 3, and 4). The character of Scully now exists far beyond the confines of the television screen and the imaginations of her predominantly male authors. Scully’s continuing relevance to twenty-first century feminists is reflected in this meme recently placed by Anderson on her Twitter account in response to the allegations of sexual misconduct directed at US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh (fig. 5). Rarely have the 1990s seemed so relevant to the present moment.Fig. 2: Scully meme, Meme Generator.Fig. 3: Rustnsplinters, “Scully Motivational.” Deviant Art.Fig. 4: E.H. Redlum, “Scully: Meme Style.” Deviant Art.Fig. 5: Gillian Anderson tweet.ReferencesBadley, Linda. “Scully Hits the Glass Ceiling: Postmodernism, Postfeminism, Posthumanism, and The X-Files.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. Ed. Elyce Rae Helford. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 61-90.Consalvi, Sydney. “The Scully Effect Continues: How The X-Files’ Dana Scully Changed Television Forever.” Odyssey. 9 Aug. 2016. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.theodysseyonline.com/scully-effect>.Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. London: Vintage, 1991.Freeman, David. “Scientists Say Mysterious ‘Oumuamua’ Object Could Be an Alien Spacecraft: Harvard Researchers Raise the Possibility That It’s a Probe Sent by Extraterrestrials.” NBCNews.com. 6 Nov. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-say-mysterious-oumuamua-object-could-be-alien-spacecraft-ncna931381>.Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin A. Brabon. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009.Gill, Rosalind. “Post-Postfeminism? New Feminist Visibilities in Postfeminist Times.” Feminist Media Studies 16.4 (2016): 610-30.Idato, Michael. “Gillian Anderson on Why She’s Closing The X-Files after 25 Years.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 15 Jan. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/times-up-gillian-anderson-on-why-shes-closing-the-xfiles-after-25-years-20180115-h0iapf.html>.Kim, L.S. “‘Sex and the Single Girl’ in Postfeminism: The F Word on Television.” Television and New Media 2.4 (Nov. 2001): 319-334.Koven, Mikel J. “The X-Files.” Essential Cult TV Reader. Ed. David Lavery. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2010. 337-343.McRobbie, Angela. “Notes on the Perfect: Competitive Femininity in Neoliberal Times.” Australian Feminist Studies 30:83 (2015): 3-20.Modery, Lauren. “Gillian Anderson Is the Feminist Twitter Hero We Need Right Now.” Birth. Movies. Death. 25 Jan. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/01/25/gillian-anderson-is-the-feminist-twitter-hero-we-need-right-now>.Moses, Michael Valdez. “Kingdom of Darkness: Autonomy and Conspiracy in The X-Files and Millenium.” The Philosophy of TV Noir. Eds. Steven M. Sanders and Aeon J. Skoble. Lexington: U. of Kentucky P., 2008. 203-228.21stCentury Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence. The ‘Scully Effect’: I Want to Believe… in STEM. 2018. <https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf>.Wildermuth, Mark E. Gender, Science Fiction Television, and the American Security State: 1958-Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.X-Files: Fight the Future. Dir. Rob Bowman. Perf. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. 20th Century Fox. 1998.

Recent research has mainly used two approaches to identify publishers or sources of disinformation: First, alternative media are identified as potential publishers of disinformation. Second, potential publishers of disinformation are identified via fact-checking websites. Samples created using those approaches can partly overlap. However, the two approaches differ in terms of validity and comprehensiveness of the identified population. Sampling of alternative media outlets is theory-driven and allows for cross-national comparison. However, researchers face the challenge to identify misinforming content published by alternative media outlets. In contrast, fact-checked content facilitates the identification of a given disinformation population; however, fact-checker often have a publication bias focusing on a small range of (elite) actors or sources (e.g. individual blogs, hyper partisan news outlets, or politicians). In both approaches it is important to describe, compare and, if possible, assign the outlets to already existing categories in order to enable a temporal and spatial comparison. Approaches to identify sources/publishers: Besides the operationalization of specific variables analyzed in the field of disinformation, the sampling procedure presents a crucial element to operationalize disinformation itself. Following the approach of detecting disinformation through its potential sources or publishers (Li, 2020), research analyzes alternative media (Bachl, 2018; Boberg, Quandt, Schatto-Eckrodt, & Frischlich, 2020; Heft et al., 2020) or identifies a various range of actors or domains via fact-checking sites (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Grinberg et al., (2019); Guess, Nyhan & Reifler, 2018). Those two approaches are explained in the following. Alternative media as sources/publishers The following procedure summarizes the approaches used in current research for the identification of relevant alternative media outlets (following Bachl, 2018; Boberg et al., 2020; Heft et al., 2020). Snowball sampling to define the universe of alternative media outlets may consists of the following steps: Sample of outlets identified in previous research Consultation of search engines and news articles Departing from a potential prototype, websites provide information about digital metrics (Alexa.com or Similarweb.com). For example, Similarweb.com shows three relevant lists per outlet: “Top Referring Sites” (which websites are sending traffic to this site), “Also visited websites” (overlap with users of other websites), and “Competitors & Similar Sites” (similarity defined by the company) Definition of alternative media outlets Journalistic outlets (for example, excluding blogs and forums) with current, non-fictional and regular content Self-description of the outlets in a so-called “about us” section or in a mission statement, which underlines the relational perspective of being an alternative to the mainstream media. This description may for example include keywords such as alternative, independent, unbiased, critical or is in line with statements like “presenting the real/true views/facts” or “covering what the mainstream media hides/leaves out”. Use of predefined dimensions and categories of alternative media (Frischlich, Klapproth, & Brinkschulte, 2020; Holt, Ustad Figenschou, & Frischlich, 2019) Sources/publishers via fact-checking sites Following previous research in the U.S., Guess et al. (2018) identified “Fake