(Trans)formative discomfort

What can a queer darkroom do to unsettle affective gender inequalities

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6016910
AutoresLyu Azbel (Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases, Yale School of Medicine), Jamie Hakim (0000-0001-6767-6564, The King's College, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen29
Número4
Páginas672-688
Fecha de publicación2025-11-10
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSexualities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-4607 • E-ISSN: 1461-7382
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13634607251394184
OpenAlexW4416094322
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas29

Can infrastructures of queer counterpublic sex disrupt affective inequalities in gender and sexuality? This paper examines DTF (Down to Fuck or Dyke, Tranny, Faggot)—a Berlin-based, all-gender queer darkroom created by intersex and trans activists—as an infrastructure of intimacy that reconfigured the possibilities of erotic encounter. By assembling FLINTA and cis gay sexual cultures, DTF generated a space where gendered bodies, drugs, and desires mixed in ways that challenged normative power relations. Through embodied interactions with the space’s materiality, new queer bodily capacities emerged, momentarily suspending the normative ordering of sex and gender in Berlin’s queer culture. We argue that by making space for transformative discomfort —rather than prioritizing safety—DTF offers a model for navigating difference in pursuit of a transexual queer future