Hi everyone! My sister has hit a dead-end in her studies and she needed help so she asked me to post this here:

i am currently doing my thesis on gender dysphoria in nonbinary people living in iran, and for my literature review i am currently reviewing the gender structure and finding traces of identities outside of the binary so to validate the identities (im the first person in iran to work on nbs so im trying my hardest to cover all bases). i am at the point where i uncovered the false notion of sexual dimorphism that was imposed on colonials to both dehumanize them and excuse the serial raping of people of color. now i have to answer this question: if the gender binary is a construct, why do most cultures have some semblance of it? my personal thought process is that the meaning of womanhood and manhood were different premodern times and the modern man/woman is born out of colonialism, and i know its true about iran specifically (for anyone whos interested i can recommend some fantastic books!). but i dont have any article or book that i can find this exact notion in (so i can reference it). i do remember faintly that i read this in one of my books, but i dont remember which one and the ones i check dont have it. so i feel like im losing my mind😭

does anyone have any recommendations? id be happy to read more on this. thank u for your time!

Having developed a crush on Tab Hunter, I'm not interested in mid century gay Hollywood. I read Tab Hunter's autobiography and the Henry Willson biography. Anyone else interested in this? What should I read next?

"Hi Friends",

I am part of a post-grad research team from CSU Australia, conducting INTERNATIONAL research into stress & mental health, among LGBTQI+ adults. We are collecting data from LGBTQI+ individuals, then completing studies specific to sexual identities.

Our ethics approved study on stress, depression & suicide, specific to bisexual/Bi+ individuals, requires further participants.

This important research is needed now more than ever, so if you identify as Bisexual/ Bi+ (18+), please;

- Complete the Survey (click link)

https://csufobjbs.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6sCeGsZJld6774W

- Share the (link/post) in your own network, so others can contribute too.

Thank you.

***Extra Information***

Link to Charles Sturt University Ethics Board Approval Doc (Approval number H26115) 

CSU HR Ethics Committee E: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Supervisor Professor Suzanne McLaren (she/her) School of Psychology Charles Sturt University Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia, E: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Please message me for any further information or question you may have.

Hello everyone! I have a question. I want to say right away that I don't mean to offend anyone and that I'm writing this post using Google Translate. I'm trying to be polite, but I don't know if it will translate well. My question is this: there's a lot of talk these days about different sexual orientations/identities—lithosexuals, polysexuals, omnisexuals, etc.

Yet, for example, queer theorists, particularly Paul Preciado, say that both sex and gender are colonial constructs, that this system has outlived its usefulness (and I agree with him).

As for whether it might be important for a person to identify themselves through one of these terms, I have no questions.

The question is specifically from the perspective that, um...it seems to me like an excessive multitude of entities in the system of human sexuality, because when I read the descriptions of all these terms, I immediately understand that ALL sexuality is a huge spectrum and all divisions are arbitrary. On the one hand, you can always find another aspect of sexuality not covered by these terms, and on the other, many of them overlap and can be partially synonymous.

My question is why, in fact, create (and constantly invent) new terms if their basis—sex and gender—essentially doesn't exist? If we accept that both sex and gender are constructs, then in a sense, any kind of bisexuality, for example, is impossible, since there will be neither a starting point (one's own sex/gender) nor an end point (the sex/gender of another person).

What do you think about this?I asked this question on LGBTQI public pages, but they told me I didn't understand queer theory at all, and I think they thought I was attacking someone's identity. (My question wasn't about people who identify themselves in any way, but about concepts: if, for example, we say that masculinity and femininity can be anything, then we have no reference point for, say, androsexuals or gynosexuals! I hope I explained it clearly.)

I've been studying queer theory for a long time, but there's not much information in my language, and English is difficult for me.

Maybe you know something to read on this topic? Maybe Preciado himself has something?

I think that is just evil. Like just notice everyday people just wearing these roles. They are bizzare. Like the masculine and even the feminine both seem very bizzare to me if you look at it. These very thin identities that are on people. It feels that they have fully encapsulated individuality of a person. Basically trapped it. Women are compressed and stressed to femininity and men are moulded and compressed into masculinity. But when you look at them they look bizzare and like a carciture of some sort.

Like both look twisted. Something unreal and fabricated and fake.

Like they are very contextual imo. Contextual to a stupid and f ed up narrative that there should be two genders and stuff. Its so unreal. Like that f ed up narrative is the whole context of these genders.

A huge thank you to those who have participated so far! We still need more voices!

We are looking to better understand the diverse mental health experiences of adults with a marginalised sexual identity (e.g. gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, sexually fluid, omnisexual).

If you meet the eligibility criteria, please consider this quick, 10-15min, anonymous survey:  https://csufobjbs.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6sCeGsZJld6774W

You will be asked questions about sexuality, self-kindness, belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, sleep, suicidality, and depressive symptoms. The survey has received ethics approval (H26115).

About us: We are Psychology Honours Students from Charles Sturt University in Australia. It is hoped that this international study will help to inform mental health support for the differing groups of sexualities rather than treat everyone with a marginalized sexual identity as one group with the same needs and experiences.

Please feel free to share!

Thank you! It is greatly appreciated!

Hi there. Wondering if any had recommendations for good readings from queer theorists discussing the phenomenon of Republicans or other conservatives who publicly fight against the rights of queer people, but privately engage in queer behavior. Think Roy Cohn, Lindsey Graham, Aaron Schock, Bryon Noem, Madison Cawthorne, so on and so forth.

Video Essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upGKj7Fdi9s

Sorry if this isn't the right space idk where to rlly put it but I wanted to talk to someone abt it

The first half talks about how a lot of weaving and textiles were done by women and how it translates to algorithms and mathematics, the presenter also gives examples of many women who contributed to computing and algorithms (most popular example, Ada Lovelace, being brought up).

I'm only 20 minutes in but I was skeptical about how much this really mattered, but I then realized that just like how I personally care about gender in a non-binary sense, gender in a binary sense still needs to be talked about and unpacked, especially since with the former cyberdeck trend when a lot of men get angry about how women seem to be doing it out of performance.

There's more I can say, I am skeptical about the idea of Computers being inherently a feminine thing (I don't think things should be gendered, and in a lot of spaces there are also queer people who work with computers as well or you get the image of the anime girl on the computer, A feminine aesthetic admired by anime fans) but it does give a good insight to women and their relationship with computers before it was seen as "masculine".

🌈 PARTICIPANTS WANTED 🌈

https://csufobjbs.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6sCeGsZJld6774W

We are Psychology Honours students at Charles Sturt University, conducting research into risk and protective factors for mental health, among adults with a marginalized sexual identity (e.g., gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, sexually fluid, omnisexual etc…).

Participation is open to:

·       Individuals (18+), with a marginalized sexual identity (e.g., gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, sexually fluid, omnisexual)

The anonymous survey has ethics approval (H26115), takes around 15 mins and includes questions about sexuality, self-kindness, belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, sleep, suicidality, and depressive symptoms. All information provided is confidential.

If you are concerned about answering questions of this nature, please do not participate.

To participate or learn more:

·       Click the link attached to this post.

Feel free to share and thank you!

https://www.jhiblog.org/2026/05/28/teaching-gender-disha-karnad-jani-interviews-samuel-rutherford/

Ciao, sto leggendo Donna Haraway per la prima volta in maniera approfondita, e vorrei qualcunx con cui parlarne. Diciamo che io, dopo aver avuto a che fare con l'essenzialismo binario dei centri prescrittori di ormoni, ho elaborato una teoria simile alla sua sul cyborg, ma se io mi concentro sulla testualità del corpo, sul fatto che le nostre componenti organiche siano prodotte come delle protesi organizzate intorno ad una funzione produttiva/riproduttiva sistemica, e su questo con la Haraway ci prendiamo abbastanza, non apprezzo il suo tecno entusiasmo di fondo e alcuni presupposti economici da cui parte, che mi sembra vadano nel senso dell'accelerazionismo. Niente, qualcunx che abbia voglia di un'interminabile masturbata mentale con me su questo? Gracias.

Now that I’ve grabbed your attention with the slightly oversimplified title, I’ll say I’m just going to talk about queerness in regards to attraction to others rather than personal expression.