news domains” (focusing on pro-Trump and pro-Clinton content) which published two or more articles that were coded as “fake news” by fact-checkers (derived from Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). Grinberg et al. (2019) identified three classes of “fake news sources” differentiated by severity and frequency of false content (see Table 1). These three sources are part of a total of six website labels. The researchers additionally coded the sites into reasonable journalism, low quality journalism, satire and sites that were not applicable. The coders reached a percentual agreement of 60% for the labeling of the six categories, and 80% for the distinction of fake and non-fake categories. Table 1. Three classes of “fake news sources” by Grinberg et al. (2019) Label Specification Identification Definition Black domains Based on previous studies: These domains published at least two articles which were declared as “fake news” by fact-checking sites. Based on preexisting lists constructed by fact-checkers, journalists and academics (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Guess et al., 2018) Almost exclusively fabricated stories Red domains Major or frequent falsehoods that are in line with the site's political agenda. Prejudiced: Site presents falsehoods that focus upon one group with regards to race / religion / ethnicity / sexual orientation. Major or frequent falsehoods with little regard for the truth, but not necessarily to advance a certain political agenda. By the fact-checker snopes.com as sources of questionable claims; then manually differentiated between red and orange domains Falsehoods that clearly reflected a flawed editorial process Orange domains Moderate or occasional falsehoods to advance political agenda. Sensationalism: exaggerations to the extent that the article becomes misleading and inaccurate. Occasionally prejudiced articles: Site at times presents individual articles that contain falsehoods regarding race / religion / ethnicity / sexual orientation Openly states that the site may not be inaccurate, fake news, or cannot be trusted to provide factual news. Moderate or frequent falsehoods with little regard for the truth, but not necessarily to advance a certain political agenda. Conspiratorial: explanations of events that involves unwarranted suspicion of government cover ups or supernatural agents. By the fact-checker snopes.com as sources of questionable claims; then manually differentiated between red and orange domains Negligent and deceptive information but are less systemically flawed Supplementary materials: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2019/01/23/363.6425.374.DC1/aau2706_Grinberg_SM.pdf (S5 and S6) Coding scheme and source labels: https://zenodo.org/record/2651401#.XxGtJJgzaUl (LazerLab-twitter-fake-news-replication-2c941b8\domains\domain_coding\data) References Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236. Bachl, M. (2018). (Alternative) media sources in AfD-centered Facebook discussions. Studies in Communication | Media, 7(2), 256–270. Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2018). Fake news and the economy of emotions. Digital Journalism, 6(2), 154–175. Boberg, S., Quandt, T., Schatto-Eckrodt, T., & Frischlich, L. (2020, April 6). Pandemic populism: Facebook pages of alternative news media and the corona crisis -- A computational content analysis. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.02566v3 Farkas, J., Schou, J., & Neumayer, C. (2018). Cloaked Facebook pages: Exploring fake Islamist propaganda in social media. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1850–1867. Frischlich, L., Klapproth, J., & Brinkschulte, F. (2020). Between mainstream and alternative – Co-orientation in right-wing populist alternative news media. In C. Grimme, M. Preuss, F. W. Takes, & A. Waldherr (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Disinformation in open online media (Vol. 12021, pp. 150–167). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Grinberg, N., Joseph, K., Friedland, L., Swire-Thompson, B., & Lazer, D. (2019). Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Science (New York, N.Y.), 363(6425), 374–378. Guess, A., Nagler, J., & Tucker, J. (2019). Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook. Science Advances, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586 Guess, A., Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2018). Selective exposure to misinformation: Evidence from the consumption of fake news during the 2016 US presidential campaign. European Research Council, 9(3), 1–14. Heft, A., Mayerhöffer, E., Reinhardt, S., & Knüpfer, C. (2020). Beyond Breitbart: Comparing right?wing digital news infrastructures in six Western democracies. Policy & Internet, 12(1), 20–45. Holt, K., Ustad Figenschou, T., & Frischlich, L. (2019). Key dimensions of alternative news media. Digital Journalism, 7(7), 860–869. Nelson, J. L., & Taneja, H. (2018). The small, disloyal fake news audience: The role of audience availability in fake news consumption. New Media & Society, 20(10), 3720–3737.

Introduction A 2021 listicle pronouncing “10 Things That Are Bisexual Culture” concludes that “claiming that random things are ‘bi culture’ is the most bi-culture thing of all” (Wilber n.p.). While posed as tongue-in-cheek, the assignment of status as a signifier of bisexuality to seemingly arbitrary actions and items reinforces the notion that bi people seek a distinct visual and cultural identity and struggle to make one. We consider how creators on the algorithmically driven social media platform TikTok responded to an open-ended 2019 prompt (“ayo, bisexual check”) to show off styles and accessories that project a bisexual display, and how these videos, understood collectively, contribute to the cohesion of a prototype for a bisexual social uniform. By social uniform, we refer to informally standardised clothing that identifies members of a group but lacks the bureaucratic regulation of an institutional uniform (Joseph). This lens is productive for interpreting subcultural dress norms, including those of queer identities at various scopes (e.g. Nelson, “Here”; Stines). The development of these social uniforms can allow for stronger group coherence and provide individuals with “self-esteem through conformity” with one’s group and “self-regard by conflict” with other groups (Joseph 74). There is added utility to this signalling for queer people as a means to seek community and partnership against a societal backdrop of stigmatisation (Brennan). Being able to identify who is like oneself at a glance lets one know when and where one is safe to outwardly present an authentic version of oneself (Huxley and Hayfield; Rostosky et al.; Wang and Feinstein). Bisexual communities notably lack such a uniform (Hayfield, Bisexual; Hayfield, “Invisibility”; Hayfield, “Never”; Hayfield and Wood; Huxley et al.). While bi people have expressed interest in having a distinct, coherent aesthetic or set of visual markers to express their bisexuality and recognise others as specifically bisexual, they have encountered obstacles towards the establishment of such a bi uniform (Madison, “Representing”; Nelson, “What”). The conception of homosexuality and heterosexuality as a binary leaves little room for the notion of bisexuality at all (Nelson, “Here”). In instances when people do attempt to stake a claim to a specifically bisexual visual identity, the result tends to be read binaristically nonetheless (Daly et al.; Hartman; Hayfield, Bisexual; Morgan and Davis-Delano; Nelson, “What”). Attempts to visually “split the middle” of established gay and straight styles have thus historically failed, with onlookers (even bisexual onlookers) either assuming the bi person in question is gay or straight (Hartman). Rosie Nelson goes so far as to contend that “the body of the bisexual is incapable of declaring itself outwardly bisexual to a monosexist society” (“Here” 87). In other words, Nelson argues that a distinctly bi visual identity—a bi social uniform—may be impossible so long as bisexuality remains invisible in broader discourses of sexual orientation and that only improved or increased representations of bisexuality in media, law, research, and culture can foment the conditions for bisexual visibility in the most literal sense (“Here”). TikTok’s Bisexual Displays Within this context of binary assumptions of gender and sexual orientation, Julie Hartman-Linck conceived the “bisexual display” (Hartman 39). By analogy with gender display as theorised by Lorber and building on Goffman’s construction of identity performance, the bisexual display refers to attempts to project a bisexual identity “using the accoutrements of gender, as well as more direct visual and verbal cues” (Hartman 43). Bisexuality is discursively erased, and even seemingly straightforward attempts to make bi identities known are often misconstrued by observers, either through ignorance (e.g., unfamiliarity with the significance of the bi pride flag) or through willful disbelief (e.g., doubt in the authenticity of bisexuality / the bisexual; see Alarie and Gaudet). Therefore, analysis of bisexual display focusses on the intended effect of the performer rather than on the actual understandings of their audiences: bisexual display offers a productive theoretical lens through which to consider how a bisexual identity is intentionally fashioned, even if attempts to fashion the bisexual identity may be misunderstood or ignored. Emiel Maliepaard, in his research on bisexual geographies, argues that bisexual spaces are “temporal, local and (often) unplanned” (47). We identified one such space on TikTok, an algorithmically driven video-centric social media platform. TikTok affords creators a great deal of power to respond to and remix other creators’ content, most prominently with the “use this sound” function which lets creators incorporate audio either originating from or used in another video (colloquially a TikTok) into their own (Abidin and Kaye). The memetic process of (re)using a sound with some amount of variation generates a constituency of creators and other users whose participation in the video creation and engagement process aligns with what Zulli and Zulli theorised as TikTok’s imitation publics: “a collection of people whose digital connectivity is constituted through the shared ritual of content imitation and replication” (1882). These imitation publics in turn may spawn these temporal, local, and unplanned spaces, including virtual bisexual spaces. Here, we conducted a content analysis of 50 short videos posted in 2019 with over 1,000 likes using the “ayo, bisexual check” (“ABC”) sound, which was first uploaded in late March 2019. The originator of the sound posted a video of themselves saying “ayo, bisexual check” and then showing off certain elements of clothing and reifying or countering certain stereotypes about bi identity. When other creators subsequently began to use the sound and associated format to do the same, they constituted the “ABC” sound’s imitation public. While there are multiple possible ways creators might have understood the prompt of a “bisexual check” (e.g., as encouraging them to dress in a way that projects their own bisexuality; to dress in a way that projects bisexuality most legibly to other bisexual or nonbisexual people; to dress in a way that feels most comfortable to them, as a bisexual; etc.), the intention behind these videos can be understood broadly to display some bisexual identity. The simple and direct nature of the prompt (“bisexual check”) generates the virtual “bisexual space”, both “highly temporal and specific” (Maliepaard 59). This space both offers an open-ended venue for creators to engage with a culture of visual identity, and maximises the potential for audiences to read what transpires in the videos as demonstrative (if not constitutive) of bisexual identity. By creating these TikToks, users are not waiting for more or better bisexual representation on TikTok but instead are actively embodying it, responding to the need identified by Nelson. Elements of the Bisexual Check At the broadest level, creators in the 50 sampled videos primarily showcased discrete fashion elements or accessories, rather than entire outfits. The structure of “ABC” TikToks allowed creators to draw attention to specific pieces of clothing, jewelry, haircuts and styles, makeup looks, and ways of fashioning clothes (see fig. 1 for an example). This mode of engaging with the “bisexual check” challenge differs from the mode of engagement we saw in videos using the “ABC” sound posted after 2019; while onscreen text, closed captions, and video descriptions in TikToks posted in 2019 were primarily in English, text in videos posted in 2020 and later was mostly in Tagalog. This suggested that 2019 and post-2019 TikToks emerged from distinct and separate cultural contexts; despite using the same “ABC” sound, they represented different imitation publics. The post-2019 videos tended to show their creators posing for one or several shots without focussing on particular elements of their outfits, instead displaying their looks as a whole. The later videos offer a useful variation in memetic content and stance (Shifman), a contrast which permits us to understand the 2019 “ABC” videos as attempts to display bisexuality chiefly through discrete visual markers (e.g., fashion elements). Fig. 1: A screencap from the authors’ mocked-up “ABC” TikTok in which the creator uses a fingergun to showcase their cuffed jeans. Studies of bi people in the past two decades (almost all of which have been about bi women; see Clarke et al., though see