Overview
This book distinguishes itself from other critical work on stereotypes of Black women by privileging queer and trans Black women as well as Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks’ work and voices. Rather than explaining how they differ from those of their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, I focus on the representations created by queer and trans Black women as well as Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks for their communities. While Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, and Melissa Harris-Perry have critiqued what they call “controlling images,” and scholars such as Paula Giddings, M. Bahati Kuumba, and Brittney Cooper have traced Black women’s activist histories, none have centered queer and trans Black women’s activism as pivotal to the creative strategies that have grown resistance movements.80 My project troubles the assumed heteronormativity of the category “Black women” in other texts by speaking specifically to the realities of queer and trans women’s lives and production. Building on the work of queer Black feminists like Cathy Cohen, Kara Keeling, Roderick Ferguson, and Sharon Holland, I argue that the radical queer politics of many of these content creators is an essential part of what makes their work compelling and unique, extending beyond reactionary alternatives into imaginative new realities.81
The digital resistance strategies deployed by the content creators I highlight utilize a queer framework that eschews respectability or a quest for “positive” counternarratives. I explore these ostensibly messy means that provide a much more nuanced way of imagining Black women’s lives while simultaneously examining the links between the ways these images circulate and the material realities they engender for Black women as well as Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks’ health. I conceptualize the alternate representations created by Black women as well as Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks as both counterpublic productions that trouble stereotypical depictions and vehicles for processes that allow for other types of interventions, such as network and resource building that far outlive the timeliness of the content produced. This reimagining through imagery may seem to serve only as an immaterial intervention, but as I argue throughout this text, representations are essential tools for fostering health on a physical, mental, and social level.
In the chapters that follow, I unpack misogynoir and Black women as well as Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks’ critical digital resistance in the twenty-first century. Chapter 1, “Misogynoir Is a Drag,” discusses the ubiquity of misogynoir in digital space, in the form of hashtags, memes, and videos that portray Black women through the lens of damaging stereotypes. I use the hashtag #RuinABlackGirlsMonday and the viral video Shit Black Girls Say to discuss the current landscape of misogynoir online. I explore how the hashtag and viral video have real-world consequences that negatively affect the health of the Black women dragged by these images—dragged by Black men’s comedic drag performances, and also dragged by those who enforce punitive policies on Black women and girls. The defensive and generative digital alchemy that Black women enact in these situations is one way they can transform the misogynoir they experience even when they cannot stop it.
Chapter 2, “Transforming Misogynoir through Trans Advocacy,” begins the section of the book featuring case studies that illustrate digital alchemy in action. I focus on Black trans women’s use of social media as a lifesaving and health-affirming praxis that mitigates transmisogynoir. I argue that these practices extend our definitions of “health” beyond simple biomedical rubrics through the kind of generative digital alchemy enacted. I begin with trans advocate Janet Mock’s wildly successful hashtag #GirlsLikeUs, which continues to be an important digital network for trans women to connect with each other. I discuss the evolution of the hashtag and its success in mitigating misogynoir by providing an outlet for Black trans women to build networks of care on and beyond the Internet. I discuss the digital campaign to #FreeCeCe McDonald, a Black trans woman incarcerated for the accidental death of one of her attackers during a racist transphobic incident. Her story was spread via YouTube videos and a support blog, all designed to reframe the national media story that made her the perpetrator instead of a survivor who defended herself and lived. McDonald’s story clearly illustrates the power of the digital to transform individual lives as well as spark the kinds of resistance strategies that persist even after a specific goal is achieved.
Chapter 3, “Web Show Worldbuilding Mitigates Misogynoir,” investigates the proliferation of Black queer women’s YouTube series and what messages are conveyed about health and well-being therein. Skye’s the Limit best exemplifies the genre’s concern with healthy relationships in queer community as it follows lead character Skye through her questionable professional and personal choices. Through close readings of scenes in the series’ episodes, I argue that Skye’s the Limit, Between Women, and 195 Lewis address storylines concerning Black women’s health that are not visible in mainstream media. Mental, physical, and sexual health along with pleasure are central explorations in these web shows, missing from mainstream television. Though these web series often have short runs due to the unpredictable nature of crowdsourced resources, I argue that ephemerality is actually a compelling quality of this digital media production that is not necessarily in contention with quality. By creating short cycles and seasons, casts and crews create a snapshot of the concerns of a moment in time as well as launch the creators into other platforms that allow for greater amplification of the messages from the small screen.
Chapter 4, “Alchemists in Action against Misogynoir,” provides examples of where this transformative digital alchemy could be taking us. I interview two Black nonbinary femme Tumblr users about how they leveraged the platform to create and sustain a practice of care for themselves. I explore their engagement with the platform, their experiences of misogynoir on- and offline and how conversations through the platform helped them create a community for themselves that enabled them to transform misogynoir. In the book’s conclusion, I end by suggesting what my line of inquiry opens for future research, including the potential impact of increased surveillance of digital media and feminist cultural productions and processes in digital spaces.
You will undoubtedly notice the lack of images in this text on Black women and Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks’ creative digital resistance to the negative imagery that unfortunately shapes how they are treated in society. Given the graphic nature of some of these images, I have opted against including them in the text because I believe that we are already inundated with enough images of Black women’s subjugation. If you want to see misogynoir in action you need only turn on the news, see a movie, watch television, or scroll your timeline. You will find examples of Black women being denied their humanity in ways that have a direct impact on their lives. But you will also, as I highlight in this text, find evidence of their resistance. And while this resistance offers up some beautiful imagery, I would do it a disservice to have it rendered here in black-and-white stills of dynamic—but often of limited production value—videos or screenshots of tweets with now broken links or missing images.82 Instead, I opt for detailed description and encourage readers to find these gems in their natural habitat, in the digital sphere for which they were made.
While I initially endeavored to do a deep dive into the demographic data of the people who used these social media platforms to transform misogynoir, the information was difficult to access. Even the way I was able to access some of the tweets and videos I analyze in this text shifted over the course of writing the book, including the loss of accessible statistics regarding engagement with the digital media on different platforms. There are pieces of this project that I cannot replicate because of the changes in accessible data and the ever-increasing proprietary nature of these platforms’ terms of service. As we note in my co-authored book #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice, some aspects of this research would not be possible to undertake if we began writing any later than we did.83 Similarly, Misogynoir Transformed has gone through its own transformation based on the changing nature of the data available.
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