Queer Cats Journal of LGBTQ Studies

Under the aegis of the UCLA Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program, Queer Cats Journal of LGBT Studies is an open-access e-publication of the QGrads @ UCLA graduate-student organization. We publish peer- and editorial-reviewed interdisciplinary LGBTQ research along with the proceedings of our annual QGrad (queer grad- uate student) conference. Queer Cats provokes discourse that inspires, expands and challenges our understanding of LGBTQ issues, from the local to the global. Queer Cats provides a critical space for queer knowl- edge production, as it unites a multiplicity of scholarly voices in a critical dialogue about the past, present and future of LGBTQ studies.

The name “Queer Cats” commemorates one of the earliest LGBTQ uprisings in the United States (pre-Stonewall) that began on NewYear’s night, 1967, when the patrons of the Black Cat Tavern in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles protested police brutality in the name of queer freedom.

QCATS Editor's Letter, Volume 2

Stefanos Milkidis’ “Foucault: On the monstrosity of the hermaphroditic body” guides us through Foucault’s discourse on the hermaphrodite body. Focusing on two Foucauldian case studies, Milkidis traces the ways in which the hermaphrodite body is pathologized, underscoring the relationship between knowledge production and power relations. Milkidis’ emphasis on Foucault’s research proves fruitful to better understanding how the “deviant body” was historically demonized and pathologized as an abnormal “other” within medical spaces/discourse.

In “Dys-appearing/Re-Appearing: Trans Men Actors Resist- ing Cisnormative Theatrical Traditions with Phenomenal Stage Presence” Joshua Bastian Cole lays the groundwork for a theory of acting for trans men that incorporates an understanding of various symptoms of dysphoria, rather than labeling them undesirable “absences” that must be eliminated in the pursuit of a normatively-conceived stage “presence.” Using a de-pathologizing medical model of trans subjectiv- ity in combination with various phenomenological theories of trans embodiment, Cole explores trans men’s abilities to actively create a body in space and time. He argues that these creative survival techniques can be used as a the basis for a method for stage acting. He concludes with a postscript that provides an application for his ideas, an exercise which bridges the gap between social performativity and stage performance.

Amy E. Alterman’s “Performing Research in the Closeted City: One Lesbian Researcher’s Autoethnographic Journey toward LGBTQ-Inclusive Sex Education in Atlanta, Georgia” traces her experiences as an ethnographer in the field to examine how performances of silence inform sex education in Atlanta, GA. Using Eve Kosofsky Sedjwick’s theorization of the closet, Alterman explores the many silences simultaneously operating around sex education and LGBTQ-inclusive topics in sex education to consider abstinence-centered advocates as closeted professionals who are reluctant to engage in public dialogue about sex education.

Following the work of Michelle Alexander, Kevin Medina and Brian Nguyen’s “Acknowledged but Ignored: A Critical Race Theory Approach to the Prison Rape Elimination Act,” address the overrepresentation of incarcerated men of color, speci cally African American men. Medina and Nguyen highlight the ways in which racism and homophobia reproduce rape culture in prisons and demonstrate the limitations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act.