Shannon Weber

This article considers queer-driven student activism at Smith College, as well as admissions policy shifts at a number of prominent U.S. women's colleges for transgender women's inclusion. The author illustrates how student attempts to dismantle the transmisogyny at Smith as a purportedly feminist "women's" space, as well as some women's colleges' shifts in admissions policy, challenge divisions between transgender and cisgender women. This paradigmatic shift reflects the campuses as comparative havens for gender and sexual exploration, the influence of postmodern gender theory in understanding identity, and the growth of "queer" as an all-encompassing signifier for sexual and gender transgression.

This article analyzes the current dichotomy in American political and popular culture between pro-gay biological determinism, which is used to argue for LGBTQ rights, and anti-gay social constructionist ideas. This pro-gay biological determinism results in a politics of exclusion that renders queer identities falling outside a biological, lifelong model invisible. Building on Lisa Duggan’s notion of homonormativity, the author describes this discursive production as biological homonormativity, illustrated through an analysis of three key sites: an exchange between lesbian music icon Melissa Etheridge and Governor Bill Richardson during an LGBT political forum; the legal proceedings of Perry v. Schwarzenegger; and the gay cult film ‘But I’m a Cheerleader!’

The field of sociolinguistics has flourished in recent years, pushing against the traditional boundaries of linguistics to consider how social context and power are involved in the enacting of linguistic practices. The advent of queer linguistics is an exciting new project within this broader movement that incorporates the deconstructionist and anti-essentialist insights of queer theory with the study of language. In this context, Koch's Language and Gender Research from a Queer Linguistic Perspective: A Critical

Abstract: Same sex love and desire in sex segregated spaces has a long history, not only in the United States but around the world, as feminist historian Leila Rupp argues in her book" Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women." My paper focuses on a particularly notorious site of female same sex desire: the women's college, specifically, the remaining single sex Seven Sisters colleges of the Eastern United States. I argue that these campuses–particularly Mount Holyoke and Smith, the primary sites of my research–have become ...

I explore the ways in which political strategies promoting biological determinism as the basis of same-sex desire have historically been used to argue for the social and legal toleration of queer sexuality in the United States. While acknowledging that the focus on a fundamental lack of agency in queer relationships has historically been a beneficial political tactic to gain social and legal toleration, I problematize this tactic and assert that emphasizing lack of agency, instead of positive aspects of queerness, is more harmful than helpful for the ...

I analyze three case studies of marriage equality activism and marriage equality-based groups after the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Evaluating the JoinTheImpact protests of 2008, the LGBTQ rights group GetEQUAL, and the group One Struggle One Fight, I argue that these groups revise queer theoretical arguments about marriage equality activism as by definition assimilationist, homonormative, and single-issue. In contrast to such claims, the cases studied here provide a snapshot of heterogeneous, intersectional and coalition-based social justice work in which creative methods of protest, including direct action and flash mobs, are deployed in militant ways for marriage rights and beyond.

This article considers queer-driven student activism at Smith College, as well as admissions policy shifts at a number of prominent U.S. women’s colleges for transgender women’s inclusion. The author illustrates how student attempts to dismantle the transmisogyny at Smith as a purportedly feminist “women’s” space, as well as some women’s colleges’ shifts in admissions policy, challenge divisions between transgender and cisgender women. This paradigmatic shift reflects the campuses as comparative havens for gender and sexual exploration, the influence of postmodern gender theory in understanding identity, and the growth of “queer” as an all-encompassing signifier for sexual and gender transgression.

I analyze three case studies of marriage equality activism and marriage equality–based groups after the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Evaluating the JoinTheImpact protests of 2008, the LGBTQ rights group GetEQUAL, and the group One Struggle One Fight, I argue that these groups revise queer theoretical arguments about marriage equality activism as by definition assimilationist, homonormative, and single-issue. In contrast to such claims, the cases studied here provide a snapshot of heterogeneous, intersectional, and coalition-based social justice work in which creative methods of protest, including direct action and flash mobs, are deployed in militant ways for marriage rights and beyond.

Lesbian communities have emerged in the public sphere in Euro-America since at least the early 1900s. This entry charts the history of Euro-American lesbian communities, with additional discussions of contemporary lesbian and queer spaces. The politics of lesbian communities span issues related to: lesbian feminism; the inclusion-exclusion of transgender men and women; questions about bisexual women and sexual fluidity; the treatment of women of color; femme invisibility; and generational differences in the use of “lesbian” versus “queer” within lesbian, queer, and LGBTQ communities.

This article analyzes the current dichotomy in American political and popular culture between pro-gay biological determinism, which is used to argue for LGBTQ rights, and anti-gay social constructionist ideas. This pro-gay biological determinism results in a politics of exclusion that renders queer identities falling outside a biological, lifelong model invisible. Building on Lisa Duggan’s notion of homonormativity, the author describes this discursive production as biological homonormativity, illustrated through
an analysis of three key sites: an exchange between lesbian music icon Melissa Etheridge and Governor Bill Richardson during an LGBT political forum; the legal proceedings of Perry v. Schwarzenegger ; and the gay cult film But I’m a Cheerleader!

In Theresa Carilli and Jane Campbell's edited collection Queer Media Images: LGBT Perspectives. I explore the themes of biological immutability in pop icon Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" and consider both the importance of Gaga as a champion of queer youth and gay rights as well as the problematics of using a "born this way" framework to celebrate and advocate on behalf of LGBTQ communities.

Abstract: Same sex love and desire in sex segregated spaces has a long history, not only in the United States but around the world, as feminist historian Leila Rupp argues in her book" Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women." My paper focuses on a particularly notorious site of female same sex desire: the women's college, specifically, the remaining single sex Seven Sisters colleges of the Eastern United States.