Queer

• Fresh from All of Us Strangers(2023), Andrew Scott plays the title role in Netflix’s new series Ripley, a miniseries based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley.
• News publisher Out claimed Scott’s Ripley for gayness.
• Highsmith wrote Ripley as having an elusive sexuality.
• Scott’s Ripley is different yet again: an enigma who is both compelling and frightening – connected to sexuality, but resistant to explanations, labels or pigeonholes.

Tom Ripley through the ages

• In 1999, Anthony Minghella made him gay in The Talented Mr. Ripley.
• Minghella asserted that Ripley’s “pathology is not explained by his sexuality”, yet he punishes Ripley through his gayness when he has him kill his lover.
• Refreshingly, Claude Chabrol’s Les Biches, thought to be loosely based on The Talented Mr. Ripley, neither pigeonholes nor punishes its lesbian/bisexual protagonist.
• […] Ripley wouldn’t be comfortable in a gay bar; […] he wouldn’t be comfortable in a straight bar.”

Embracing gayness and fluidity

• Gayness as a whole is not subtext in Zaillian’s production.
• Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) asserts “I’m not queer” in the defensive manner of “someone who absolutely is”, as observed by Digital Spy’s David Opie.
• At the same time, the series shows a sincere commitment to fluidity.
• The choice to embrace fluidity is also strategic as it keeps Zaillian open to sequels that could stick to Highsmith’s original plots.

Scott plays an incalculable Ripley

• Playing a sexual nullity is a departure for Scott.
• To the character of Ripley he brings an ambiguous charisma and a Machiavellian sapiosexuality – sexiness that comes from being very, very intelligent.

• Scott’s one definite statement about Ripley is that “his sexuality or sensuality comes out of his relationship with things — art, clothes, props, music.” Certainly, his Ripley has a love/hate relationship with “things”.
• At the same time, inanimate objects prove to be obstacles as Ripley laboriously cleans up after his impulsive murders.
• There’s a boat he can’t burn or scupper, an elevator that seizes up when he is trying to carry a body downstairs.
• These near-misses generate suspense and anxiety for Ripley, but he is too opaque, alien and other for empathy.

• Depending on whom you ask, his Ripley is either “mesmerizing” or “charmless”.
• Is Scott too successful at playing the incalculable other?

Joy McEntee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Guerrero brings a well-rounded skillset to Pride Live, having served over a decade in senior leadership roles with NYC charter school operations (KIPP NYC, East Harlem Tutorial Program, and Achievement First).
• "Pride Live is delighted to welcome Efrain to our organization," said Ann Marie Gothard (she/her), Chair, Board of Directors, Pride Live.
• His leadership and vision will be instrumental in propelling Pride Live forward in its mission to celebrate and empower the LGBTQ+ community.
• I have full confidence that under his leadership, Pride Live will continue to thrive and make an even greater impact."

• Evidence of this demise and the ongoing threat of bar and club closures can be seen everywhere.
• In late 2023 the renowned London club G-A-Y closed its doors, as did many other bars and clubs, victims of an array of economic difficulties.
• All these things have acted to catalyse this destructive process, stripping city nightlife scenes of queer venues.

Revolution through evolution

• But if gay nightlife has been forced to change, something more exciting is evolving in its place, according to Amin Ghaziani’s book Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution.
• By sharing insights and experiences from in and around London’s evolving queer nightlife scene, Ghaziani reveals how it continues to thrive in spite of widespread closures.
• Ghaziani argues that the very nature of queer spaces has merely transformed, now surviving more independently “underground” – often away from the mainstream nightlife sectors.
• Ghaziani’s book links the demise of gay clubs in London to the rise of new queer events appearing throughout the city.

Beyond the city

• The queer underground of the big city is moving, adapting, evolving, as Ghaziani contends.
• Culture is changing and this book helps to explain why and how, encouraging the celebration of queer nightlife itself.
• But by immersing us in a night out in the big city, the book manages to convey feelings of fun and togetherness, reminding us that nightlife is above all about joy, expression and community.
• Ghaziani is asking us not to dwell on the devastation of the gay nightclub scene, but celebrate the queer night’s evolution.

Zack Ditch receives funding from Midlands4Cities.

• If you have been following recent coverage about gender-affirming health care, detransition will not be an unfamiliar topic.
• From mainstream journalists to transgender authors, many have taken an interest in people who underwent a medical gender transition and chose to return to their former identity.

Detransition is not new, but we are seeing new gender-diverse experiences

• Providers of gender-affirming medicine have long been aware of adults who medically transitioned and later returned to live in their former “gender role” or showed signs of regret.
• Dr. Harry Benjamin, the endocrinologist who was among the first to offer gender-affirming medical interventions in the United States, wrote about one such case in his 1966 book, The Transsexual Phenomenon.
• Using strict measurement criteria, they estimated that detransition was rare: around one to two per cent.

Understanding detransition can help us to enrich gender care

We have long known that sexuality can be fluid for some LGBTQ+ people. New research shows that it is not uncommon for trans and gender-diverse young people to report shifts in gender identity over time — dynamically moving between binary trans girls or trans boys, to non-binary, or to cisgender. In some cases, these identity-shift patterns can influence changes in desires for gender-affirming interventions.

• However, when a person’s gender identity or their desire for how they want to express their gender changes after already completing medical or surgical interventions, this may contribute to feelings of decisional regret.
• But because detransition and regret are being instrumentalized in debates about trans people and gender-affirming health care, organizations and care providers serving sexual minorities and gender-diverse communities may feel that offering outward support for detransitioners is politically risky.
• But if organizations and care systems fail to offer formal recognition and support, where can detransitioners turn to for help?

Detransitioners’ voices

• As social scientists who study gender-affirming health care, we understand what motivates these pursuits: a desire to be understood, and to seek validation and justice.
• Detransitioners’ voices, though, may be strategically positioned toward gender-affirming care restrictions, rather than to improve research or to develop comprehensive detransition-related care services.

Identity evolution and detransition are LGBTQ+ experiences

• Some might only detransition temporarily due to lack of support, external pressures and transphobia, and re-affirm a trans identity in the future.
• Regardless, detransition can bring about loss of community supports, stigma, shame and health care avoidance.
• Gender fluidity and detransition deserve further understanding and formal care services, not controversy.

• Kinnon R. MacKinnon receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
• Annie Pullen Sansfaçon receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair Program.