After reconsidering my initial choice, I decided to go with Medium’s online magazine “Unruly Bodies,” created and edited by Roxanne Gay for my course work for MALS 72200 Contemporary Feminist Thought. In it, different authors post stories regarding sex, gender, and issues related to the body, its representations and performance.
In general terms, the conditions on which the users interact is by becoming a member, which gives full access to the platform, and to all the stories that are published weekly. However, right now the magazine is closed to public submissions, and its contributors are 25 writers that verse on different perspectives regarding the body from a physical, psychological and cultural points of view, and how it is presented on the media.
I believe this is a good example of a safe space due to the regulations that thus far the website has regarding user interaction and publications: as it is closed, it “shelters” both authors and users from online trolls, bots, and any other hate speech that might compromise the website and people behind it.
As it is a magazine that is primarily directed to a non cis-gender, heteronormative white audience, it opens the question and possibility of debate regarding race, sexuality and gender from multiple voices and bodies (black, trans, gay, Asian, disabled, and so on). Therefore, it also opens and broadens the spectrum in terms of inclusivity and intersectionality within an online space.