Rogers for a recent exception) have identified several ways bi subjects attempt to make their bisexuality known in the face of overwhelming invisibility. Hayfield summarised research about bi women’s fashion, documenting styles that are “funky, flamboyant, or associated with alternative looks and looking (e.g., hippie, Goth, punk, and so on) including through piercings and tattoos” (“Invisibility” 180). Hartman-Linck recorded bi women using bumper stickers, pride flags and pride flag iconography, pins, and jewelry using the pink-purple-blue bi pride flag design, as well as a general playfulness with specific gendered markers (Hartman). Madison likewise found bi people using the bi pride flag design and colours on clothes and jewelry, as well as bi-specific iconography like the biangles (overlapping pink and blue triangles that generate a smaller purple triangle between them), interlocking Mars and Venus signs (⚤), and pun-based symbols like the “bisexuwhale” (“Representing” 151–3). More recently, the Internet has been a fruitful venue for discussions among bisexuals about a visual culture (Madison, “Bisexual”); discourse among bisexual people on social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr has generated some seemingly novel styles and fashions that have been highlighted as specifically bi looks. A 2017 tweet about jeans cuffed at the ankles (see fig. 1) and baggy shirts tucked in at the waist being “bisexual culture” has been mentioned in numerous popular news articles and blogs (e.g., Cao; Wilber). A Tumblr post from around the same time with images of three fictional characters sporting neck-length hairstyles cut straight at the bottoms appears to have been the genesis of the “bisexual bob”, a bob haircut worn by a bi person (usually a woman) that received similar coverage and discussion to the cuffed jeans and tucked-in shirts tweet (e.g., Locke; Vandervalk; Wilber). Other items identified in listicles as constituting “bi culture” include: being unable to sit in chairs “correctly”, dyed pink hair, puns, Converse brand shoes, plaid shirts, outer space, (excessive) use of the bi pride flag and colours, and anxiety disorders. Within our sample, we identified an uptake of these nascent bi fashions, with 62% of videos featuring clothing being cuffed (most frequently jeans), 36% of videos highlighting shirts tucked into pants, and 20% of videos demonstrating bi bobs. More explicit iconography like bi pride flags and colours (what Hartman-Linck referred to as “sign equipment” in her conceptualisation of bisexual display) appeared in 16% of videos, compared to more general rainbow iconography, which showed up in 20% of them (Hartman). Button-down shirts appeared in 34% of videos, and both floral print shirts and Converse shoes appeared in 18% of the total corpus. Nose piercings actively contributed to the “bisexual check” in 12% of sampled TikToks, while a full-body dress appeared in just one video (2%). We identified no instances of biangles, interlocking Mars and Venus signs, or punny sign equipment. Display Becoming Prototype, Prototype Becoming Uniform Interpreting “ABC” videos as bisexual displays on the individual level and conceptualising the community of “ABC” creators and engagers as an imitation public allows us to understand the process taking place as social identity work, “the construction of identities for groups of people” (Eschler and Menking 2). Eschler and Menking (drawing upon Donath as well as Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock) argued that for social identities (like bisexuality), certain memes can offer prototypes: “a set of minimal social cues that a person can use to infer other information about an individual’s social world” (9). Similarly, Joseph argued that for any complex of sartorial meaning, there is a minimal symbol: “the least symbol necessary to suggest a uniform” (24). By their nature, prototypes (or minimal symbols) will be limited to the fewest key elements required to demarcate a social identity. TikTok creators have the capacity to share their own “bisexual checks” with the “use this sound” feature or duet other creators’ videos to mirror or counter elements of the original creators’ checks in their own lives. Further, even if not posting their own “ABC” content, users have the ability to share, comment on, and like TikToks to engage with a creator’s bisexual display. Each new “ABC” video accomplishes what Rogers identified in his research on images of bi men on Instagram: they “add to a discourse and visual culture of bisexuality that both describes and prescribes the visual forms in which bisexuality appears” (366). Each contribution introduces a new, or more likely reifies an existing (if nascent) indicator of a bisexual identity. It is no surprise, then, that visual indicators that had already garnered some popular support within online bisexual spaces (bi bobs, cuffed jeans, tucked-in shirts) were among the most common in our sample. Still, a fashion choice having already entered the bisexual public consciousness does not solely explain why it recurred in our sample while other choices and items mentioned in listicles did not. The userbase of creators who tend to achieve virality on TikTok skews young, white, wealthy, and female (Boffone; Kennedy), so styles favoured by bi people who share at least some of these identities (e.g., white teen or twentysomething girls and women with personal or familial wealth) are likely to recur more frequently and receive increased engagement from the broader TikTok userbase, which also skews young and female (Cyca). Anecdotally, this demographic picture of TikTok mirrored our sample, suggesting that markers posited by creators and received by users were most likely to reflect the tastes and norms of young, white, and female creators. Indeed, one of the few nonwhite “ABC” creators was the only person in our sample to use the sound to argue against the core premise of the videos, contending that all one needed to be bisexual was attraction to people of multiple genders rather than any of the specific visual markers posed by others in the sample. While a universal “bisexual check” is suggested by the sparse wording of the challenge, the resulting videos nonetheless demonstrate a specific racially, temporally, and culturally positioned understanding of bi identity. Just because anyone has the capacity to contribute their own vision of the “bisexual check” does not mean that all “ABC” videos will land with equal frequency on users’ For You Page feeds (TikTok’s “homepage” where videos are algorithmically delivered to users; see Simpson and Semaan), nor enjoy the same volume of attention from TikTok’s userbase. Eschler and Menking consider the prototype to be “the least common denominator” (9), meaning that users will take the few most common elements shared