Check it out if you’ve always thought your sexuality was a bit more complex than gay, straight, or bi. This zine takes you through multiple dimensions of sexuality and helps you to map where you are, where you’ve been, and where you might be going.

MappingYourSexuality

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You can download the zine here and work through it to explore gender in general – and your own gender. If there’s anything you want to find out more about, we give furthers detail in the book, and there’s a list of further resources at the back of the zine

Gender Zine

More about How to Understand Your Gender

• You can listen to Alex and me talking about the book on a podcast here.
• You can read our interview for Jessica Kingsley here.
• You can read about Alex’s reasons for writing the book here…
• And mine here.
• You can read a more academic piece about how this book fits into my wider project here.

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Give it a read if you fancy learning more about queer activism and queer ideas, including some of the tensions around Pride marches: Assimilationist &/or radical? Normative &/or challenging the norm? Intersectional or one-dimensional? lG(bt) &/or queer?

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It’s a great interview because it covers a lot of the key ideas in that book pretty simply. There’s also a nice long section about the complexities around bisexuality in relation to queer, which is something that a lot of people have been asking about.

Late last year Icon Books released Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele which looks at queer theory and the ideas and people that shaped this way of examining and thinking about society and individuals. Barker is a therapist, activist, writer and a senior lecturer at the Open University in the UK. They were kind enough to chat about the book and try to lay out some of the core concepts behind queer theory, which Barker admits are complicated.

Alex Dueben: Where did the idea for this book come from? What made you interested in making a graphic novel?

Meg-John Barker: Icon books have this whole series of books called ‘Introducing…’ where they try to make complex academic or political ideas accessible and engaging to everybody using the comic format. When they asked me if I’d be interested in writing one of these books about queer I was so excited. My love of comics goes back to childhood and I’ve been heavily into graphic novels all of my adult life. I also found the Introducing books super helpful myself when I was a student and trying to wrap my head around existentialism, Freud, or Foucault, for example.

At the same time as having a passion for comics, I’ve always been convinced that queer theory and queer activism has a lot to offer everyone, not just academics, activists, or people who identify as queer. So this was my opportunity to get that across.

Dueben: What was the process like? What did you give Julia and how were you initially envisioning the book? Read more…

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I’ve managed to include a few small cartoons in some of my books and zines over the years and I’ve been involved in a few great comic-based projects, notably the year of Asylum Magazine which Caroline Walters, Joseph de Lappe and I edited about comics and mental health, and – of course – Queer: A Graphic History, where I provided the words, and Julia Scheele provided the pictures.

Along with her colleagues, Julia also makes great comic anthologies over at One Beat Zines, and they invited me to contribute something to their latest zine on performance. As readers of queer will know, one of the major theories about gender is Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, so I did my best to explain that idea, and the implications it might have, in 3 pages! Like many of my comics it’s a personal reflection on my own experiences of gender over the years, asking the question of what it’d be like if we moved away from judging people according to a real/fake binary, towards encouraging everyone to find the gender (experience, identity, expression) that feels comfortable and consensual for them.

The anthology includes many beautiful comics around the themes of performance and performativity, many of which relate to gender. Do order a copy if you’re interested.

If you want to read more of my thoughts on gender, check out my book with Alex Iantaffi: How to Understand Your Gender.

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Mad and Queer studies: interconnections and tensions

With the recent emergence of Mad Studies we thought it timely to explore some connections with Queer studies – another critical field of enquiry. We wanted to examine their similarities and differences; any points of tension; and what each could learn from the other.

Helen has been part of the recent emergence of Mad Studies in the UK and has a long standing interest in critical approaches to gender and sexuality. Meg-John has recently written a book about queer theory as part of the ‘introducing…’ series of Icon press comic books, and has a long standing interest in critical approaches to mental health. This piece arose out of discussions between ourselves on this subject.

Summary of key points

• Mad and Queer Studies have lot of common ground – especially in terms of challenging existing binaries (for example, gay/straight and mad/sane); subverting negative connotations of Queer/Mad; and critiquing prevailing normativities (ways of being ‘normal’).
• However, we have to be careful to think critically about new normativities which develop when we move away from old ones, and who is included and excluded in any movement.
• Therefore, both projects could do more to question the ‘alternative’ norms and binaries they introduce which may have unhelpful effects.
• In addition, madness poses new and significant challenges to Queer activism/studies.
• As a result, Mad / Queer scholars and activists would benefit from greater dialogue with each other – and with other critical fields of inquiry (like critical disability studies).
• Finally, we recommend foregrounding practices of consent and kindness as part of our political strategy to achieve our desire for more liberated social relationships and societies.

We start by briefly outlining a history of the two disciplines.

What is the history of Queer theory and Queer studies?

Read more…

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