Welcome to Vol. 45, No. 1

Abstract

It is my honor and privilege to welcome you all to the first special issue of Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America that is focused on LGBTQþ fashions, styles, and bodies. First, I recognize that many different terms and acronyms are used to refer to this community, such as queer, LGBTQIAAþ, LGBTQQIP2SAA, MOGII, and QUILTBAG, just to name a few. While I use the acronym LGBTQþ, reflecting on and highlighting the continually changing nature of language is important, and I encourage you to continue to educate yourselves as the language shifts and changes over time and across cultures. Research on the intersections of LGBTQþ identities and fashion, styles, and bodies is scarce in comparison to the overall literature on fashion history and fashion studies. Much of the work on LGBTQþ fashion has largely focused on white, able-bodied individuals. Additionally, while some museums have focused their exhibitions on the LGBTQþ community, much of the work has again centered on white individuals, with a focus on high-fashion aesthetics. Therefore, the work in this special issue adds much-needed diversity to the literature within our discipline, as four of the five manuscripts in the issue specifically focus on people of color. As a critical scholar, I also want to highlight that it is important that we—CSA members, scholars, museum professionals, teachers, and the community at large—reflect on and recognize our own privileges as we engage with the work in this issue. What kinds of research questions have you asked in the past? How have you centered LGBTQþ identities or those of people of color, people with disabilities, or fat folks in all aspects of your work? If you are a museum professional, how have you brought these marginalized identities into the existing histories, collecting practices, or exhibition spaces? Have you questioned how your policies, practices, and related output uphold heteronormative ideologies, white supremacy, colonial power, or ableism and then worked to disrupt these power dynamics and work toward change? How have you opened yourself and your colleagues up to criticism, reflected on that criticism, and then thought of those critical reflective sessions as learning opportunities? As I welcome you to this special issue, I also welcome you to be more thoughtful, purposeful, and open to criticism related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of your work and life. For this special issue, a conscious effort in all aspects of its creation focused on and considered intersectionality, an idea developed by early critical race theorist Kimberl e Crenshaw. She explained that Black women, who experience marginalization both for being women and for being Black, are not fully understood within the current critical frameworks that consider race and gender separately. Although Crenshaw focused specifically on the intersection of race and gender, her framework can be used to examine the intersections of all marginalized identities and related hierarchies; such considerations impacted all aspects of this issue of Dress. Conscious choices were made regarding the reviewers, what topics were accepted into the special issue, which image was on the cover, the order of the manuscripts, and the sizes of the different images used throughout the issue. As a white, able-bodied, “thin” person, I have a significant amount of privilege. Although I am a member of the queer community, much of my LGBTQþ identity is invisible. Throughout my time as guest editor, I have continually reflected on my identities and interrogated/examined how my own biases might inform my decision processes, manuscript revisions, and selection and formatting of the illustrations and photographs included in the issue. This process of critical self-reflection and the double-blind peer-review process resulted in five manuscripts addressing unique and important areas of research that all 1 M. Maya, “Your LGBTQAþGlossary: 7 Phrases You Might Not Have Heard of but Should Know,” Bustle, November 11, 2014, <https://www.bustle.com/ articles/48200-your-lgbtqa-glossary-7phrases-you-might-not-have-heard-ofbut-should-know>; Emily Zak, “LGBPTTQQIIAAþ—How We Got Here from Gay,” Ms. Magazine, October 1, 2013, <http://msmagazine.com/blog/ 2013/10/01/lgbpttqqiiaa-how-we-gothere-from-gay/>.