QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking

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Happy August, friends! Everyone's talking about Netflix's reboot of Queer Eye, and the hype is huge – just as it was for the original series in 2003. Been enjoying the new series and wondering if the original is worth a watch? Fan of the OG Fab 5 and curious about the new crew? Never seen either? Check out this video from Cinematica for a quick then-vs-now catch-me-up!

Season 2, Episode 5 of the new series, “The Sky's the Limit”, in which the Fab 5 make over their first trans man, is being reviewed as the reboot's “most important episode yet” (here's a recap from Digital Spy). Coincidentally, Skyler's new suit in the episode is from Bindle and Keep, one of the LGBTQ-friendly clothiers mentioned in QED 4.3 by Erin J. Rand in her article "The Right to Be Handsome: The Queer Sartorial Objects of 'Masculine of Center' Fashion”. Check out Bindle and Keep's website if you haven't!

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Hope everyone is enjoying issue 5.1 this summer! Ever thought about getting your work published with us? Consider submitting to QED!

We want to hear your thoughts about LGBTQ+ worldmaking. Our goal is to draw together the academic and the non-academic in conversation - both laypersons and scholars are encouraged to submit. We are always looking for contributors, and we accept both academic research manuscripts (up to 10,000 words) and non-academic essays (up to 5,000 words). Take a look at our submission guidelines!

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July has rolled around, and we have one more spotlight for you from QED 5.1! In their piece, “'What Does It Mean to Be Undocuqueer?' Exploring (il)Legibility within the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality, and Immigration Status,” Jesus Cisneros and Julia Gutierrez share excerpts from the interviews they conducted with various young undocumented queer people, which detail the areas in which these two forms of discrimination overlap. The interviewees relate their difficulties obtaining education, employment, housing, and medical care due not only to a lack of protections for LGBTQ+ people, but also to their inability to produce documentation, and how these interlocking issues compound each other in severity. Cisneros and Gutierrez emphasize the necessity of considering the intersection of documentation (or lack thereof) and gender/sexuality during this time of heavy immigration criminalization.

Jesus Cisneros is an assistant professor of Educational Leadership and Foundation at the University of Texas at El Paso. His research centers around gender, sexuality, and immigration status in an attempt to understand the intersections of politics, identity, and inequality. Find more of his work here.

Julia Gutierrez is a doctoral candidate in Gender Studies at Arizona State University. Her research is on  migration, poverty, and feminism as related to economic inequality in Mexican immigrant women. Read more about her here.

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It's time for another spotlight from QED 5.1! Brett Cameron Stockdill brings beautiful and personal insight into his piece on AIDSphobia and living with HIV, titled “Love in the Time of ACT UP: Reflections on AIDS Activism, Queer Family, and Desire.” Stockdill recounts his whirlwind romance and subsequent falling out with a man who lied about his HIV status due to his position as an underprivileged gay man of color, examining the experience through the lens of AIDS activism. Stockdill goes on to chronicle his own diagnosis, the emotional turmoil that followed as he realized he still loved the man who lied to him, and his eventual acceptance of his HIV-positive status and decision to speak about his experience publicly. Pick up Issue 5.1 and delve into this thoughtful, powerful piece!

Brett Cameron Stockdill is a queer teacher, activist, and scholar living with HIV. He teaches Sociology, Latinx and Latin American Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. His other publications include Multiple Oppressions and Their Influence on Collective Action: The Case of the AIDS Movement (1996) and Activism Against AIDS: At the Intersections of Sexuality, Race, Gender, and Class (2003).

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On to our next showcase from QED 5.1! “Out of Sync: Complex Temporality in Transgender Men's Youtube Transition Channels” by Ace J. Eckstein examines the Youtube channels of five trans men and the confused temporality of these snapshots of the transition process. Eckstein points out that each video encapsulates a moment in the time, a point on a “transition timeline,” which is expected to advance in chronological order. However, the ability to view these videos in any order, as well as the ability to view them back to back in a single concentrated sitting, scrambles or speeds up the viewer's experience of the timeline. Eckstein draws parallels between this scrambled temporality and the very nature of transness – the assembly and reassembly of bodily associations that make up one's gender, which do not always proceed in an orderly fashion from point A to point B.

Ace J. Eckstein studies trans and queer rhetoric at the doctoral level at the University of Iowa in the Communication Studies department. Find his bio here.

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It's Pride month, the spring issue of QED is here, and we’ve updated our social media accounts! We're QEDJournal both here and on Twitter, so give us a follow if you haven't already!

Our first article from QED 5.1, “Queer Life-Worlds in Postsocialist Armenia: Alternativ Space and the Possibilities of In/Visibility” follows Tamar Shirinian through a reflection on her field work in Armenia and the experiences she had there as a visibly “alternativ” person (a woman with tattoos, piercings, and short hair). Shirinian explores the overlap between queerness, modernness,and Westernness in the eyes of more traditional Armenians, and how spaces such as certain “hip” bars, clubs, and cafes, where anyone not conforming to the Armenian standards of propriety can come to mingle and relax, function as liminal spaces of visibility for non-conformers. Check out the article for a fascinating glimpse into the Armenian alternativ scene!

Tamar Shirinian teaches in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Millsaps College in Mississipi. She has published her work on sexuality and postsocialism in various other journals, including lamda nordica and American Ethnologist. (Full bio available here.)

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QED 5.1 is out in the world! In addition to essays by Tamar Shirinian, Ace J. Eckstein, Brett Cameron Stockdill, Jesus Cisneros and Julia Gutierrez, this issue features three exhibition and performance reviews and eight book reviews. Keep checking back for spotlights on each article in the coming weeks!

Samples of previous issues are available on the QED website.