Over 200 different groups participated in Chicago’s pride parade this year. As usual, hundreds of thousands of people showed up to view the event in one way or another. Personally, I went to promote Project Queer and document what I saw. And honestly, what I saw sickened me.
Above is a pie chart that I made using a list of pride parade participants (found here).
The findings were as follows:
CORPORATION/BUSINESS/BANKS: 132
RELIGIOUS: 11
MILITARY/POLICE: 6
HEALTH & EDUCATION: 23
POLITICIANS: 34
LGBTQ GROUPS: 11
BISEXUAL/QUEER GROUPS: 1
QPOC GROUPS: 5
TRANS GROUPS: 1
OTHER: 29
The “other” consists of local sports teams, dance groups, environmental groups, animal rights groups. etc. Draw your own conclusions. I will be writing more about this later.
PUT A RAINBOW ON IT is a playful way to reference and reflect on some of the (mis)uses of the rainbow pride flag. The video aims to connect a few common contradictions in claims made about safe space – from schools to neighborhoods to nations. Made by community educators through a community media making process, PUT A RAINBOW ON IT hopes to deepen dialogue on the question: “what is a queer issue?”
Share the video and learn more in our online companion toolkit.
#putarainbowonit
This week’s gay rights victory was historic, but the transgender community still faces staggering challenges. John Oliver focuses on the “T” in “LGBT."
The Human Agenda contributor Hina Wong-Kalu is the subject of a documentary by Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer entitled, Kumu Hina, which in Hawaiian means “Teacher Hina.” Hina is also a mahu, that is, a transgender person. In Hina’s words, a “mahu” in Hawaiian culture and tradition is a person who “straddles somewhere in the middle of the male and female binary.” The film focuses on Hina’s identity as a mahu, her professional life as a school teacher and an educator of Hawaiian culture and tradition and her relationship with her husband, Hema, In addition to being a teacher, Hina is also an advocate for LGBTQ rights. She was extremely active as an advocate on behalf of the successful effort to bring marriage equality to Hawaii and is an articulate advocate for freedom and equality for all people. She has twice graduated from the University of Hawaii and has been active for many years in a host of community organizations, including the Oahu Island Burial Council, having been a very effective community advocate for ancestral burial issues for several years.
About “The Human Agenda”
THE HUMAN AGENDA is a book about sexual orientation and gender identity, with a special focus on “finding common ground in our shared humanity.” In this book, Wenke records conversations he had with LGBTQI leaders, talking about their lives, goals, and dreams. Wenke’s hope is that by getting a glimpse into these people’s lives, struggles and experiences, readers will be able to empathize with them where formerly there might be less of an opportunity for that. As he says in his interview, Wenke wants to show “that we’re all just human.”
The compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary might have viewed it as just another word, but for people who have spent their lives fighting for the equal treatment of transgender people, it represents much more than that.
Victory for St Catharine's College trans and gender neutral students
St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge has officially ended its long tradition of gendered dress codes for formal events after a trans woman embarked on a campaign to create gender-neutral guidelines for event dress.
25-year-old Charlie Northrop is an officer for the school’s graduate student community who began her transition this year, and as a result had a hard time figuring out how she should present at school functions throughout her transition. St. Catharine’s, often called Catz, had a strict dress code in place describing exactly what men should wear and what women should wear.
When the problem arose, the college dean asked her to reevaluate the dress code to make it more inclusive.
She told GSN: ‘I researched and compiled a list of all college dress codes and found that, although Catz leans towards the stricter side with its dress code, no college has an explicitly gender neutral wording.
'I felt that adding a clause promising not to discriminate based on gender identity or expression was key: I had felt distressed about coming in a dress to formal. I actually spent a month after coming out in all other walks of life wearing a suit to formal.’
Northrop said the process of reevaluating the dress code started last Fall, and took this long to complete, largely due to the complex process of deciding what defines male and female formal dress, and hammering out a rock-solid wording.
The final wording decided on was: 'Members and their guests must be dressed in suitably smart dress. “Smart dress” is defined without reference to considerations of gender identity or expression. This means a suit (or trousers and jacket), a shirt with a collar, a tie, and shoes (not trainers or sandals), or equivalently formal dress.’
The school has wholly embraced Northrop’s recommendations, so now students of any gender can attend events in whatever formalwear they feel best in. Northrop says she has even heard from students at other schools in Cambridge about how they can change their own policies. Amazing!
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