DR ZAHRA STARDUST
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zahra.stardust@qut.edu.au
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Zahra Stardust
Dr Zahra Stardus is an Affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S) from Queensland University of Technology.
Dr Zahra Stardust is a queer femme scholar and artist. With an international research portfolio spanning sex worker activism, LGBTQ+ health, sexual rights and sextech, she brings a cultural and media studies approach to sexual health, rights and justice.
Her research has focused on the relationships between law, policing and social movements, including the trap of respectability politics, the role of movement lawyering, and community dreams for radical futures.
She is the author of Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance (Duke University Press, 2024) and co-author of forthcoming book Sextech: A Critical Introduction (Polity Press, 2026).
Her research has been published in books such as Queer Sex Work, Transgender People Involved with Carceral Systems, Sexual Racism and Social Justice and New Directions in Sexual Violence Scholarship, and journals such as Porn Studies, Big Data and Society, and Social Media and Society. She is on the World Association for Sexual Health’s Sexual Justice Initiative and is a member of the World Health Organisation’s Sexual Health and Wellbeing Advisory Group.
