Cool CFP from the Journal of Lesbian Studies:
We seek a wide-ranging set of contributions from multiple disciplines and are hoping to represent a diversity of geographical perspectives. We also encourage submissions of short, public-facing, and/or experimental articles, as well as visual art and poetry. Please send your 250–500-word proposal to by June 1, 2022 to lesbianstudiesjournal@gmail.com. Full manuscripts are due by August 15, 2022. Please spread the call far and wide.
Queer feminist theory and social movements from the 1990s on have transformed the discourse about women’s rights, lesbianism, and sexuality. By disassociating gender from anatomical determinism, or a scientific notion of sex, critical queer feminists in academia and on-the-street activists opened up a space for the recognition of non-binary and trans* persons.
Ironically, the possibility of deconstructing the binary between sex and gender has fueled a gender panic. For instance, the deeply anti-feminist movement against ‘gender ideology reproduced through institutionalized, modern-day forms of ecclesiastical power and the rise of far-right populism – professes that women should not work, children should not be taught about queerness and gender fluidity, and transgender subjectivity is purely pathological. Around the world, this anti-queer and transphobic political force has established itself in political regimes and neofascist mobs, violently attacking and harassing queer activists and feminist intellectuals.
We now find ourselves in a historical moment, where queer, lesbian, and feminist scholarship must begin to respond in alliance with activists who are currently mobilizing in opposition to the “anti-gender movement” and other forms of gendered and sexualized neoconservative movements. We invite cross-disciplinary empirical and theoretical scholarly and activist essays, reviews, interviews, and art on the topics of, but not limited to:
Theory: What is the relationship between neoliberal policies, religious institutions, authoritarian governance, and the formation of the neo-fascist anti-gender movements in different parts of the globe? How has the term ‘ideology’ been deployed and appropriated in the anti-gender movement? What is the role of “the child” in mobilizing these movements?
Impact: What is the impact of anti-gender, anti-queer, and transphobic ideology on politics and education, including national elections, the rise of autocratic regimes, pedagogy, educational debates, and censorship? Additionally, what are the impacts of neofascists and anti-gender attacks on feminist and lesbian communities, cultural production, and scholarship in different parts of the globe?
Resistance: How are lesbian, queer, and feminist activists, artists, and scholars resisting the rise of neo-fascist anti-gender ideology? How do responses to anti-gender ideology create new intersectional coalitions across sexualities, genders, classes, nations, and races?
Art and cultural production: How are feminist, queer, and transgender utopic and dystopic visions of the future imagined in the time of rising neo-fascism?