In this thesis I interview three Swedish-born or raised racialized gay and bisexual individuals. The purpose is to examine the interviewees' experiences of being racialized and gay/bisexual in Sweden, and how they handle their experiences on an individual level. To do so I use queer theory and Sara Ahmed's phenomenology.I find that whiteness plays a crucial role in the interviewees' lives. Due to a homonationalistic logic, the interviewees are often assumed to be heterosexual. At the same time, a homonationalistic logic leads them closer to whiteness and sometimes enables them to pass as white when “coming out” as gay or bisexual. Furthermore, I find that dating white can serve both as a protection against racism and generate benefits, while it also comes with a risk in form of racism, fear of racism or lack of support when exposed to racism. These experiences have led some of the interviewees to date mainly racialized people as a form of resistance. The thesis also shows that the interviewees often feel excluded in LGBTQ gatherings and places due to being racialized, but at the same time feel safe in relation to their sexuality. All interviewees raise antiracist organization as a way of handling the feeling of being out of place in white LGBTQ-contexts.

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Given the tendency of Populist Radical Right (PRR) parties to form anti-LGBTQ+ claims, this thesis aims to understand how a PRR party operating in a context characterized by progressive values relates to LGBTQ+ topics in their political messages on social media. A single case study of the Sweden Democrats (SD) – an example of a PRR party operating in such a context – was conducted. Idea analysis, which included the concepts of homonationalism and heteroactivism, was performed on 44 posts published during the year following the 2022 election on the social media platform X by politicians representing the SD in the national parliament. The results show that the SD pursued a homonationalist discourse in that they advocated LGBTQ+ rights to oppose Islam in general and Muslim integration in Sweden in particular. However, when the SD solely focused on the Swedish domestic context, LGBTQ+ rights were not promoted, but rather heteronormativity was favored above non-normative relationships, gender identities, and gender expressions. Thus, the results suggest that the SD took part in heteroactivism. Moreover, while the SD avoided outspoken homophobic statements, transphobic ideas were evident. Hence, the SD adapted to the Swedish context by performing a balancing act where they weighed the expression of heteronormative ideals against the potential loss of acceptance from a public supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Altogether, these results contribute to research on PRR parties operating in contexts characterized by progressive values as well as research on the SD concerning LGBTQ+ topics.

