Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and others (LGBTQI+) people across the world face varying levels of discrimination, exclusion, precarity, violence and phobia. Our difference seems to cancel out the possibility of empathy. But while there is the growing anti-gender backlash in Eastern Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world, there is also amazing strength of new voices speaking about intersectionality within the movement, about the experience of transgender and intersex people in particular and about the necessity of bringing our voices more strongly to speak about what concerns, impacts and affects us.
In this bilingual edition, different voices share what should be the priorities around sexuality and gender and the internet going forward. What does the feminist internet look like for LGBTI+ people?
¿De qué manera internet facilita el ejercicio de los derechos sexuales y de la expresión de las orientaciones sexuales, en particular de mujeres que viven en distintos contextos socio-políticos, económicos y culturales?
Esta pregunta dió inicio a una de las áreas de trabajo más reconocidas del Programa derechos de las mujeres de APC, que inició su compromiso con esta temática con la investigación EroTICS, sobre sexualidad e internet en 2009. Muchos proyectos y actividades se desarrollaron desde entonces en diversos paises, enriquecidos por los resultados de encuestas y estudios de casos que fueron creando un cuerpo importante de conocimientos. En él se destacan las voces, preocupaciones, perspectivas y experiencias de un variado espectro de usuarios y usuarias de internet que la utilizan para ejercer y expresar su sexualidad y sus derechos sexuales y analizan con mirada crítica el panorama político y legislativo además de las tendencias de regulación de internet en los países, en las plataformas de las redes sociales y en las aplicaciones que utilizamos a diario.
This edition is an exploration of the multiple layers of the relationship between sexuality, rights and sexual expression and the internet. Does it open up new avenues and forums for expression, or does it expose people to more variations of the violence, abuse and harassment that we face onground/offline? And is this even a question to ask, since it is now inevitable that we are all embedded in technology, whether with or without our participation or consent.
The internet has become an essential space for negotiation and formation of identities, a ground for sexual desires and fevers, and a place for coming together for building community... and so much more that cannot even really be named. This edition explores the ways in which lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer people (LGBTIQ) explore, use, play with, reject, abide by, embrace the internet.
The first iteration of the EROTICS global research was in 2008. In the last three years, the second iteration of EROTICS has focused on South Asia (India, Nepal, Sri Lanka). Alongside with this is the EROTICS global survey of sexual and internet rights activists.
Have we taken over the internet or has it taken us over? Are we using or being used by the internet? How can we resist the globalised commodification of the internet and defend it as open, diffused, decentralised and subversive? Is the divide between our online and offline lives blurring? Is this empowering or threatening? Many fascinating questions that look not for a definite and absolute answer, but to be debated in a frame of respect of women’s and sexual rights, online and offline.
APC held a global meeting on gender, sexuality and the internet in Malaysia between 12 and 17 April 2014, to explore and develop the collective understanding of what a feminist internet looks like. One of the goals of the meeting was to find, within a sex-positive queer framework, an agreement on core feminist principles for a transformative internet, in order to develop a set of evolving Feminist Principles of the Internet.
EROTICS project is moving forward and discussions on sexual rights, violence against women, censorship. privacy, pornography, freedoms and risks in the online world. are flowing all around. Two meetings took place lately, one was held in India, and the other one was held in the United States.
98% of activists see the internet as an important public sphere for advancing sexual rights. However 51% of them have suffered online hate speech, censorship or privacy violations. Sexual rights activists from Africa and the Middle East face double risk compared to colleagues from elsewhere of being attacked by their governments because of their online activities.
This edition draws on the groundbreaking survey of the APC’s EROTICS project and probes the specific realities in different countries, including the value of the internet in sexual rights advocacy, online challenges and their negotiation by sexual rights activists, and the role of network building in resisting online threats and content regulation.
After 3 years of interrogation into the politics of sexuality and the internet, the EROTICS research is out! This second part of the GenderIT.org edition 'EroTICs: Sex, rights, and the net' publish the full research findings that delve into the complexities of policy and legislative trends on internet content regulation, map key actors and processes, and document how sexuality figures as a central theme in this debate. The reports also showcase the value of the internet in the exercise of rights by people of diverse sexualities.
In 2008 the APC Women's Programme began a two and a half year research project looking into the role of sexuality online. The study, called Exploratory Research on Sexuality and ICTs -- or "EroTICs" -- looked at the experiences of a diversity of users, primarily women and girls of different ages, classes, sexual orientations and identities. Research was conducted in five countries: Brazil, India, Lebanon, South Africa and the United States.
This two-part edition of GenderIT aims to present this groundbreaking research. The first part of the edition features the executive summaries of the full reports, and brings interviews with the EroTICs researchers and the experts involved within the fields of the internet governance, sexuality and women's rights, who shared with us their ideas, insights and policy recommendations based on the findings of this research. The second part of the edition will publish the full reports. We hope this will help to guide an informed debate around internet governance, content regulations and internet rights.
What is the linkage between sexuality and the internet? Why is the protection of users from the 'harm' of pornographic content often the principal reason given to regulate the flow of information and exchange over the internet? How does it work in reality, and how does it impact on our ability to access information, form relationships, build communities, create knowledge and exercise self-determination in terms of our sexuality and sexual rights?
The "EroTICs: Exploratory Research on Sexuality and the Internet" project is a two-and-a-half year research project that aims to answer some of these questions.