amongst the “ABC” videos as symbols of a bisexual style. That the top “ABC” videos (those we sampled) heavily skew young, white, and female means that a bi uniform emerges from elements favoured by users sharing those demographics. Our mode of investigating this sound’s videos (moving systematically through all the videos using the “ABC” sound from most liked to less liked) does not contravene the affordances of TikTok’s platform but is somewhat outside of the app’s environment of expected use (Light et al.), which we understand to be either scrolling through the user’s For You Page or receiving and viewing TikToks messaged privately by friends. Still, users in these settings served two or more “ABC” videos are likely to consciously or unconsciously begin to identify the prototypical elements of a bisexual look as being those shared across multiple videos: the most frequently recurring markers creators choose to share as part of their bisexual displays reify existing styles already identified as “bi looks” or introduce new ones to the viewer. Through the continuous and repeated proposal of bisexual looks, the prototype emerges for a bisexual uniform. These accoutrements (cuffed sleeves and pantlegs, especially on jeans, bi bob haircuts, tucked-in shirts) point towards a bi uniform that is put-together and favours clothes like jeans and button-down shirts that are commonly worn across genders. That a bisexual uniform that may be comfortably worn by members of any gender follows logically from the necessity for a bi look that is both shaped by and liable to be worn by bisexuals, who may be of any gender. Further, this bi uniform emphasises alterations that may be undertaken on items commonly already held rather than distinct new pieces that must first be acquired. This may be one reason that creators favoured these styles, rather than more blatant sign equipment like pins or shirts with bi iconography on them: they were simply more likely to have jeans in their closet than a biangles T-shirt. The creators in our sample, regardless of the specific accoutrements displayed, answered Nelson’s call for increased and better bisexual representation, building one of many possible images for how bi people can fashion themselves (“Here”). The “ABC” imitation public’s collagic vision of a bisexual uniform may, in the future, be adapted, rejected, or serve as inspiration for others in the endlessly cyclical process of identity formation and reinforcement. Conclusion We have sought to understand what TikTok users have accomplished through the creation of and engagement with “ABC” videos, both specifically (i.e., what are the predominant visual indicators across the most popular videos) and generally (i.e., what processes are taking place and how they contribute towards the establishment of a bisexual social uniform). Creators are unlikely to have set out with a larger project of developing a bi uniform in mind when posting their 15-second “ayo, bisexual check” videos, but as part of one of TikTok’s innumerable imitation publics, their personal bisexual displays nonetheless offer prototypes for what a bisexual uniform could be. Any single “ABC” video is an example of a creator using TikTok’s affordances to respond individually to an open-ended prompt, but taken collectively, a consensus about the least common denominators for a bisexual uniform begins to emerge. Whether this online effort to cohere bisexual style results in bi people being able to identify one another (and/or be identified by nonbisexuals) remains to be seen, but we hope this article provides both a useful record of styles favoured by bisexuals on TikTok in 2019 and a productive explanation of the way individual posts in TikTok’s ecosystem of imitation publics may begin to constitute a social uniform for a community whose members have historically lacked one. Acknowledgments Thanks to Elizabeth Fetterolf, Amy Giacomucci, Trevor Harty, and the editors and reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. All online sources have been archived via Archive.org. References Abidin, Crystal, and D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye. “Audio Memes, Earworms, and Templatability: The ‘Aural Turn’ of Memes on TikTok.” Critical Meme Reader: Global Mutations of the Viral Image. Eds. Chloë Arkenbout, Jack Wilson, and Daniel de Zeeuw. 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“Garihmato—Look after, to Care for” Melaleuca Alternifolia, commonly called Tea Tree, only grows naturally in the lands of the Bundjalung people from north coast New South Wales. The particular medicinal properties of the Tea Tree have been used for thousands of years, and the Tree and its effects on land, water, and people form part of Bundjalung oral histories and spiritual governance. This article explores media about Tea Tree from the 1990s to 2020s in print media through agricultural media and magazines, as well as online media through TikTok. This combination highlights the generational positionality between the authors as Mother/Daughter and as different consumers of media, with Kath mainly consuming print and Phoebe consuming online. It also utilises a synergy through timing, with the 1990s being when Kath was in her 20s and the 2020s being Phoebe’s time in her 20s. Through analysing the tropes and messaging surrounding Tea Tree, we as Bundjalung women unearth the continued colonisation and exploitation of First Nations knowledges by the health and wellbeing sector – from the mainstream pharmaceutical industry to alternative wellbeing to user-generated travel content. This article considers these areas. Ultimately, acknowledgements of Indigenous land or origins of knowledge are not enough. We call for a structural reaffirmation and recontextualisation of First Nations’ ancestral medicines. Cultural Positioning Our family has an audio recording of our Githabal ancestor Granny Dorothy (Williams) Webb being interviewed by Terry Crowley, a linguist who was recording the Bundjalung language in the 1970s. This recording of Granny forms part of the body of language resources published in the Crowley’s The Middle Clarence Dialects of Bandjalang. In one section of the recording, Crowley quizzes Granny on the names for different trees. When he asks about Tea Tree, Granny quickly responds “bulam” (also sometimes spelt “bulihm”) and then attempts to begin a story on how the bark “bulam-ga” was used for shelters. Crowley abruptly stops her reminiscence as he has no interest in the ethnographic detail, just the linguistic material. Had he allowed her to speak further, he would have known that Granny had much more to say on Tea Tree. Some parts of her knowledge would have not been spoken to him, however, as Tea Tree, in particular Ti Tree Lake, formed a part of her women’s knowledge. As Granny’s female descendants, we