This dissertation analyzes narratives of queer partner migration, that is, a family-tie migration in which one of the partners of a relationship has migrated in order for the partners to be together, and where the partners queer the migration in the sense that they have a non-normative sexuality and/or gender identity. The purpose of the study is to examine how queer partner migrants and their Swedish partners experience the migration process – which continues also once the administrative process has been completed – by analyzing the emotions and feelings that emerge in the process. The study is a contribution to research on privileged migration as well as intimate migration. The focus is the queer partner migration relationship, and what emotions and feelings ‘do’ to this relationship, but also how emotions and feelings structure the migration process. The study analyzes the work three different emotions – love, loss, and belonging – do in these migration processes, and how this work is described in the participant narratives. Migrant participants have migrated from different parts of the world (Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America), making it possible to analyze what emotions and feelings do in this particular migration process from the point of view of nationality and, in particular, proximity to ‘Western-ness,’ race, and language as well as how privileges connected to these positions come to matter in the process. The dissertation is an ethnographic interview study in which both migrants and Swedish partners have been interviewed. The interview material consists of a combination of couple interviews and individual interviews. By using affect theories and the concept of queer phenomenology, the dissertation shows how the work that emotions and feelings do in migration processes is connected to gender identity, sexual identity, race and whiteness, nationality, perceived proximity to Western-ness, class, language, and the migration narrative the migrating partner is (or is not) written into by way of the country they have migrated from. This is analyzed in relation to the theoretical frameworks of entanglement, homonationalism, and intimate citizenship. The analysis shows that emotions and feelings structure the migration process for both more privileged and less privileged migrants, but in different ways. The understanding of who ‘is’ a migrant, and the preparedness for the feelings that arise in a migration process, are tied to the positions mentioned above and the privileges these positions give, or do not give, the migrant access to. By focusing on emotions and feelings and what these do, the study also illustrates how the migration process affects the non-migrating partner as this partner engages in emotional labour to ‘make’ the migrating partner ‘Swedish.’ Through their the migrating partner, the non-migrating partner is also aligned in a way that makes them a little bit less ‘Swedish,’ contributing to the non-migrating partner being ‘stopped’ in ways they have usually not experienced before. The study further shows how migration processes produces inequality, and the difficulties that arise when the couples try to live up to the Swedish ideal of the equal relationship. The interviews are analyzed as narratives, and both narratives and storytelling are important throughout the dissertation, not only as the method used in the analysis but as the form of the dissertation, making it a kind of super structure organizing the writing. Writing (how to write accessibly and interesting) and reading (how to write in order to invite an open and active reading) are important aspects of the dissertation. / Avhandlingen analyserar narrativ om queer partnermigration, dvs en familjebandsmigration i vilken en av de två personerna i ett parförhållande migrerar för att de två ska kunna leva i samma land och i vilken de två individerna queerar migrationen på så sätt att de har en icke-normativ sexualitet och/eller könsidentitet. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur queera partnermigranter och deras svenska partners upplever migrationsprocessen – vilken pågår även efter att den administrativa processen är avslutad – genom att analysera de känslor som uppstår i processen. Studien är ett bidrag till forskning om så väl privilegierad migration som intim migration. I fokus står det queera partnermigrationsförhållandet och vad känslor ”gör” med detta förhållande, men också hur känslor strukturerar migrationsprocessen på olika sätt. Studien analyserar det arbete tre olika känslor – kärlek, förlust och tillhörighet – gör i migrationsprocessen och hur detta arbete beskrivs i deltagarnas narrativ. Migrantdeltagarna i studien kommer från olika delar av världen (Afrika, Europa, Latinamerika och Nordamerika), vilket gör det möjligt att analysera vad känslor gör i den här specifika migrationsprocessen utifrån nationalitet, och specifikt närhet till västerländskhet, ras och språkbakgrund samt hur privilegier kopplade till dessa positioner spelar in i processen. Avhandlingen är en etnografisk intervjustudie där både migranter och svenska partners har intervjuats. Intervjumaterialet består av en blandning av parintervjuer och enskilda intervjuer. Genom att använda affektteorier och queer fenomenologi visar avhandlingen hur det arbete känslor utför i migrationsprocesser är kopplat till könsidentitet, sexuell identitet, ras och vithet, nationalitet, upplevd närhet till västerländskhet, klass, språk och det migrationsnarrativ den migrerande partnern är inskriven i (eller inte) genom det land den migrerat från. Detta analyseras i relation till de teoretiska ramverken trassel (entanglement), homonationalism och intimt medborgarskap. I analysen framkommer att känslor strukturerar migrationsprocessen för både mer privilegierade och mindre privilegierade migranter men på olika sätt. Förståelsen av vem som ”är” en migrant och beredskapen för de känslor som uppstår i migrationsprocessen är till stor del kopplade till de positioner som nämns ovan samt de privilegier migranten har tillgång till genom dessa. Genom att fokusera på känslor och vad dessa gör visar studien också att migrationsprocessen påverkar den icke-migrerande partnern genom att denna förutsätts utföra känsloarbete för att ”göra” den migrerande partnern ”svensk.” Samtidigt blir den icke-migrerande partnern själv, genom sin migrerande partner, riktad på ett sätt som gör den lite mindre ”svensk”, vilket bidrar till att också den icke-migrerande partnerns liv ”stoppas” på sätt den vanligtvis inte tidigare upplevt. Studien visar vidare på hur migrationsprocesser producerar ojämlikhet och de svårigheter som då uppstår när paren försöker leva upp till det jämlika svenska idealförhållandet. Intervjuerna är analyserade som narrativ och både narrativ och berättande är genomgående viktiga i avhandlingen, inte bara som metod utan också som avhandlingens form och en slags struktur som organiserar texten. Skrivande (att skriva tillgängligt och intressant) och läsande (att skriva på ett sätt som inbjuder till öppet och aktivt läsande) är viktiga aspekter i avhandlingen.

