[pickyqueer-blog]

free post: 

[pickyqueer-blog]

free post: Yesterday I attended Dr. Karma Chavez’s talk "Alternative Activism: Latinx Farmworkers and the Rhetoric of HIV/AIDS.” She presented her work to the RIGS hiring committee in hopes of being considered for the cluster hire that will be taking place. Since we have been talking about HIV/AIDS discourse in class I thought I would work through my thoughts on this blog.

This part of her research focuses Latinx farmworkers, a population that has had a high rate of HIV/AIDS infection but has not been studied as extensively as other demographics. In particular she wants to fill a gap in the scholarship of AIDS activism, which has generally tended to focus on ACT UP and other primarily white gay US activist organizations. Latinx farmworker’s have a long history of activism, but their HIV/AIDS related activism has not been documented or studied extensively.

What I found very interesting was the way she wants to question what counts as activism and resistance, and illuminate the ways that Latinx farmworkers have agency through cultural ties, traditions and networks. This is directly opposed to a “cultural deficit” model, a common approach that sees minority culture as a problem that needs to be overcome when treating HIV/AIDS.

One challenge she may face is the inherently migratory nature of farmwork, which can make it difficult to contact interview subjects. This migratory lifestyle can also make if difficult for those with HIV/AIDS to access healthcare or education about the disease. 

I think everyone who attended the talk was very engaged and interested to hear more about her work, and I personally hope she is hired and comes to the U of M to teach and pursue this fascinating research.

[pickyqueer-blog]

Week 13: In “Gay Imperialism”, Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem talk about the integration project of civilizing “homophobic immigrants” (14). What is this project of integration? How does this affect LGBT Muslims, according to the authors?

[pickyqueer-blog]

week 12: open topic

I am going to write about the Doctors Without Borders film that we watched in class on Monday. The film was a mix of facts about HIV and emotional appeals to the viewer. On the plus side, the film did a good job of portraying people with HIV in the Democratic Republic of Congo as actual people instead of subjects to pity. The people in the film did speak for themselves, which is a welcome change from seeing white people portrayed as the only “knowers” and seeing them speak over people of color.

 Folks with HIV were the ones who were telling their experiences, but there were also doctors speaking as authority figures about HIV. One positive thing was that it seems like people in the local communities were being trained to help each other with medical and emotional needs. This promotes inter-community support and problem solving instead of relying on assistance from Westerners and not having the skills to help their own communities.

However, the film does fall back into a cinematographic style of close ups on teary eyes and thin/sick brown bodies laying in hospital beds. These types of images are usually used to evoke pity and get people to donate money or time. By showings HIV and AIDs as firmly located in Africa, it makes the viewer not think about the epidemic occurring where we are, like in the US or Europe.

[sorreleater]

“so she’s gay now?”

yeah she turned it all the paperwork last week and her acceptance letter came this morning, it was all pretty sudden

[robynochs]

😉

[thegaythirtysomething]

Medicine should never have been privatized in the first place. The concept of profiting off of human desperation and the need for life-saving medicine is, philosophically, intrinsically, and morally wrong both as a fundamental concept and in practice. The fact that Martin Shkreli was ever able to buy an AIDS drug and increase its price 5000% is indicative of a problem even bigger than a truly evil, despicable, and selfish human being; it is indicative of the problem of the current system of for-profit pharmaceuticals with obviously inadequate price regulation.

[annoyingfeministbitch]

Contrary to Popular Belief Africa is Not a Monolith

“You don’t look African”

Considering Africa is a continent with 54 different countries and over 3000 different ethnic groups, it really shouldn’t surprise people that there is no one set look for an African. 

Afar people:

San people:

Amazigh people:

Oromo people:

Hausa people:

Masai people:

Edo people:

Wodaabe people:

These are just 8 of the over 3000 ethnic groups in Africa, and you can already see how beautiful and varied the people of Africa are.

THERE IS NO ONE AFRICAN “LOOK”.

[annoyingfeministbitch]

COLORISM EXISTS

Light-skinned black people do not experience the same level of oppression as other DARKER black people.

Darker skinned black people find it harder to make it in hollywood and find opportunities. Representation of the black community does not end at the representation of light-skinned black people. I want to see more dark-skinned black people in the industry. Every time I bring up the lack of representation in hollywood I see people say “what about lupita nyong'o” “what about viola davis” but that isn’t enough. If we are to have true representation we must have representation of black people of every skin type.

Light-skinned women are sentenced to approximately 12 percent less time behind bars than their darker-skinned counterparts. Women with light-skin also served 11 percent less time than darker women. (x)

We cannot combat racism without first acknowledging the degrees and complexities of it. There are levels to racism, some black people have it worse than other black people, and that’s a fact we have to acknowledge and fight to change.

Colorism is a very real issue and needs to be discussed more openly.

Colorism is internalized racism.

