Andy Holmes, a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, recently published "Queer compromises: How homophobic violence pushed gays and lesbians to make police alliances in Toronto, 1981-2001" in Sexualities, as well as "Situational Fluidity and the Use of Identity Labels in Interactions" (co-authored with Amin Ghaziani, Professor at the Unviersity of British Columbia) in Socius. The first paper provides a historical chronology between 1981-2001 on how gay and lesbian activists ambivalently developed relationships with the police. In 1981 police violently raided four gay bathhouses in Toronto, but shorly after by 2001 the first police chief marched in Toronto's Pride parade. How did this change happen so quickly? By analyzing archival documents, Andy argues this change happened because homophobic violence from both the police and the general public pushed gays and lesbians to ambivalently embrace policing for safety. Based on in-depth interviews with 52 people and inspired by the work of Erving Goffman, the second paper introduces the term "situational fluidity" to account for moments in which people adjust the language they use to refer to their identities based on their audience and context. This paper challenges the assumption that people retain only one sexual identity label at a time (e.g. gay, lesbian, bisexual) but instead, switch between terms dependent on who they're interacting with (e.g. from bisexual to demisexual).
Andy's research broadly focuses on policing, sexuality, and social movements. His dissertation investigates how 2SLGBTQ+ organizations and activists navigate relationships with police. He also researches coming out experiences, and how people navigate and express their sexuality.
You can find his newly published work by clicking the following links:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231241306466
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13634607251334181