operationalise our cultural connection to Bulam/Tea Tree in this article while being mindful and respectful of the importance of keeping certain knowledge within our female genealogy. We remain faithful to Granny’s language and to her teachings which we are privileged to know through oral history from her daughters Gertie and Esther Webb and her granddaughter Julianne Butler. The Context of ‘Wellbeing’ The World Health Organisation states in its Constitution that “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO). While noting that this definition is a significant improvement on exclusively bio-medical definitions, we argue that there is still room for a further expansion. In critiquing the WHO definition, Sartorius (662) notes a third dimension of health, which is “a state of balance, an equilibrium that an individual has established within himself and between himself and his social and physical environment”. The inclusion of the environment resonates more deeply with many Aboriginal philosophies but remains problematic due to its individualistic nature, removed from culture, community, and Connection to Country. Through industry research, understandings of ‘wellness’ from the ‘health and wellbeing’ sector at large appear to remain fluid to consumer demands. In a 2021 report, “Wellness in 2030”, research shows that “consumers are spending more on wellness than they ever have before. Wellness is now a $1.5 trillion market globally” (Chopra et al.). Rather than provide a definition of what ‘wellness’ means, the report focusses on six ‘wellness categories’ as identified by consumers: health, fitness, nutrition, appearance, sleep, and mindfulness. From this we can understand that the ‘health and wellness’ industry might not promote a secure philosophy of wellness because, as inherently capitalist enterprises, they want to be responsive to social trends in order to secure profit. For Aboriginal peoples, our understanding of wellbeing is much more concrete. Culture is inextricably connected to Country, and the guardianship of that relationship is a foundation for life and a key indicator of wellbeing (Grieves 2; Oliver 1). Put simply, “if the land is sick, you are sick” (Kenyon). Conversely, the belief that “if you look after the country, the country will look after you” (Weir et al.) has framed a multi-generational cultural governance grounded in The Dreaming. Therefore, this article proceeds on an understanding of wellbeing beyond the limitation of mainstream definitions – we understand wellbeing as being place-based, enculturated, and grounded in action not aspiration. Our case study on the wellbeing representations in media promoting Tea Tree in various forms such as oils and immersive experience speak to this framing. Bulam (Melaleuca Alternifolia) Many Australians are familiar with Tea Tree but are unaware that one particular variant, Melaleuca Alternifolia, only grows naturally within the lands of the Bundjalung people. In addition to continuing oral histories, it was noted in various journals in the early colonial period that Bundjalung people used Bulam (Tea Tree) for a range of uses – to cover shelter, to line the coolamons which held jarjum (children), and for a range of medicinal purposes for its antiseptic, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. Bulam could also be used as a diluted drink, or as a crushed oil rubbed on wounds, with the added advantage of also repelling insects (Murray 693). Additionally, Tea Tree occupies a revered place in Bundjalung beliefs and practices through its transformation of Country. We contend that the phrase “Country makes us healthy” is not a metaphor but a deeply held cultural norm with spiritual and physical attributes. In regard to Bulam/Tea Tree, it is important to acknowledge that there are bodies of water in Bundjalung Country which are ringed by Tea Tree, in particular Ti Tree Lake. The healing properties of the water are enhanced by the infusion from leaves into the water, giving it antibacterial properties; these waters are seen as Women’s sites and are particularly important as birthing places. It is contended that the name Tea Tree comes from the recording of Captain James Cook’s 1770 mapping of the Australian eastern coastline. Coming ashore, Cook and his party witnessed Bundjalung people making a ‘tea coloured’ drink from the leaves of the tree. A number of sailors also used the leaves for tea (Drury 11). Neither the sailors, nor Joseph Banks who collected samples, were aware of the potential health benefits of the Tea Tree. Some early colonists in the north coast region did use the leaves medicinally but it was widely unknown amongst non-Indigenous people until the twentieth century (Drury 19). It was not until the 1920s that Tea Tree was produced and marketed by Arthur Penfold, an Australian chemist. Marketed as an oil, it is claimed that soldiers during World War II were given Tea Tree oil for use in the trenches (Australian Tea Tree Industry Association). However, with the advent of antibiotics, Tea Tree fell out of favour as a remedy, but recent interest, from both pharmaceutical and alternative medicine sectors, has seen a steady growth in production and promotion of Tea Tree for viable wound care globally (Jones). Unpacking Ethnocentrism, ‘Common Sense’, and Settler-Colonial Extractivism Australia has since developed a flourishing market for ‘herbal remedies’ which is dominated by Western and Chinese medicinal products. While Indigenous Medicines are experiencing growing popularity, they have traditionally held a very small market share (Wohlmuth et al.). Interestingly, while some Indigenous medicines have been used to develop Indigenous-owned micro-economies (Oliver), Tea Tree products have predominantly been distributed by non-Indigenous people. This is problematic because it removes the product from its broader cultural context and does not recognise Indigenous Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights. In fact, the marketing of Tea Tree oil in some contexts displays a distinct ethnocentrism. We understand ‘ethnocentrism’ to refer to individual and systemically entrenched beliefs in the perceived ‘rightness’ of the perspectives and processes of a person’s own group. Ethnocentrism also identifies that this belief in the ‘rightness’ of their own community acts alongside an aversion and disdain for ‘outsiders’ and their ways. This belief often enforces loyalty along ethnic lines in order to consolidate power, wealth, and resources in order to deprive the ‘outsider’. Notions of ethnocentrism have been present in the Australian social, cultural, and political consciousness for centuries (Cole) Another idea to consider with Australian ethnocentrism is theorist Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ‘common sense’. He argues that, while individuals of a social