Acknowledgments

There is no one I could possibly thank more than my wife and partner Bethany Monea, who listened to me talk about this book incessantly, gave feedback on multiple drafts, and encouraged me to keep going even when I felt like procrastinating. Without her, this book would certainly not exist. I’d also like to thank my family for providing me with the love, support, and distraction of life outside academia that made writing a book like this possible, including Paul Monea, Christian Monea, Heidi Bradshaw, Ben Bradshaw, Brooke Monea, Blake Monea, Bubba Douglas, Paul Monea (Sr.), Michele Reber, Robb Reber, Sean Reber, Brandon Reber, Ben Rudick, Sarah Fink, and Jim Rudick. I’d like to particularly thank Cindi Rudick who helped keep me grounded and gave me the confidence to keep going, even when I doubted my ability to complete this project.

This project would have long ago stalled out were it not for Benjamin Peters, whose sage advice and selfless willingness to help me shape the initial ideas and structure the book proposal made this book possible. He is a continued inspiration for me and the regulative ideal that I try to meet as a scholar. I cannot thank him enough. I’d also like to thank David Weinberger for going through countless iterations of the proposal with me until I had finally figured out exactly what I was writing and how to (with any luck) make it interesting and accessible to broader audiences. Gita Manaktala has been all that I could ask for in an editor: open, kind, supportive, and encouraging. All of this was greatly appreciated as a scholar working on my first manuscript who had very little idea of how things worked going into this process. Lastly, from MIT, I’d like to thank my wonderful reviewers, who hopefully will read this, as it’s my only chance to tell them how generous, insightful, and inspiring their feedback was on my manuscript. They helped to make this book better and to make me a better writer.

I’d like to thank George Mason University, including the College for Humanities and Social Sciences, the English Department, and the Cultural Studies Program for giving me the time and freedom to pursue this book project. I cannot imagine a better environment in which to write my first book. Deb Shutika and Denise Albanese selflessly protected my time as a junior faculty member and made sure I had time to complete this project. Paul Smith, Jessica Scarlata, and Hatim El-Hibri have all been close confidants throughout the process and provided invaluable insight into the project and the publication process. I’d also like to thank my PhD seminar students for agreeing to read and give me illuminating feedback on the manuscript, including Muna Al Taweel, Angela Barajas, Terilee Edwards-Hewitt, Jason Grant, Travis Lamken, Luma Mousa, Kylie Musolf, Mark Peterson, Maillim Santiago, Ian Sinnett, Srishti Sood, Pavithra Suresh, Chelsea Triggs, Mariah Wakefield, and Wenzhu Xu. Kylie Musolf’s detailed feedback in particular helped shape my revision plan for the book.

I’d also like to thank my friends and colleagues who listened to me talk about the book, attended my presentations, and helped me work out some of the ideas that initiated the project, including Charlie Strong, Scott Sundvall, Josh Coleman, Chris Drain, Jessa Lingel, Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Ken Pinion, David Parisi, Mel Gregg, Sarah Sharma, Jeremy Packer, Kyle Stein, and Hollis Griffin. Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank the journalists and community activists who tirelessly archived and wrote stories about the censorship of LGBTQIA+ content online. Violet Blue’s and Samantha Cole’s work were both invaluable for me, and I cannot thank them enough for it.