[annoyingfeministbitch]

STOP APPROPRIATING CULTURES

[pickyqueer-blog]

week 8(?) prompt: How do racialization and sexuality interact in the communities you inhabit? Draw on the ideas about desire and politics in Vaid-Menon’s essays to talk about this. 

[straightcharacteroftheday]

todays straight character of the day is: nobody

[pickyqueer-blog]

week six prompt: for my essay I will be responding to the first question and writing about transnational feminist methods of studying non-heterosexual practices and gender non conforming life. The book I have chosen is Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times by Jasbir Puar. I’m not going to lie, this book is not from the library...I bought it a while ago and have not read it yet, and I actually think it will be useful for writing this essay. 

Puar examines questions of how citizenship and terrorism are constructed when the state legally recognizes homonormative subjects as acceptable and upholds other racialized and Orientalized queer bodies as non-citizens/terrorists. Her writing is pretty jargony and not always the easiest to understand, but I think this book seems to be making a really interesting contribution to queer scholarship and transnational feminist theory.

back of the book description: “In this pathbreaking work, Jasbir K. Puar argues that configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigning in relation to contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. She examines how liberal politics incorporate certain queer subjects into the fold of the nation-state, through developments including the legal recognition inherent in the overturning of anti-sodomy laws and the proliferation of more mainstream representation. These incorporations have shifted many queers from their construction as figures of death (via the AIDS epidemic) to subjects tied to ideas of life and productivity (gay marriage and reproductive kinship). Puar contends, however, that this tenuous inclusion of some queer subjects depends on the production of populations of Orientalized terrorist bodies. Heteronormative ideologies that the U.S. nation-state has long relied on are now accompanied by homonormative ideologies that replicate narrow racial, class, gender, and national ideals. These “homonationalisms” are deployed to distinguish upright “properly hetero,” and now “properly homo,” U.S. patriots from perversely sexualized and racialized terrorist look-a-likes—especially Sikhs, Muslims, and Arabs—who are cordoned off for detention and deportation.

Puar combines transnational feminist and queer theory, Foucauldian biopolitics, Deleuzian philosophy, and technoscience criticism, and draws from an extraordinary range of sources, including governmental texts, legal decisions, films, television, ethnographic data, queer media, and activist organizing materials and manifestos. Looking at various cultural events and phenomena, she highlights troublesome links between terrorism and sexuality: in feminist and queer responses to the Abu Ghraib photographs, in the triumphal responses to the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision repealing anti-sodomy laws, in the measures Sikh Americans and South Asian diasporic queers take to avoid being profiled as terrorists, and in what Puar argues is a growing Islamophobia within global queer organizing.”

[tiddywrangler420-deactivated201]

destroy the idea that bisexuality is limited to binary genders and/or inherently transphobic

[mioxenoblade]

The concept of “being trans isn’t fun!!” bothers me because it’s a multi-emotional state of being. Yeah, being trans can suck at times and be full of self-loathing, pain and hate; but there are certainly moments of pride and joy attached to it. Plus, how good of an image are you leaving the younger trans kids who have yet to experience joys or relief relevant to being trans? Do you really want them to think it’s endless suffering?

So, yeah, being trans is fun. It’s a complete joy. Don’t let anyone tell ya different. There’s bad times, but the good times are worth getting through it.

[queeranarchism]

I was recently in a meeting with a loooooot of fellow trans people where we talked about all the positive side effects being trans had had on their lives. We found out we couldn’t mention them all in an our. Here’s some - but not close to all of the answers people gave:

Being trans has extended my social circle to include awesome fellow trans people as well as the wider LGBT community

Being trans has cleaned my social circle of a lot of prejudices and unkind individuals who I’m better off without

Being trans has given me a better awareness of my body and what I want with it and that I own it, which is why I had the courage to pursue becoming a tattoo artist

Being trans has given me a better awareness of what I want in life, which helps me in making choices that made my life better in many areas outside my transition

Being trans has helped me to be less judgemental and to meet all the other (non-trans) freaks and weirdos that are so worth knowing. My old self would never have gotten to know someone who smells like pee, I’m glad I did because I would have missed out on an awesome friend.

Being trans has brought me in contact with the love of my life

Being trans has opened my eyes to oppression and turned me into an activist

Being trans gives me access to epic puns

Being trans can help me connect to strangers. Coming out as trans is often perceived as vulnerable (even though I’ve done it 3000 times already), and when I come out the other person often also feels more comfortable sharing vulnerable information

Being trans means I get to organise stuff and get the opportunity to make other trans people feel like they are not alone, which is very rewarding.  

Being trans drove me away from the church, which turned out to be exactly what I needed

Being trans has brought me in contact with asexuals and helped me realise that it was okay to not want sex

Being trans means I was depressed most of my teen years and had no idea if it would ever get better. Now in my twenties, I’m a little bit happy and okay even though I’m unemployed, in debt etc. And because I never expected to even get this, that little bit of happiness actually makes me SUPER HAPPY and drives me to enjoy every minute of being home in my body and my place in the world. 

