An online forum analysis was conducted to explore experiences of sexual violence and safety among transwomen, with a particular focus on transwomen of colour. Four online forums were chosen for the analysis. Three key themes were identified: dating and violence in intimate relationships; fear of violence and safety strategies; and coping after sexual assault. Forum posters faced heightened gender policing and scrutiny, due to not conforming to normative ideals of femininity. Femininity was also predicated on white, middle-class status, and associated with domesticity and romance. As a result, expressions of femininity from non-white backgrounds could be read as deviant or excessive. The intersection of deviation from gender norms and femininity based on whiteness meant that transwomen of colour faced disproportionate levels of violence, both in public and private spaces. Transwomen of colour also faced disadvantage due to participation in higher-risk forms of sex work, low socioeconomic status and employment, and institutional discrimination. Coping mechanisms to deal with cumulative disadvantage included seeking support from health professionals and transgender community networks. However, it also included more harmful forms of self-medicating such as heavy alcohol and drug use, self-harm and suicide attempts.

Loyalty between soldiers is idealized as an emotion that promotes cohesion and combat effectiveness. However, little empirical work has examined how military personnel understand, feel, and enact loyalty. We use a symbolic interactionalist informed frame to explore the lived experience of 24 retired Australian Defence Force members via in-depth semi-structured interviews. Our analysis revealed three core themes: (1) Loyalty as reciprocity, where there was an expectation that loyalty would be returned no matter what. (2) The importance of emotional connection for cohesion. (3) Loyalty as a prioritizing process, where a soldier’s loyalties gave them a way of choosing between competing demands. Loyalty is a moral emotion that enabled sensemaking. Close interpersonal loyalties tended to trump wider/diffused loyalties. Respondents understood their loyalties to fellow soldiers within wider social constructs of mateship and professionalism. The findings show the risks that come from a reliance on loyalty for combat cohesion.

This paper discusses the way that trans women embody their transgender identity, focusing on identity questioning, gender dysphoria, clinical gatekeeping and medicalized narratives. Situated within the hermeneutics methodological approach, we adopted the unobtrusive research as our research method, where data was derived from online forums where trans women posted content about their perspectives and experiences of gender and gender transitioning. Thematic analysis method was used for data analysis. Our findings suggest that gender identity is embodied and socially negotiated. Many trans women were initially ambivalent about their transgender identity and some continued to question their desired identity throughout adulthood. When presenting to healthcare professionals many trans women reported being expected to adopt a ‘wrong body’ narrative in order to gain access to treatment and surgery for gender transitioning and affirmation. In doing so, trans women interact with significant others and health care providers, and face many challenges. These challenges must be understood so that trans women can perform self-determination practices as a way to achieve gender autonomy.

A review of Rafaael de la Dehesa, Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies (Duke, 2010) and Kane Race, Pleasure Consuming Medicine (Duke, 2009).

This chapter provides a review of the health impacts of sexual violence on women’s lives. Sexual violence is common and widespread, and affects not only women’s mental health, but also their physical, sexual and perinatal health. Sexual violence is often viewed as a single incident, yet many women face multiple or cumulative traumas throughout the course of their lives, including sexual assault, physical violence, and child sexual abuse. Sexual violence may occur as part of an everyday social climate that acts to facilitate or condone violence against women, or may take place in conflict situations, where it is encouraged by an ideology of militarized masculinity.