Opengender

This is a collection of research and writing on cross-dressing and cross-gender identifications in lesbian and gay cultures and on lesbians and gays as audiences and fans. Some was published in print media and some online. Work published on this site is subject to a Creative Commons license (see below) but books or articles which are still in print are subject to proprietary copyright so we've added links to online journals or to printed books on Amazon UK. Modified open-access or draft versions may also be available here.

Find full academic reference information for publications here.

'The "L-Word" Underwhelms the UK' — Paula Graham
Overpaid, underfed, and over here? Have skinny-latte lesbians lost their sparkle for British queers? Well, it's politics, Jim, but not as we know it . . .
[Link to Amazon]

Medievalism and the Fantasy Heroine — Jane Tolmie
What is the nature of the coin that purchases female heroism in so many contemporary fantasy novels? The emphasis remains on the individual woman rising above a system that keeps her down . . .
[Link to full-text pdf format]

‘All About Women: Pedro Almodóvar and the Heterosocial Dynamic’ — Stephen Maddison
Are we gay because we fancy men, or because we need to be fabulous? Nuns, mothers and trannies: what is the relationship between sexuality and gender?
[Link to full-text HTML] [Link to full-text pdf version]

Sex and the Single Starship Captain: Compulsory Heterosexuality and 'Star Trek: Voyager' — Debra Benita Shaw
What are the specific anxieties that emerge when a woman is imagined in a position of command but the fundamental social structures of patriarchal liberalism remain intact?
[Full-text online]

‘Small Towns, Boys and Ivory Towers: A Naked Academic’ — Stephen Maddison
Our intrepid hero battles with provincial homophobia and bad hair to escape into academia. Does he find the path to true fabulousness?
[Link to full-text pdf format]

The Edge of Reason: the Myth of Bridget Jones — Stephen Maddison & Merl Storr
Stephen and Merl kick some lilly white butt and trash the homophobia and racism that underwrites all that cute ditziness...
[Link to full-text pdf format]

On Not Being Manly: Barbra Streisand as Gay Icon — Stephen Maddison
Our intrepid hero knocks back a G&T, reaches for the Kleenex, and gets all gooey over La Babs (gimme a break! it was the first time anyone had paid me to write anything). This short article was published in Gay Times in 1992, and earned me a fan letter from the lovely Simon Watney.
[Link to full-text pdf format]

A Queered Pitch — Stephen Maddison
An article published in Red Pepper in 1995 that expresses disillusion with the kind of queer politics that crystalised around the publication of a range of lifestyle magazines at the time. There was a time when queer really did feel oppositional — it was fabulous...
[Link to full-text pdf format]

'Buffy Wars: The Next Generation' — Paula Graham
Still subversive after all these years, or is the Hollywood Amazon showing her age? Slayerettes in cyberspace take on the military industrial complex, well that's something new at least . . .
[Link to full-text online]

Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters: Gender Dissent and Heterosocial Bonds in Gay Culture — Stephen Maddison

[Link to Amazon]
[Link to full-text online]

Women watching women: lesbians and popular culture — Paula Graham
How lesbians have tried to make sense of themselves and how feminist film theorists tried to make sense of lesbian spectators in a heterosexually-defined 'world' — whilst lesbian spectators have a riot doing their own thing with Hollywood icons, warrior women, cowgirls, crossdressers, and woman-identified rebels.
[link to full text online]

'Girls camp: the politics of parody' — Paula Graham
Is there a lesbian camp? How does it relate to feminist theory or is this just a sad copy of gay male culture? And who gets the last laugh when girls get their guns?
[Link to Amazon]

'Amazons and aliens in science fiction cinema' — Paula Graham
Amazon versus monstrous motherhood in the Alien cycle of films. Heterosexual feminist analysis seemed primarily interested in the image of the 'monstrous mother' alien, whilst lesbian subcultures took Ripley to their hearts. Why this divergence of focus?
[Link to Amazon]