Papers

• Platform (ing / and) Boys’ Love: Diverging Effects of Social Media in Mainstreaming BL in Thailand and the Philippines Erwin James Alonzo dela Cruz Thammasat University

  This paper investigates the variegated impacts of social media on the development of boys’ love (BL) media in Thailand and the Philippines. By utilizing digital ethnography and secondary sources, it argues that while social media provided an infrastructural base for the genre’s growth in both countries, the interplay between fan communities and critical LGBTQIA+ discourses produced divergent trajectories. In Thailand, social media served as a net- positive feedback loop. It amplified the commercial power of predominantly female prosumers, strengthening the genre’s mainstreaming process and providing correctives to initial problematic tropes. However, the popular consumption of BL fandoms continuously overpowers valid criticisms from the LGBTQIA+ community regarding the genre’s heteronormative representational politics. On the other hand, in the Philippines, social media may have been an initial platform for popularizing Pinoy BL, the development of the genre was limited by the criticisms of local LGBTQIA+ communities. This critical discourse effectively hampered the genre’s mainstreaming potential, relegating it to the periphery of Philippine media. In effect, some small producers of Pinoy BL, conflating BL with gay media, resorted to an overtly sexualized and almost pornographic content to cater a distinct, niche market. This comparative analysis highlights how social media does not homogenize cultural flows but actively heterogenizes them according to specific local socio-political configurations.

• Being queer and religious online: Digital queer religiosity as resistance in polymediated spaces Mariam Jayne Agonos Monash University

  In the Philippines, where the majority of the population identify as Catholic and use social media, an emerging phenomenon challenges conventional boundaries between faith and sexuality. Within a traditional and heteronormative society, a queer religious community, the LGBTS (Let God Be Thy Saviour) Christian Church, exploits digital platforms to enable the convergence of queer identity and Christian faith. By integrating findings from digital observation with in-person worship attendance, we illustrate how a queer Christian congregation leverages integrated affordances in communicative environments to resist marginalization as it cultivates community and reimagines spirituality. In these digital spaces, new forms of collective faith marked by queer-affirming theology are developed through identity performances, mediated rituals, and advocacy. The church demonstrates how marginalized groups adapt technologies to carve out spaces of affirmation and advocacy, highlighting how queerness and religiosity intertwine to reshape digital environments not just as tools of connection but arenas where religious practice and identity are performed and sustained when spaces are limited. Through the practice of digital queer religiosity, polymediated environments become vital sites of affirmation and belonging, fostering inclusive religious spaces that reconcile seemingly contradictory aspects of members’ identities.

• Digital media debates on spousal roles in dual-income households: A case study of the Singaporean Muslim community Nur Hafiza Roslee University of Melbourne

  This paper examines debates that are prevalent in digital media within the Singaporean Muslim community to uncover perspectives regarding gender justice and equality when navigating spousal roles in dual-income households. In analysing these debates, the paper classifies the diversity of views based on the textualist and contextualist approaches of interpreting the Qur’an. These views are drawn from publicly available postings on various social media platforms widely used by Singaporean Muslims such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The practicality of these views will be explored through topics such as decision-making, financial contributions, domestic tasks, and caregiving responsibilities.

• Collective Solidarity in Digital Feminist Praxis: Empowering Marginalised Women in Bali Prasakti Ramadhana Fahadi University of Melbourne

  This study examines how marginalised women in Bali empower each other through collective solidarity, and how digital media facilitates their resistance. Focusing on Bali Sruti, a native Balinese grassroot feminist organisation, this research draws on digital ethnography; combining fieldwork, interviews, and analysis of online content to trace how activism unfolds across both digital and offline spaces. Situated within the broader context of Balinese adat and gendered expectations, Bali Sruti’s work demonstrates that empowerment is not an individualised outcome, but a relational and processual practice. Through initiatives such as Sekolah Perempuan, the organisation creates spaces where women share experiences, build knowledge, and support one another, forming what can be understood as a collective and dialogical mode of empowerment. Here, solidarity is not abstract—it is built through everyday interactions, shared vulnerability, and mutual care.

  Digital media plays a crucial role in enabling and extending this process. First, it functions as a tool for community education, where Bali Sruti disseminates gender and GBV literacy through platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. Second, it acts as a supporting and amplifying element for offline activities, including workshops and skill-building programs, by documenting, promoting, and legitimising these initiatives to wider audiences. Third, it provides a platform to foreground and promote the empowerment of Indigenous women, making their voices, experiences, and political demands more visible. Rather than replacing in-person engagement, digital media complements it by bridging geographical and infrastructural gaps while sustaining collective learning. This chapter thus argues that Bali Sruti’s activism reflects a form of digital feminist praxis grounded in solidarity, where empowerment emerges through the interplay between online and offline spaces, and through women’s shared efforts to resist and rework the conditions of gender-based violence in Bali.
  Fahadi, Prasakti Ramadhana University of Melbourne

Abstract

Keywords

• Muslim marriage
• Philippines
• Thailand
• boys' love (BL)
• communities of practice
• digital feminism
• dual-income
• empowerment
• gender justice
• mainsteamring
• marginalised women
• performativity
• polymedia
• queer religiosity
• social media
• solidarity
• spousal roles
• women empowerment