group may hold its conception of the world, the same group may repeat rhetoric that is not their own due to the ideas' prevalence in ‘normal times’. This is when the repetition of ‘common sense’ understandings becomes “not independent and autonomous, but submissive and subordinate” (Gramsci). Many of the media representations we unpack later in this article can be understood as repetitions of settler-colonial ‘common sense’ which reinforce and value the supposed ‘supremacy’ of white non-Indigenous understandings while trivialising or disregarding First Nations ways. Consequently, this brings the issue of ethnocentrism beyond individual acts to highlight the extractive nature of settler-colonial nations, which premise themselves on the ‘elimination of the native’ and our ways of being, knowing, and doing (Kauanui). This elimination does not have to be purely genocidal but also includes the appropriation and assimilation of First Nations people, resources, and knowledge. Mississauga Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Simpson from northern Turtle Island (Canada) argues that extraction and assimilation go together. Colonialism has always extracted the indigenous … every part of our culture that is seemingly useful to the extractivist mindset gets extracted … and assimilated into the culture of the settlers without regard for the people and the knowledge that created it. (Klein) In our analysis of media representations below, we will see many examples of what this section seeks to explain. Media will trivialise or dismiss First Nations people and knowledge through extraction, appropriation, and assimilation of our resources into their own ethnocentric understandings. Tea Tree Oil Use in ‘Australia’, 1990s-2020s In the 1990s, as Tea Tree oil began to expand in the market, the Australian Financial Review published an article entitled “Bringing Tea-Tree Oil Out of the Swamp” (Brown). The article’s provocative introduction asserted: the world's first big plantation producer of tea-tree oil discovered early that its product's folksy image was not easy to shed. Decades of labelling as a bush remedy was a disadvantage when the product was eventually promoted as scientifically proven medicine. However, the company has succeeded in convincing consumers that the native product is a quality one, and the result has been the birth of a new industry. In deconstructing these assertions through a Bundjalung lens we have much to say! Firstly, it is a peculiarly Western lens which denigrates swampland. The late anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose (1996) gave voice to many of the Aboriginal perspectives which she had heard, contending that ‘wilderness’ is a construction of the West. For Aboriginal people, swamp is still sacred: it is the home of the Tea Tree and is not perceived as lesser, but rather as an interdependent element of the broader landscape, of the health of waterways, teeming with food and medicines. Secondly, we note the usage of “folksy image” and “bush remedy” as hurdles to be overcome. Given that both of these, particularly ‘bush medicines’, are coded to Aboriginality, this presents another layer of disconnection of the emplaced and enculturated nature of Tea Tree. In fact, later studies have shown that there is strong uptake and identification with traditional medicines exactly from that basis. For instance, interviewees from clinics distributing traditional remedies recall, “blackfellas and whitefellas come and tell us, ‘I’m feeling better from your bush medicine, can I get some more?’” (Oliver). Additionally, if we consider the global market, the WHO estimates that “60% of the world’s population relies on herbal medicine and about 80% of the population in developing countries depends almost totally on it for their primary health care needs” (Khan). Therefore, we contend that the ‘disadvantage’ is in targeting the ethnocentric Western market, which is masked by an apparent global outlook. This year, in “Three Tales from Tea Tree Farmers”, an article published in The Farmer Magazine, the developing ‘Australian’ Tea Tree industry is foregrounded in the by-line with “First Nations people have understood the value of Australian tea tree oil for thousands of years” (Hadgraft). This is particularly ironic given the content of the article itself: white face after white face come through the editorial shots of farmers with their crop, and not another whisper of the Aboriginal people and knowledges the article leads with. In this and other business-focussed articles, the Tea Tree narrative transcends its literal grounding. In contrast, a range of alternative medicine commentators do acknowledge the centrality of Bundjalung culture to Tea Tree’s curative potential, but place Aboriginal knowledges in a liminal space – a kind of choose-your-own-adventure – which samples across belief systems and practices to create a hybrid model which weakens Aboriginal cultural authority. We note that these erasures and slippages are not necessarily made from malice, but nevertheless constitute a problematic narrative through an Aboriginal lens. For example, Madelaine West, in “The Only Way to Create a Kinder World Together”, lauds the Tea Tree-infused lake waters in the Bundjalung nation as a kind of New Age transformative landscape. She comments: since time immemorial, these lakes have been a sacred Indigenous birthing place and meeting ground of the First Nation tribes of the Arakwal-Bundjalung people. Historically a ‘girls only’-type affair, many Indigenous men still observe this practice. It should be noted here that ‘girls only’ seems to hearken to the literary tradition of girls' adventure fiction – the self-sufficient tomboy who challenges gender norms. While this trope has, and can, continue to serve to empower young women, there has often been a racialised element to this narrative (McRobbie and McCabe 1981). In the context of Tea Tree, it is salient to note that Women’s Business transcends the girls-only trope as the framing of spiritual authority with severe consequences for those men who transgress this element of lore (Bird-Rose 36-8). Thus West’s contention of the personified Lake sits in direct contravention to her stated position that “it is not for me to interpret nor appropriate the culture of the traditional custodians of this region”. The warm, soothing waters of these lakes offer up their healing properties to one and all ... they don't discriminate along lines of colour, creed, residence or orientation. They just hold you in their fluid, forgiving embrace, wash you clean, heal your hurts and soothe your soul. (West) We note that there is no problem in personifying the body of water as this directly correlates to international movements to the legal personhood of waterways, such as the Whanganui River in Aotearoa (New Zealand), or