Berlin is heralded worldwide as being a city that is open, innovative and diverse: a true multicultural metropolis. Music plays a central role in the city’s claim to this title. Go to any one of Berlin’s many notorious alternative nightclubs and you will hear techno, house and electronic dance music blasting out to hoards of enthusiastic partygoers. Many of these clubs and their participants claim that these parties represent diversity, acceptance, equality and tolerance: Spaces within which social divisions are suspended, difference is overcome and people are united. This ubiquitous discursive assertion is referred to in this thesis as a “diversity discourse”. This “diversity discourse” will be deconstructed and situated within a wider political context, with a specific focus on perceptions of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Engaging with theories of intersectionality, post-colonial theory (looking specifically at Jasbir Puar’s important work on homonationalism) and employing qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews and autoethnographic inquiry, it will be argued that the “diversity discourse” works as a mask to conceal a reality of social segregation. Far from being sites of equality and diversity, it will be suggested that access to these nightclubs is premised on the possession of societal privilege. That being said, it will also be argued that research into EDM nightclub participation refrain from viewing these clubs within a binary framework of “good” or “bad”; Rather, they should be seen as complex sites of ambivalence, within which multiple identities are acted out and explored. The project contributes to the current body of work within the (post-) discipline of intersectional gender studies, arguing for the need for theorisations in the field to encompass notions of intersecting privilege and disadvantage.

As representations of queer and trans* youth become increasingly numerous and diverse in mainstream teen television, this thesis explores the social processes of normalization present in the elaboration of queer and trans* youth characters in the 2010-2011 seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Degrassi. The methodology involves a critical discourse analysis of racialized queer youth identities on Pretty Little Liars and white trans* youth identities on Degrassi, complemented by an analysis of their political economy of production and their circulation of discourse surrounding sexuality and gender identity in online youth communities. Drawing upon literature on homonormativity and emerging literature on transnormativity in mainstream media texts, this thesis illustrates that despite their amenability to dominant social power structures, contemporary televisual representations of queer and trans* youth identities achieve meaningful cultural work through the creation of new societal frameworks for youth to engage with non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

As representations of queer and trans* youth become increasingly numerous and diverse in mainstream teen television, this thesis explores the social processes of normalization present in the elaboration of queer and trans* youth characters in the 2010-2011 seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Degrassi. The methodology involves a critical discourse analysis of racialized queer youth identities on Pretty Little Liars and white trans* youth identities on Degrassi, complemented by an analysis of their political economy of production and their circulation of discourse surrounding sexuality and gender identity in online youth communities. Drawing upon literature on homonormativity and emerging literature on transnormativity in mainstream media texts, this thesis illustrates that despite their amenability to dominant social power structures, contemporary televisual representations of queer and trans* youth identities achieve meaningful cultural work through the creation of new societal frameworks for youth to engage with non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

In my thesis I research about the construction of homosexuality in three cultural works from 2008 to 2011. The research centres around the difference between same sex desire in practice and homosexuality as an identity. The research takes a queer theory take-off with a view from Judith Butler’s theories, but cross paths the masculinity research and Jasbir K. Puar’s theories about homonationalism. The central theory in the study is based on Lisa Duggan's concept about the new homonormative, which is re-contexturalized to fit the Swedish perspective. The essay concludes that homonormative and homonationalism are fundamental parts in the construction of homosexuality as an identity. In this essay I introduce the concept of The Homosexual to show how the homosexual subject is alienated in relation to the heterosexual environment.

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Sport is an inherently hegemonic hyper masculinity-building project. Therefore, tensions exist when non-hegemonic groups reclaim sport. This thesis questions how normativity is constructed and resisted in non-normative sporting spaces. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, participant observations, self-reflection qualitative methods and post-structural, spatial and post-colonial theory, I problematize how sportsmanship (sportspersonship) is “cultivated” in a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) soccer league . Specifically, I interrogate how queer sporting bodies negotiate (homo/hetero)normativity by either contesting or confirming neoliberal values of ‘sportsmanship.’ Five interlocking themes that emerged from my data suggest that ‘a queer muscularity’ and ‘a normative queer nationhood’ is being (re)produced by and through queer sporting bodies and sports spaces. I argue that we need to be vigilant of queer sporting spaces that claim to be or are assumed to have greater inclusivity because these spaces may actually facilitate the (re)production of dominant discourses and norms.