In Oktober 2015 het die Algemene Sinode van die NG Kerk ’n merkwaardige besluit oor selfdegeslagverhoudings geneem. Die besluit het erkenning gegee aan sulke verhoudings en dit vir predikante moontlik gemaak om gay en lesbiese persone in die eg te verbind. Ook die selibaatsvereiste wat tot op daardie stadium vir gay predikante gegeld het, is opgehef. Met hierdie besluit het die NG Kerk die eerste hoofstroomkerk in Suid-Afrika en Afrika geword wat totale gelykwaardige menswaardige behandeling van alle mense, ongeag seksuele oriëntasie, erken – en is gedoen wat slegs in ’n handjievol kerke wêreldwyd uitgevoer is. Die besluit het egter gelei tot groot konsternasie. Verskeie appèlle en beswaargeskrifte is ingedien, distriksinodes het hulle van die besluit distansieer, en in die media was daar volgehoue kritiek en debat.

"Thoughtful and often moving." Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars provides important theoretical background and context to the 'gender wars' or 'TERF wars' - the fracture at the forefront of the LGBTQ international conversation. Using queer and female masculinities as a lens, Finn Mackay investigates the current generational shift that is refusing the previous assumed fixity of sex, gender and sexual identity. Transgender and trans rights movements are currently experiencing political backlash from within certain lesbian and lesbian feminist groups, resulting in a situation in which these two minority communities are frequently pitted against one another or perceived as diametrically opposed. Uniquely, Finn Mackay approaches this debate through the context of female masculinity, butch and transmasculine lesbian masculinities. There has been increasing interest in the study of masculinity, influenced by a popular discourse around so-called 'toxic masculinity', the rise of men's rights activism and theory and critical work on Trump's America and the MeToo movement. An increasingly important topic in political science and sociological academia, this book aims to break new ground in the discussion of the politics of gender and identity.

This issue features a group of leading theorists from multiple disciplines who decenter the human in queer theory, exploring what it means to treat "the human" as simply one of many elements in a queer critical assemblage. Contributors examine the queer dimensions of recent moves to think apart from or beyond the human in affect theory, disability studies, critical race theory, animal studies, science studies, ecocriticism, and other new materialisms. Essay topics include race, fabulation, and ecology; parasitology, humans, and mosquitoes; the racialization of advocacy for pit bulls; and queer kinship in Korean films when humans become indistinguishable from weapons. The contributors argue that a nonhuman critical turn in queer theory can and should refocus the field's founding attention to social structures of dehumanization and oppression. They find new critical energies that allow considerations of justice to operate alongside and through their questioning of the human-nonhuman boundary. Mel Y. Chen, Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect, also published by Duke University Press. Dana Luciano is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University. She is the author of Arranging Grief: Sacred Time and the Body in Nineteenth-Century America and editor, with Ivy G. Wilson, of Unsettled States: Nineteenth-Century American Literary Studies. Contributors: Neel Ahuja, Karen Barad, Jayna Brown, Mel Y. Chen, Jack Halberstam, Jinthana Haritaworn, Myra Hird, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Eileen Joy, Eunjung Kim, Dana Luciano, Uri McMillan, Jose Esteban Munoz, Tavia Nyong'o, Jasbir K. Puar, Susan Stryker, Kimberly Tallbear, Jeanne Vaccaro, Harlan Weaver, Jami Weinstein

In light of modern changes in attitude regarding homosexuality, and recent controversy surrounding Government legislation, Orthodox Rabbi Chaim Rapoport, Chief Medical Advisor in the Cabinet of the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, explores the Jewish stance on homosexuality. Rabbi Rapoport combines an unswerving commitment to Jewish Law, teachings and values with a balanced, understanding perspective that has, arguably, been lacking among many in the Orthodox Jewish establishment. This work represents a milestone in understanding an issue at the heart of a great deal of debate, not to mention prejudice and discrimination. It will undoubtedly be a vehicle for future discussion and will serve as a brick in the wall of an increasingly harmonious World Jewish Community. The book combines clearly written prose for instant and easy access with exhaustive endnotes for all those who wish to explore the issue further. Judaism and Homosexuality is the first word on Orthodox att

This book undertakes a critical analysis of international human rights law through the lens of queer theory. It pursues two main aims: first, to make use of queer theory to illustrate that the field of human rights law is underpinned by several assumptions that determine a conception of the subject that is gendered and sexual in specific ways. This gives rise to multiple legal and social consequences, some of which challenge the very idea of universality of human rights. Second, the book proposes that human rights law can actually benefit from a better understanding of queer critiques, since queer insights can help it to overcome heteronormative beliefs currently held. In order to achieve these main aims, the book focuses on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the leading legal authority in the field of international human rights law. The use of queer theory as the theoretical approach for these tasks serves to deconstruct several aspects of the Court's jurisprudence dealing with gender, sexuality, and kinship, to later suggest potential paths to reconstruct such features in a queer(er) and more universal manner.

Pretended is a vivid historical, political and cultural account of schools and teaching under Section 28, a law that banned schools in the UK from promoting homosexuality as a 'pretended family relationship'. Catherine Lee was a teacher in schools for each of the 15 years that Section 28 was law (between 1988 and 2003). In Pretended, she considers the landscape for lesbian and gay teachers leading up to, during and after Section 28. Drawing on her diary entries from the Section 28 era, Lee poignantly recalls the challenges and incidents affecting her and thousands of other teachers during this period of state-sanctioned homophobia. She reveals how these diaries led to her involvement in the 2022 feature film Blue Jean, and describes how this unexpected opportunity helped her to make peace with Section 28. Pretended will resonate with every lesbian and gay teacher who experienced Section 28 and will shock those who previously knew nothing about this law. Crucially, Pretended will explain to those who were lesbian and gay students during Section 28 why they never saw people like them in the curriculum, never had a role model and never had an adult in school to talk to about their identity.