Allies or at-risk subjects? Sexual minority women and the "problem" of HIV in Lesbians on the Loose

Sexual minority women are largely invisible in Australian HIV discourses, where their sexual identities are erased under heterosexist exposure categories. The dominance of these risk categories means there is no way of knowing how many sexual minority women are living with HIV in Australia. In this article, I draw on Carol Bacchi’s “What is the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) methodological approach to explore how sexual minority women are (not) spoken to as particular kinds of subjects in 2014–2017 editions of Australia’s largest LGBTQ women’s magazine, Lesbians on the Loose. Through an analysis of both their explicit representation in the magazine and the silencing of their identities, practices, and desires, I suggest that sexual minority women emerge, first, as allies to sexual minority men and people living with HIV and, second, as “at-risk” of contracting HIV themselves.