Mapping Queer Relationalities: An Exploration of Communication at the Edges of Cultural Unintelligibility.

Focusing on queer relationality, broadly conceptualized as minoritarian subjects' modes of relating, engaging, and connecting with others in a symbolic and material landscape of erasure and cultural unintelligibility, this special issue highlights their communication practices and relational experiences. In so doing, it attempts to mitigate epistemic injustice, a wrong perpetrated against minoritarian subjects in their capacity as knower and legitimate source of their own experiences, by making their practices and experiences known and legible in mainstream heteronormative culture. The purpose of our article is to offer a preliminary mapping of queer relationalities, ranging from communication practices to modes of sociality and relational formations that exist at the edges of mainstream cultural unintelligibility. To do so, we first explore the vast domain of queer relationality. Next, we identify and examine multiple ways of thinking, doing, and imagining queer relationality. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical, methodological, and political implications of current work on queer relationality assembled in this issue and explore future directions for research.

Racialized masculinities and the new homonormativity in LOGO's Noah's Arc.

Examining the relationship between neoliberalism, race, and gender performance, this article provides an analysis of Noah's Arc, a popular LOGO television series in the United States. More specifically, it focuses on the intricate relationship between specific forms of racialized masculinities and the new homonormativity in this show. This article is divided into six sections. First, an overview of the LOGO series is provided. Next, gay, lesbian, and queer visibility in mainstream U.S. popular culture and the new homonormativity are examined. Third, the relationship between race and masculinity is discussed. Next, a close reading and analysis of the show is provided. Fifth, an exploration of how representations of Noah's Arc queers and "quares" Black masculinity in U.S. culture is undertaken. Finally, some concluding thoughts on representations of racialized masculinities and homonormativity in this popular television series are offered.

Queering the politics of lambda picture book finalists: challenging creeping neoliberalism through curricular innovations.

In many instances, adults serve as gatekeepers for what books children are permitted to explore. Unfortunately, this means that most children have limited access to picture books with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) characters. In this article, we use queer pedagogy and observations about neoliberalism to provide a qualitative analysis of LGBTQ characters in picture books which were finalists for a Lambda Literary Award during 2000-2005. We examined the ways in which LGBTQ identities and relationships are negotiated and how sexual prejudice is treated. While it is improbable that the books we analyze would be embraced by proponents of neoliberalism, we also briefly consider some ways in which they may be inadvertently consistent with that perspective. The article closes with recommendations regarding discussion questions, additional readings, and educational activities aimed at guiding children, and adults, to appreciate a diversity of multidimensional identities and family structures, to develop strategies to respond constructively to emotional and physical violence, and to promote the public wellbeing. We hope that this analysis will lead to more frequent, productive, and expansive discussions of this literature among adults and children.

Shifting Ground(s): Surveying the contested terrain of LGBT studies and queer theory.

While queer theory initially grew out of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) studies, there are numerous points of contestation between these two approaches, originating mostly from their disparate positions on (sexual) identity politics. To describe, analyze, and contextualize this contested terrain, we begin this piece by providing some historical notes on LGBT studies and queer theory. Next, we turn to an explication of some enduring tensions to identify the criticisms generated by LGBT scholars toward queer theory approaches and vice versa. What follows is our rationale for producing LGBT Studies and Queer Theory: New Conflicts, Collaborations, and Contested Terrain. In this section we discuss how this project originated and the specific objectives we hope this volume will meet. The contributions of the individual articles in this volume are identified and summarized next. Finally, in the context of LGBT studies' and queer theory's similar qualities and points of difference, we offer ideas for potential directions of scholarship in the future that would explore three major areas: identity and difference; community and community organizing; and political engagement and social change.

The violence of heteronormativity in communication studies: notes on injury, healing, and queer world-making.

Heteronormativity is everywhere. It is always already present in our individual and collective psyches, social institutions, cultural practices, and knowledge systems. In this essay, I provide some sketches for a critical analysis of heteronormativity in the communication discipline. More specifically, I examine the symbolic, discursive, psychological, and material violence of heteronormativity, and begin exploring ways to heal, grow, transform, and contemplate new possibilities in our social world. To accomplish this, this essay is divided into live sections. First, I discuss the study of sexuality in Communication. Next, through the notion of injury, I focus on the violence of heteronormativity. Third, using the concept of healing, I discuss ways of unpacking heteronormativity through a critique of hegemonic heterosexuality. Further, I offer potential ways for queer world-making through the lens of queer theory. I conclude by exploring the need for more sexuality research in the discipline by engaging the productive tensions between constructive and deconstructive impulses.

A critical appraisal of assimilationist and radical ideologies underlying same-sex marriage in LGBT communities in the United States.

Debates over same-sex marriage have reached the main stage of contemporary U.S. politics. The purpose of this essay is to identify and examine how sexual ideologies in U.S. LGBT communities inform and influence relationship construction in general and same-sex marriage in particular. To accomplish this, we first discuss the nature of sexual ideologies. Next, we identify current sexual ideologies in LGBT communities and examine some of their fundamental features and their implications for relationship construction with a focus on same-sex marriage. We conclude with a discussion of what is potentially gained and lost by same-sex matrimonial bonds and explore some of the prospects of relationship construction within LGBT communities in the future.

The case of "riding bareback": sexual practices and the paradoxes of identity in the era of AIDS.

Barebacking, the deliberate practice of unprotected anal intercourse, is a new reality for many gay men. How does bareback sex create, maintain, and challenge personal and collective gay identities? Drawing from the works of Foucault, Weeks, Epstein, and popular gay literature, this essay explores these intersections and conflicts. Specifically, we examine the nature of identity and the conflicts and divisions in gay communities, analyze the barebacking phenomenon and its interconnection with the paradoxes of identity, and conclude by discussing the implications for HIV/AIDS education, suggestions for future research, and ways of engaging in community dialogue.

From homophobia and heterosexism to heteronormativity.

SUMMARY By examining homophobia and heterosexism within the larger context of heteronormativity at the intersections of race, class, and gender, I propose, in this article, a model of queer interventions in the university classroom. The article is divided into three sections. First, I describe the conceptual terrain of homophobia, heterosexism, and heteronormativity, and their potential limitations. Second, I present an integrative model, using heteronormativity as the central site of violence, to examine homophobia at the intersections of race, class, and gender within the larger social and cultural domain (macroscopic level) and interpersonal context (microscopic level) and illustrate this model with specific classroom activities. Finally, I discuss the implications of the model for teaching and theorizing about homophobia, heterosexism, and heteronormativity.