Publications

Chapters in Edited Books

Bikowski, Kyle. 2025. “Más Allá de La Diversidad y La Representación: Cuatro Recomendaciones Para Crear Una Inclusión Queer Significativa En Los Videojuegos.” In El Juego Como Transformador Social, edited by Mauricio Rangel Jiménez, Blanca Estela López Pérez, and Edgar Meritano Corrales, 145–76. Mexico City, Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.

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Drawing on ethnographic research with Gaymers, this chapter argues that representation alone does not create meaningful queer inclusion in videogames. It identifies four ways developers can move beyond token representation toward more equitable inclusion of queer players and characters.

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Peer-Reviewed Articles

Bikowski, Kyle. 2023. “‘There’s Power in That Y’: How Gaymers Manage Imbricated Stigma through an Equipollent Identity.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 10 (1): 25–47. https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.10.1.0025.

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Drawing on ethnographic research with Gaymers in Houston, this article develops the concept of “equipollent identity” to explain how people manage multiple stigmatized identities that are equally constitutive of the self. It shifts attention from the existence of multiple stigmas to how those stigmas interact in the formation of identity and community.

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Bikowski, Kyle. 2021. “Holy Problematics Fabman!: How Current Representations Create a Missed Opportunity for Superhero Comics to Aid in Gay Youth Identity Development.” Journal of Gender Studies 30 (3): 282–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2020.1838889.

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This article examines whether increasing queer authorship is sufficient to produce positive representations of gay superheroes. Through analyses of Iceman, Wiccan and Hulkling, and The Pride, it argues that representation alone cannot overcome heteronormativity, homonormativity, and gay hegemony in superhero comics.