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Relying on Kantian notions of judgement, Sjöholm explores its relevance and applications in Arendt’s aesthetics. Arendt argues that taste alone cannot be the requisite of judgement. Historically, racism and xenophobia can corrupt taste a pure category, such as the corrupt ideology of the Third Reich. Arendt critiques Kant by arguing that, both, aesthetics operates at the level of appearances and appearances can be corrupted by totalitarian regimes and thought. Perception – which is offered as sedimentation of appearances - informs aesthetics. Narratives solidify a sense of the real community and can similarly pervert perception through ideology. As always, Arendt is historically considering The Third Reich in the background of all theorizing, and Sjöholm is directly engaging with Arendt’s political commitment. Arendt locates the ‘sensus communis’ away from the transcendental logic of Kant, and towards the plurality of the public sphere. Arendt’s ‘sensus communis’ is the solidification of a collective, plural and political body towards a new reality; the integration of plurality of senses through the production of a community

Chapter 7 examines ethnography of formerly gay gospel recording artist and pastor Donnie McClurkin’s sermonizing as a performance of the heteropatriarchal scripts that manage gospel enthusiasts concerns about queer(ed) musicians’ spiritual fitness and protect the social order of church leadership. Since the early 2000s, McClurkin has been regarded as the architect of the deliverance from homosexuality testimony format of communicating queer sexual history in Pentecostal worship. Men’s performance of church realness in historically black Pentecostal churches is the deployment of sung and spoken heteropresentation and gender conformity. The objective of the performance is both to blend in and to assert dominance in gospel music heteropatriarchal forums in a manner that has been socioculturally required of them.

This chapter explores the pervasive narratives of authenticity, self-expression, and realness that structure activity in the social media sphere. After all, many social media producers articulate the importance of expressing themselves “authentically.” Hence, the chapter considers what social media producers mean by “authenticity,” “realness,” and “relatability.” In addition, this chapter examines how these definitions vary within and across intersectional social categories, and to what extent these ideals guide the production and promotion of creative content. Finally, the chapter looks at the ways that aspirational laborers aim to resolve the tension between internal compulsions and external demands, given that the “authenticity” trope is increasingly compliant with the demands of capitalism.

This conclusion argues for broader definitions and understandings of family in the 21st century that better represent and encompass the diversity of our postmodern family forms. This work is valuable not only for its contribution to academic scholarship, but also for its detailed accounts of experiences within trans partnerships and families by and for cis women. Pfeffer argues that because the bonds between and among “biological family” members are often tenuous and contingent, their presumed superiority and “realness” must rightfully be challenged. Indeed, we might consider the ways in which queer partnerships and families of choice may offer new pathways and dynamics for family formation that offer insights that are useful far beyond queer families themselves. In this way, the work of “queering families” is proposed as an ongoing social project whose momentum is fuelled by an ethics of care, solidarity, social justice, and inclusion.