Being trans has inspired me to make better art

etc etc etc etc etc

[mioxenoblade]

I know I just reblogged this as another set of replies, but I wanted to personally thank queeranarchism for this addition. It’s probably one of the best things I’ve seen anyone say on this post and I’m happy to have read it. It brightened my day.

[pickyqueer-blog]

week four prompt: How do the ideas and the assumptions about sexuality Gayle Rubin talks about in “Thinking Sex” compare to ideas and assumptions about sexuality now, in 2015? What new standards and assumptions about sexuality can you think of? 

First of all, I can only speak of assumptions that I am aware of, and my knowledge is primarily U.S. based, so it is difficult to speak universally about standards of sexuality. With that in mind, I will describe my observations about current sexual standards.

In the the 30 years since Gayle Rubin first published this article there have been shifts in thinking surrounding morality in the U.S. When Gayle Rubin wrote “Thinking Sex” in the mid 80s, she wrote in the context of the feminist sex wars/porn wars and the rise of neo-conservativism in politics and media.  On the one hand, same sex relationships are receiving more acceptance in the mainstream, but on the other hand we are witnessing another conservative turn with talk of defunding Planned Parenthood. The religious right is trying to gain ground as we approach the 2016 presidential election, and there is cause for alarm if folks are really going to rally around Trump or some equally misogynistic candidate.

Some of the sexual practices Rubin placed on the outside of the charmed circle diagram have actually moved inward somewhat and are not necessarily considered immoral any more, such as S&M (and other kinky sex practices), unmarried, and non procreative sex. Many same gender and opposite gender couples do not get married and that is not as stigmatized as it once was. Additionally, with the legalization of marriage equality in this country comes new standards of what is considered appropriate. Now that same gender couples can marry they have, to some extent, joined the charmed circle. To me it seems that anything happening between a monogamous couple is acceptable...but there are some caveats.

Rubin described the stigma that surrounds sex work and cross-generational sex, and I believe that those practices are still not seen as widely acceptable in 2015. Sex work might be more marginally accepted, especially in progressive and sex-positive activist spaces, but in most of this country it is still illegal to exchange sex for money. Cross-generational sex is still extremely highly stigmatized today, and not commonly and issues that any social justice organization is willing to work on. Sex between adults and people under 18 is (for the most part) illegal in the U.S. and discussing legalizing it is so controversial that it is not talked about at all. That type of sex is considered to be such a violation that it is not on the radar of LGBT rights groups, because they do not want to be seen as taking the same side as pedophiles.

I could go on about more similarities and differences, but I will leave it at that. I would be interested to read an updated 2015 version of “Thinking Sex.”

[trajans-deactivated20150201]

Anti-TERF/biological essentialism resources

This list is a work in progress & is always growing. If you have any suggestions of additional links, please submit or add on.

What is a TERF?

You might be a TERF if…

TERFs aren’t really all that radical, anyway

Trans-exclusionary radical feminism: what exactly is it, and why does it hurt?

Ways in which TERFs are similar to other hate groups

Biological essentialism is harmful

It’s Time For People to Stop Using the Social Construct of “Biological Sex” to Defend Their Transmisogyny – Using debunked science as a scapegoat for transmisogyny? Don’t do that.

Sex is not a biological reality

Bilaterally Gynandromorphic Chickens, and Why I’m Not “Scientifically” Male

Intersex society of America: What is intersex?

Common misconceptions

Seven Transphobic Tropes Debunked

Scientific studies/resources

Why Male and Female are Not Enough, by Anne Fausto-Sterling

Medical historian, psychiatrist, and UCLA clinician Vernon Rosario, for example, notes that sex is “a polymorphic and multifactorial model” that must take into account dozens of genes, chromosomes and environmental factors. Even in orthodox biology, it seems, sex is no longer as simple as XX or XY.

The many non-XX-or-XY combinations of chromosomes

Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience

The two-sex system is a historically recent and culturally specific understanding of sex grounded in the Enlightenment.

[faeyr-deactivated20140420]

forms of transphobia you should watch out for in your speech and thought processes

casual cissexism: associating genitalia/body parts with gender, statements like “god i’m such a lesbian i love vaginas” and “guys don’t understand periods at all” or anything that implies people with vaginas and breasts = female and people with penises = male

nonbinary erasure: phrases like “opposite gender”, statements that imply male and female are the only genders

intersex erasure: phrases like “opposite sex”, statements that imply there are only two sexes and that everyone is born with strictly a vagina or penis

assuming gender based on appearance: if you don’t know someone’s gender, don’t assume they are female and don’t refer to them as “she” just because they appear dfab or femme. don’t use gendered terms to refer to someone whose gender you do not know.