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04-January-2025

I've just created this website, and the main design of it all has a long ways to go. This is my first (and hopefully only) website, but I'm excited to learn coding and website design, and to share all of my thoughts in a single, publicly-accessible space.

I have a lot of thoughts about queer representation in media, especially in books and film. I often see conversations revolving around queerness in horror, and for good reason. Historically, horror has been a genre outside of the mainstream, in which we could challenge gender norms and offer queer representation that was seriously lacking elsewhere. Many queer people turned to horror for queer representations, however deeply flawed, because it was the best they could find. There is a lot to unpack about the sometimes uplifting, mostly troubling ties between queerness and horror prior to the explosion of queer representations in more mainstream media. This topic has already been talked about in depth by a range of scholars, and I will reference their works throughout this website, especially on the Media Recommendations page. However, I still have my own thoughts to add, and you can find those primarily on the Essays page.

And yet, why does the conversation seem to stop at the intersection of queerness and horror? Science fiction has long been my favorite book genre, and I'm starting to realize that one of the many reasons why is because of the opportunities it allows for challenging gender norms and queerphobia. When mainstream media and conversations revolve around rhetoric of hate, if they include mention of queerness at all, sci-fi offers a space to discuss What Ifs: futures and other civilizations in which bisexuality is the default, there are more than two genders, and misogyny doesn't exist, just to name a few. Where horror trends towards depictions of queerness as monstrous or frought with trauma, sci-fi can create entire worlds and galaxies that celebrate and accept queerness as part of the norm.

Of course the conversation shouldn't end with sci-fi, either. I would love any recommendations that others have about discussions of queer representation in sci-fi and other genres. But for now what's on my mind is queerness in sci-fi, and I hope to write an essay on it once I've untangled more of what I want to say. There are plently of older and renowned sci-fi authors who are straight white men, ignoring queer realities and perpetuating Western ideals into their futures and other worlds. There are an amazing array of newer authors with more diverse backgrounds, writing brilliant queer works and challenging assumptions. But I just want to give a shoutout here to the others in sci-fi several decades ago, forging a queer and more equal path forward where one didn't exist previously. The 1970s in particular brought us several women authors who wrote incredible and witty works clapping back at misogyny. The list is by no means complete yet, but check out the Feminist 1960s-1980s Sci-Fi Book Recommendations for some authors who do just that.