recognition as a living entity such as the Yarra River in Victoria. What should be noted, however, is that within the context of international instruments like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and various national and state policies, First Nations people (in particular Traditional Owners) are central to the representation of engagement with water (Pelizzon et al.). In this context it would include a culturally mediated guardianship on who may bathe in the waters, which speaks to a respect for cultural traditions and consultation for permission to use the waters. There is an ongoing tension for First Nations people attempting to negotiate this preferred power-sharing with local, state, and national governments while their Country continues to be desecrated by ignorant and selfish visitors. Despite lack of support from the state, First Nations peoples regularly attempt to exert their own environmental governance and authority over sacred sites on their Country, with one way being through the use of signs informing guests of the nature of the area. Similar to our special lakes in Bundjalung Country, Kuku Yalanji people from the Daintree have the Blue Hole Pool, which is a healing and birthing place reserved for women’s business. Kuku Yalanji Traditional Owners have struggled for years to protect this site, as non-Indigenous people have decided to make the pool a regular swimming spot. Multiple erected signs are constantly dismissed and a boom gate installed to stop vehicles has been broken multiple times by disgruntled visitors. (Hollis) Protecting these lakes has hit another obstacle with the rise of #traveltok in the 2020s, a subsection of media on the user-generated short form video-sharing app TikTok dedicated to sharing the best spots to travel. All someone has to search for is ‘swimming hole daintree’, and videos show overwhelmingly non-Indigenous tourists (of all genders) sharing their travels to the Blue Hole Pool. One video shows a girl with her friends trespassing past the aforementioned boom gate (TikTok a), and another video shows a young man filming himself in the sacred women’s pool with the caption “Add this to your bucket list in Queensland!” (TikTok b). Ironically, a number of commenters note that he would have had to ignore numerous signs warning him to not swim. However, the video still garnered 2,200 likes, and over 700 people have saved the video. A similar search for ‘Ti Tree Lake’ reveals comparable content. The first video belongs to a young woman, Rhiannon, presumably in her early 20s, who declares in a voiceover that “this is one of the best places to swim in Australia”, before listing off the health and wellbeing benefits of the Tea Tree-infused lake (TikTok c). While she acknowledges in the second half of the video that the lake is “valued” by Indigenous women after birth, she fails to name Bundjalung people for her audience of 508,000 views, and instead closes her content on how nice her hair felt afterwards. Through this type of media content creation, a young white woman has assumed the right to promote one of Bundjalung Nation’s most significant sites. Another video nearby in the search list shows a young man bathing in our women’s lake (TikTok d). West and Rhiannon are certainly not alone in their shaping of the lake as a natural healing place through a lens of wellbeing language. A letter to the editor complaining of men using the lake took a far different approach to a gender prohibition, adding dismay that the lake was being used by men seeking random sexual hook-ups. In speaking of the significance of the Country, the author writes, “once upon a time it was an Aboriginal birthing ground. Yeah fellas, a sacred women’s area”. Ironically the concern of what had been ‘lost’ was also framed through a nostalgic appreciation where 20 years ago I used to come here with my girlfriends and we would swim in the tea-tree lake, dive deep to retrieve the mineral rich mud from the bottom and lie in the sun until it had dried. It was the ultimate day spa. (Leonard) While noting this conversational tone, there is nevertheless a deep disjuncture between a sacred women's area and a day spa. We argue that the significance of Tea Tree lakes is not open to appropriation through reinterpretation, not through a female empowerment and revitalisation agenda nor a neo-spiritual agenda which arose in the 2015 media discussion on a non-Aboriginal Victorian couple’s decision to give birth in Taylors Lake, reported by the Byron Shire News. In the paper’s next weekly edition, they gave voice to Arakwal custodians who commented: Taylors Lake or Ti Tree Lake is the most significant Aboriginal women's site in the Byron Shire … . The lake belongs to all Bundjalung women and holds deep spiritual significance to us, and our men never go there out of respect … . This woman speaks about her respect for Aboriginal culture but did not ask our permission. We were horrified when we saw the picture in the paper of this man in the sacred women's lake. (Kay cited in C222morrow) This last example particularly exemplifies the attempted ‘elimination’ of First Peoples through the attempted appropriation and assimilation of Indigenous practice. This absorption of the practice of bathing in these lakes into non-Indigenous practices attempts to displace Indigenous peoples from our Country, our sacred sites, and our knowledge. Through the re-framing of these places as ‘wellness’ tools or feminist liberation, we are experiencing the continued colonisation of our special places, which are our birthright as encultured female members of First Nations groups. Calls to Action There is a trend in academic literature which provides the scope of problems which plague Indigenous peoples. Our article concludes not with a restatement of the issues, but with a series of Calls to Action. Every day that we do not empower Traditional Owners in the management of their own Country is another day that sites such as Ti Tree Lake are desecrated and culturally significant plants like bulam are exploited. This requires individual and broader systemic change: Non-Indigenous peoples seeking healing and enlightenment from Country must be mindful that they are guests in those spaces. Wilfully ignoring Indigenous protocols or seeing protocols as a “pick and mix” option devalues Country. Social media guidelines for platforms such as TikTok must include avenues to flag or remove or add warnings for culturally insensitive content. This requires ongoing collaboration with First Nations people to further refine what content breaches these guidelines. Content creators must also adapt to community feedback. There must be legal recognition of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) regarding First Nations’ knowledge of Country. 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