I’ve had a thought, considering what we’d consider “gay” or “straight”. I have a slight theory that if all layers of repression and confusion were stripped away from all “straight” people on earth, few of them would then be considered “straight” by our popular definition today. I may be coping just so that I can convince my terminally down-bad brain that all the hot straight guys would even consider me for more than a nanosecond, but seeing how many exceptions or toeings of the line I’ve seen people do in recent years, I can’t help but feel people are more fluid than they often think.

Adding to this, though I’m speaking from a limited perspective, “straight” people who would literally never sleep with anyone with similar gender expression to them, don’t make a lot of sense to me. I’m gay so the idea of both not hating how you look and not having some level of attraction to those sharing your gender expression is a paradox, especially when you factor in that sex as an activity is enjoyable to many people even without strong physical attraction as an interpersonal or pleasurable thing.

Wondering if anyone has thoughts on this or has a perspective I’m lacking

https://open.substack.com/pub/curtisharlow1/p/desire-in-the-closet-from-dorian?r=6vflr8&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Looking to do this as an undergraduate honors project. I have my English teacher that has agreed to be my honors mentor but her next office hours aren't til Monday so wanted to see Reddit's opinion.

Using Tinker Belles and Evil Queens by Sean P. Griffin as a major source of performing queer readings on children's media. He goes chronologically in Chapter 2: “Mickey Mouse—Always Gay!” Reading Disney Queerly during Walt’s Reign.

I guess my main question in terms of organizations would be

• Queer Theory first: using various queer theories and seeing how they apply to the film through each lens.

• Film first: organizing the reading by Protagonist, Theme, Structure, and highlighting the strongest elements of the film that lead to a queer reading.

I also think there's a something queer about doing a close reading on something more low culture than Shakespeare, James Baldwin, or Shirley Jackson but I'm unsure if that even fits into the project.

I'm also unsure of when to stop researching queer theory and when to actually apply it. But any recommendations for further reading is appreciated.

Just discovered this recently:

Duggan, Jennifer. “Queer Readings and Rewritings of Children’s Literature.” The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans Narrative Studies, edited by Corinna Assmann and Vera Nünning, Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025, pp. 395–411, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75864-5_23.

I know this is a pretty basic question, but I'm asking because I'm interested in the range of viewpoints and discussion, not because I'm personally clueless. By sexuality I mean orientation most of all, but also the quirks beyond it.

The apparent mystery of why humans or any animal would evolve with sexual impulses nonproductive or counterproductive to procreation not just as a rare mutation but a sizable portion of the population does beg a biological answer, but how we conceive of sexuality is also essential to any explanation. Similarly, having the best idea possible as to the reason queer people exist also seems pivotal to good theory to me, but it seems vanishingly rare that the topic comes up even among people heavily engaged in queer community or activism.

What do you all think is a good answer? Is there one? Is it satisfying or just a guess? Do you care and do you think it's important generally or to queer theory?

Im a trans man attracted to men.

Ive had a very long journey with this doing tons of self discovery with different pronouns, neo-pronouns, labels etc. and have recently been considering detransioning.

This has a lot of extremely complex reasons behind it that would be hard to explain in a short text.

Ive been part of the lgbtq community since i was 10.

Ive become a pretty well-known figure in my local queer community as i help with a lot of the organizing, am very active in it and have a ton of ties with queer groups all over the country.

The word "queer' means more to me then just a gender identity or sexuality label.

It is a lived experience and a political statement.

Ive been talking to quite some people about how im considering detransioning, and the general reaction has been that im loved and accepted there no matter how i identify.

But also (surprisingly) that they would still think of me as a queer person because of my very real lived experience of it, and because they've always known me as such. This made me think.

Even if i detransitioned into a cis woman, i still think i wouldnt be able to stop seeing myself as queer.

Because thats just who ive been ever since i was 10.

Ive also been told by a few queer-only groups that i would still be allowed in there if i were to detransion.

But ofcourse i will leave if anyone there starts getting uncomfortable with it.

edit: i fully acknowledge and understand that aro, ace, and intersex people are inherently queer, even if cishet. But i am not really any of those things