Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction

  • Chapter
LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media

Abstract

In 2010, after successive suicides of male gay youths in the United States,’ Dan Savage and Terry Miller created a YouTube channel entitled the “It Gets Better Project” (see YouTube 2011a; “It Gets Better Project” 2011), offering a public space for the support of troubled, and potentially suicidal, gay youth.2 Many diverse people from all over the world submitted personal online videos in support of the project (see Figure I.1),3 generally advocating that “life gets better” after the potential turmoil of early gay identification — turmoil evident in problems from family, school and society at large. The most noteworthy contribution to the project may be considered that of President Barak Obama. Speaking in an official online video from the White House, he affirms:

There are people out there who care about you just the way you are. And so, if you ever feel like because of bullying, because of what peoples are saying that you are getting down on yourself, you got to make sure to reach out to people you trust. Whether it’s your parents, teachers, folks that you know care about you just the way you are, you’ve got to reach out to them; don’t feel like you are in this your-self…. As a nation we’re founded on the belief that all of us are equal and each of us deserves to … be true to ourselves. That’s the freedom that enriches all of us. That’s what America is all about. And every-day it gets better. (YouTube 2011b)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • ABC News. 2010. Fifth Gay Teen Suicide in Three Weeks Sparks Debate. As Mourners Were Honoring Tyler Clementi, News Came of a Fifth Suicide http://abcnews.go.com/US/gay-teen-suicide-sparks-debate/story?id=11788128 [Accessed 15 October 2010].

  • Ahmed, S. 2007. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashcroft, B., Griffin, G., and Tiffin, H. 2001. The Post-Colonial Reader, 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ballotpedia. 2010. California: Proposition 8 (2008). http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_8_(2008) [Accessed 4 August 2010].

  • BBC. 2011. Uganda gay rights activist David Kato killed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12295718 [Accessed 27 May 2011].

  • Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. 1994. Replies and Critiques: Self-Dissolution and Self-Endangerment of Industrial Society: What does this mean? in U. Beck, A. Giddens and S. Lash, Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in Modern Social Order, California: Stanford University Press, pp. 174–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. 2008. The Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beemyn, B. and Steinman, E. 2002. Bisexual Men in Culture and Society. New York: Haworth Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, D. and Binnie, J. 2000. The Sexual Citizen: Queer Politics and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berry, C., Martin, F. and Yue, A. eds 2003. Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhabha, H. 2004. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binnie, J. 2004. The Globalisation of Sexuality. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, R. 1996. Diasporas and the Nation State: from Victims to Challengers. Internal Affairs, 72, pp. 507–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz-Malave, A. and Manalanson, M.F. eds 2002. Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, G. 1994. Difference and Repetition, trans. P. Patton. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dissident Citizenship. 2010. BSSN: Lies, Smears and Apologies, panel at the Dissident Citizenship Conference, University of Sussex, Brighton, 10 July 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubowski, S.S. 2002. Trembling on the Road: A Simcha Diary, in D. Sneer and C. Aviv, eds, Queer Jews, New York, Routledge, pp. 215–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Equal Marriage. 2010. http://www.samesexmarriage.ca/equality/world.html#netherlands [Accessed 4 August 2010].

  • Ezra, E. and Rowden, T. eds 2006. Transnational Cinema: the Film Reader. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1998. The History of Sexuality, vol 1. Trans. Robert Hurley, rep. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. 1989. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gay Rights Uganda. 2011. http://www.gayrightsuganda.org/ [Accessed 27 May 2011].

  • Giddens, A. 1995. The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies, rep. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grabham, E. 2007. Citizen Bodies, Intersex Citizenship, Sexualities, vol. 10, February, pp. 29–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haritaworn, J., Tauqir, T., and Erdem, E. 2008. Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror, in A. Kuntsman and E. Miyake, eds, Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, York: Raw Nerve Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawley, J. C., ed. 2001. Post-Colonial Queer: Theoretical Intersections. New York: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huffington Post. 2011. “Missionaries of Hate” Puts Uganda Anti-Gay Bill on Center Stage. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alvin-mcewen/missionaries-of-hate-puts_b_588134.html [Accessed 27 May 2011].

  • IGLHRC. 2010. International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home/index.html [Accessed 20 July 2010].

  • ILGA. 2010. International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans And Intersex Association (ILGA) http://ilga.org/ [Accessed 20 July 2010].

  • It Gets Better Project. 2011. http://www.itgetsbetter.org [Accessed 28 May 2011].

  • Lawprofessors. 2010. Introduction – Defining “LGBTIQ”. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/lgbtlaw/2007/08/introduction---.html [Accessed 3 August 2010].

  • Massad, J. 2002. Re-Orienting Desire: the Gay International and the Arab World. Public Culture, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 361–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massad, J. 2008. DesiringArabs. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLeod, J. 2010. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munro, S. and Warren, L. 2004. Transgendering Citizenship. Sexualities, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 345–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Outrage. 2010. http://outrage.org.uk/ [Accessed 20 July 2010].

  • Patton, C. and Sânchez Eppler, B., eds. 2000. Queer Diasporas. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pullen, C. 2007. Documenting Gay Men: Identity and Performance in Reality Television and Documentary Film. Jefferson: McFarland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pullen, C. 2009. Gay Identity, New Storytelling and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pullen, C. 2011. Theorizing LGBT Identity within Documentary Forms, in B. Wilson, Documentary Cinema, London: BFI (Forthcoming).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pullen, C. and Cooper, M. 2010. LGBT Identity and Online New Media. Routledge: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riggs, M. 1991. Tongues Untied, in E. Hemphill, ed., Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men. Concieved by Jospeh Beam, Boston: Alyson Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raw Nerve Books. 2011. Peter Tatchell: Apology and Correction. http://www.rawnervebooks.co.uk/ Peter_Tatchell.pdf [Accessed 12 August 2011].

  • Rimmerman, C.A. 2002. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruffolo, D.V. 2009. Post-Queer Politics. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Savage, D., and Miller, M. 2011. It Gets Better Project: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying. And Creating a Life Worth Living. New York: Dutton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherrer, K. 2008. Coming to an Asexual Identity: Negotiating Identity, Negotiating Desire, Sexualities, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 621–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spurlin, W.J. 2001. Broadening Post Colonial Studies/Decolonising Queer Studies: Emerging “Queer” Identities and Cultures in South Africa, in J.C. Hawley, ed., Post-Colonial Queer: Theoretical Intersections, New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 185–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stallybrass, P., and White, A. 1995. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. New York: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Guardian. 2011. Ugandan paper calls for gay people to be hanged. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2010/oct/21 /ugandan-paper-gay-people-hanged[Accessed 8 June 2011].

  • Tucker, N., ed. 1995. Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions. New York: Haworth Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weeks, J., Heaphy, B., and Donovan, C. 2001. Same Sex Intimacies, Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vertovec, S. 2010. Transnationalism. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitaker, B. 2006. Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East. London: Saqi.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, M. 1992. Tele-Advising. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • YouTube. 2011a. http://www.youtube.com/ user/itgetsbetterproject [Accessed 28 May 2011].

  • YouTube. 2011b. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=geyAFbSDPVk [Accessed 28 May 2011].

  • YouTube. 2011c. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=iL2Ed_iKiG4 [Accessed 28 May 2011].

Download references

Authors
  1. Christopher Pullen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bournemouth University, UK

    Christopher Pullen (Senior Lecturer in Media Studies) (Senior Lecturer in Media Studies)

Copyright information

© 2012 Christopher Pullen

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Pullen, C. (2012). Introduction. In: Pullen, C. (eds) LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373310_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation