transnational sexualities

Loreena St. Dennis | UMNTC

[saddunebuggy]

Week 11

According to Joseph Massad, how do US military and political interests in North Africa and the Middle East impact discussions of sexual rights?

I’ll start with a quote from one of Massad’s many footnote rants - “What ... the Gay International seem deliberately to refuse to understand is that opposition to their imposition of sexual identities and epistemologies is based on this violence that they perpetuate on the very subjects they seek to liberate, and not on nativist claims of authenticity and foreignness.”

Massad says that, in imposing Western conceptualizations of sexuality as essential to identity, the Gay International is actually placing limits on sexuality - placing acts into strict categories and forcing people to adhere to the terms of these categories. The Western binary is heterosexual, monosexual and essentialist. LGBTQIA categories that have gained ground in the US are largely extensions of this binary - probably I’d say with the exception of queer and genderqueer as deliberate sociopolitical identities.  The Gay International pressure and presence in North Africa and Muslim communities in the Arab world disproportionately harms rural and poorer people who engage in same sex contact. It does this by forcing their partners (Massad refers to them in the GI’s term “active”) to choose between straight or gay and by imposing a gay identity on them - without a choice. “Gay” as a sociopolitical identity is what the police oppose, not the act of same sex contact. But time and time again Massad shows how the Gay International ignores this and positions the Arab world as anti-gay.

Language is another area of violence Massad talks about. The knowledge produced about “gays” in the Arab world is by Western authors with little to no grasp of Arabic language, culture or religion. Yet these authors cherry pick words to attempt to “translate” - incorrectly most of the time - or interpret as defending their imperialistic, missionary efforts to “liberate the Arab gays.”

[saddunebuggy]

Week 9 - Trans & Transnational

In 2010, US passport laws regarding gender identity were updated. Previously transgender people had to present doctor certification that they had undergone sex reassignment surgery. Since 2010, trans people undergoing clinical gender transition other than SRS may also qualify. But you still need a doctor’s certification. And you still have to check a box that says male or female. What about people without access to a doctor who will certify gender transition? What about people who don’t want to transition clinically? What about people who don’t want to check male or female on their application?

One Colorado resident, Dana Zzyym, sued the US government after having their passport application rejected. Dana, like some 5 million Americans, is intersex, and says it is discriminatory to require everyone to choose either male or female. Australia, New Zealand, and Nepal all have passport laws including a third box for gender. I wonder, what happens when gender non-conforming people utilizing this third option travel to nations without this legal gender recognition? Does it make travel - even layovers between flights - more difficult? If this third category were added to US passport applications and other legal documents, would the doctor certification still be required? Why are trans people made to medically “prove” their gender but cis-gender people are not? (ok that one is obvious - transphobia) Other than being transphobic isn’t it also classist when we think about how many people live in poverty and/or do not have access to doctors that even recognize trans and gender non-conforming identities? What should be the next step here, since the 2010 update seemed to do essentially nothing for gender non-conforming and intersex people?

Sources http://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/kyr/passports_2014.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/passports-third-gender-option-lawsuit-colorado-resident

[saddunebuggy]

I think this video connects to today’s discussion of conceptualizing transgender. The people who represent trans in the mainstream media encompass really just one type of gender presentation and path of transition - but I’m learning that for so many trans and gender non-conforming people, the male/female binary is totally inadequate. It’s a cookie-cutter mold that people are forced into to have their voices heard, or to avoid violence and discrimination, or for any number of reasons. But at the same time, it silences these voices. It puts people in categories that they don’t want to be in in the first place. The idea of passing is a way of rendering invisible the gender identities and subjectivities that challenge the Anglo-European oppressive gender and sex binary. As we’ve been talking more about this, I’ve been coming to terms with my own assumptions about the genders of others. I’ve been learning new ways to break out of these presumptive modes and remind myself that, no I actually don’t know that person’s gender “just by looking” the same way that they don’t know mine. It’s violent to assume otherwise. It strikes me now that I didn’t even really know what it could mean to identify as trans a couple years ago. Thinking back on my education, on my social status and social learning, non-binary gender was never even mentioned at all. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be trans and be brought up with that same silence around gender.. F*ck. 

[mysticstudentcat-blog]

Week 7 (I think) or prompt #8 as it is listed:

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. 

This summer I took a study abroad course entitled “Prostitution and the Sex Trade” and I spent two weeks in Copenhagen, Denmark and one week in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This video is one that we discussed as part of the course but I also thought it would be relevant for this week’s prompt as well. The video is a short trailer for a movie entitled “Paradise Love” where rich, white women from Western countries such as Australia and Germany travel to Africa, in this particular case Kenya, to find “exotic love” or so that is the narrative they give.

              This video also leaves a great deal to discuss in terms of whether or not what these women are doing is soliciting prostitution, whether the men are selling sex (it is suggested in order to take care of their families), and whether or not this interaction is acceptable. I will leave these questions and reflections on the sex industry and sex tourism for week #13 when we discuss these topics.

              More relevant for this week’s prompt is how the white women fetishize the black men in this video. At one point a woman says “Their skin is so foreign and thrilling.” And in the next clip “This is my bed time treat.” Both of these comments sexualize and fetishize the dark skin completion of the men as assign sexual characters per race—in other words racialization of their sexuality. The relationship between these rich, white women who inhabit a completely different world and the black men living in the quote “third world” is one wrought with complex power structures relating to race, post colonialism, and sexuality. As Alok states in the essay Confessions of a Snow Queen: “White fetish is ancestral violence inscribed in our bodies.” The white women are also strongly desired by the black men because of the money (& power) that they represent.

A'�"�a�_“

[saddunebuggy]

Oh gosh this is so icky and so weird to see it advertised so blatantly. I’m doing my research paper on this topic so I figured I should chime in a little. There is this huge global industry of sex/romance/gay tourism that scholars debate about pretty much every aspect from. The thing is that it’s not just based on racialization of sex, but also the sexualization of geography. The places that Western, wealthy women (and men!) are vacationing in - and I won’t even get started on the issue of “my getaway is your home” and the problems with experiencing the “third world” just for novelty - the place they’re in is also highly sexualized. The beach, the heat, the music, and food, the drinks, these are all very disinhibiting you know? Very different from the cold, industrialized, indifferent places where these women actually live. We probably wouldn’t see this happening somewhere like Helsinki. But then again that’s not really the “third world” is it.

Anyway, in a way this is a very third wave feminist thing. Reclaiming female sexual pleasure. Many of these women are older, divorced, separated whatever. They were in what they considered to be loveless and sexless marriages. So they’re using the “local” men - who might not actually be local, lots of poor men and women are motivated to move to these tourist spots for jobs - as an instrument in their sexual reawakening. This is a highly gendered issue. We can’t necessarily write off the oppressions that women have faced for centuries. And we can’t necessarily assume the men are purely victims. Few of them will actually engage in sex with these women. What tends to happen a lot is a performance of a romantic or sensual - sometime sexual - relationship that results in the women voluntarily - or coerced through that whole “white guilt” thing - giving these men money or gifts. The ways these men get money from these women are very strategic, and conversely these women create boundaries for how they give these men money. But also, like how much choice do these men actually have? They’ll get more money if they fuck these women probably, even if it’s not what they actually want to do. They need the money because they have families and their dark skin limits their economic opportunities in the main throng of the tourist sector. It’s a power struggle for, a very intimate and very complicated one.

[carralilly]

“Over half a million people from all over the world, including more than 300,000 in the UK, outraged by the horrendous treatment of these women, signed our petition calling on the state authorities to urgently give them protection and to outlaw the ruling of sexual abuse. India’s Supreme Court has now ruled that the women and their family must be protected from abuses.” -Amnesty International UK

[sirnicholasonewholoveskitti-blog]

WEEK 5 Prompt:

This article is a came up when I was searching India and sexuality, since we are looking at India in sexuality this weeks film and reading. It’s a little off the topic of sexuality, but I thought it was an important article to share, regarding how sexuality is looked at in that part of the world. 

Its sad to think that something so special as one sexuality is being used against people, being used as a control method against women, and even for crimes that they haven’t committed. It’s very sad to me that sexuality can be viewed as something that can be used as punish people and is socially acceptable in India. A very different idea of how we view sexuality in America. People in India must have a very different view of their own sexuality, when they know that this kind of thing is a possibility in their country, I know it would change peoples idea here and my own if that was happening in America. It makes me appreciate our outlook in America a little more. 

[mysticstudentcat-blog]

Week 5 (free write):

           I too find this short article/ photo very disturbing and I think that is certainly is a problem. However; I think we also must be cautious in making sweeping assumptions about another culture. (I do not mean to imply that you were doing this nor do I want to make it seem as though I am attacking you personally in any way. My intent is simply to offer a different point of view and to remind us all, including myself, to always be aware of how our words ought to be as culturally aware as possible.) Contrary to what some in the public have said, I don’t think that because we are not part of a particular culture does not mean that we cannot make a moral judgement of any sort but I do think we ought to be cautious in how we make those judgements and in what we say. For example it is, in my judgement, okay to say that the way in which many women are denied bodily autonomy and the way that any choice is stripped from them in this situation is wrong. However, it is also important to recognize that this does not mean that everyone in their society condones or supports this or that there aren’t those who oppose it and have been working against this practice. The truth is we actually know very little from this short snippet.

Let me make an analogy closer to home. I recently read an article that stated upon U.S. college campuses 1 in 4 women report sexual harassment or sexual assault in some form. Essentially 25% of the female population (the article only focused on women) on college campuses are also subject to incidents were they are denied bodily autonomy and any choice or consent in a sexual encounter. Does this mean that our culture condones this also? Perhaps, and I would say to a large extent yes, but the purpose is also to illustrate that our culture may actually be no better. We also have very severe issues of this nature right here at home. Also, there are many examples here in the U.S. where one could point to instances of “revenge rape” so to say. For example, (and I do realize this is a very binary example) a girlfriend breaks up with her boyfriend and he then feels embarrassed, angry perhaps, betrayed and when he runs into his ex a few weeks later he sexually assaults her out of “anger or revenge.” The sexual assault in this case is about manifesting power over another just as the example from India where a sister may be raped for her “brother’s offences.”

My intent is simply to provoke a lot of questions and to illustrate that often nothing is as black and white as it seems. Is the U.S. really that much more progressive sexuality then India? What reason might there be to write an article such as this? How can we responsible critique this particular instance in India & also being honest and realistic about the nature of things here in the U.S. / West? Just something to reflect upon.

[saddunebuggy]

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.

I considered this question in terms of my own past romantic and sexual relationships. It wasn’t until recently that I reflected on the racialization of my own desires - many of the long term romantic relationships I’ve had have been with people of color whereas most of the short term casual sexual relationships I’ve had have been with white people. The specificity of this racialization has varied - Latino, Filipino-German, and currently Vietnamese. But this is a pattern in my desire that I think I need to reflect on and question.

I guess I have subconsciously romanticized people of color, specifically men of color, while sexualizing white men. That is not to say that I haven’t also had relationships with white men, but I’ve always considered these relationships to be less serious than with men of color. This might go back to the place where I grew up and went to school - mostly white, middle class. I met my first serious boyfriend, a Honduran, in middle school. Our relationship was one that grew out of a years long friendship fostered through riding the same bus to school. I remember constantly standing up for him in interactions with my parents who insisted on calling him Mexican. I can see now how I romanticized and probably fetishized his appearance and his accent. In some ways I think he may have romanticized me - all his relationships before and after when we were together were with white girls.

So now when I look at my current relationship I wonder if it is incidental? The first thing I noticed about my current boyfriend when I met him was not consciously his race but that he was incredibly attractive to me. And I’m sure that at some point, although I don’t explicitly remember, I did that asshole-y white person thing of asking “what type of Asian are you?”

At first he joked about the idea that I had an Asian fetish, which after we talked more seriously about it together we concluded that this probably wasn’t the case. But the other joke, that he’s turned on by being in a taboo relationship with a white women, hasn’t gone away. I can’t say much about his past relationships because I literally don’t know anything about them, but I wonder about where he’s coming from.

He and his family are immigrants from Vietnam. I’ve noticed that in settings with his family there is this hypervisibility of my whiteness. Maybe it just seems hypervisible to me though, because I don’t speak Vietnamese and my boyfriend is not interested in translating everything for me, and am not super familiar with the culture outside of what my boyfriend has presented to me - which is mostly food.

Oh I have an anecdote. Ok, just real quick. This summer me and my boyfriend went to the wedding of his childhood friend. It was very traditional - I borrowed an ao dai, the Vietnamese long dress, from one of his mom’s friends to wear that day. We showed up and he immediately left me with the bride’s family while he went to the groom’s house - as per tradition. I had no idea this was going to happen, but I think my boyfriend knew. He kind of laughed at me when we met up later for the exchange of gifts. Anyway I’ve noticed that he tends to throw me into these situations without warning or explanation - which I think I understand why and I kind of appreciate it. I don’t think that my whiteness should afford me some privilege of having practices explained to me at my will or having everything translated to me by default.

I guess my questions now are whether my relationship history is incidental or based on some kind of semi-conscious racialized desire to experience “difference” or even “other”? If this is true, then how can I reconcile this in my current relationship, which on a conscious level I feel to be very mutually supportive and satisfying in all the ways I could imagine a relationship to be? Is it necessary to problematize a relationship where problems are not necessarily visible? If I were to do that, how would I confront my own racialized desire with my boyfriend?

[saddunebuggy]

This book is a collection of essays gathered by Shamita Das Dasgupta, an Asian Indian scholar and activist. The book is split into four parts. The first part charts where domestic violence happens in South Asian communities. The second part looks at issues - emotional, mental, physical, contextual - that come about when we talk about domestic violence. Part three discusses laws about domestic violence. The final part talks about advocacy against domestic violence in a transnational way. I chose this book mainly because of the final section. To talk about domestic violence in a theoretical or even anecdotal way does not represent or do justice to the entire issue. There is a need to ground these various theories in the lives of people who experience domestic violence in productive ways. How do we change and improve access to services for survivors of domestic violence who may experience barriers based on language, race, citizenship or religion? How do we adapt these services to better suit a growing population of South Asians in the US? How do we reconcile domestic violence and immigration - which places many women in a dependent financial situation to their partners? And finally, how do we connect different movements against the violence between diasporic South Asians and South Asians in India, Pakistan, and other nations (for example, acid violence in Bangladesh)?

[saddunebuggy]

7 Things to Remember If You're a White Person Dating a Person of Color

When you're a white person in an interracial relationship, you can't be a supportive partner without acknowledging white supremacy. Here's how to practice allyship in your relationship.

Relevant!!!

[saddunebuggy]

Define a term: intersectionality

Intersectionality refers to the ways that systems of oppression are linked and cannot be experienced separately from one another. These systems of oppression include racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, albeism, classism, just to name a few. 

This term was first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her writings about employment experiences of, and violence against, women of color - the dual oppression of racism and sexism. It has since been adopted by many feminist scholars as a way to discuss marginality as additive.  I think that intersectionality is irrevocably linked to identity politics. Identity politics refers loosely to the organization of marginalized groups around their shared experiences of marginalization. Feminist scholars have a range of thoughts on identity politics. For example, Wendy Brown refers to them as a “regressive politics” that may be mobilized by some to further oppress marginalized groups. Paula Moya says that while there are legitimate and illegitimate identities, we should try to reclaim identity. 

To bring this discussion back to the ground, I’d like to share a short video that I think illustrates intersectionality and identity politics at work in one person’s experience of oppression. 

Tumblr user petitetimidgay shares her thoughts on being disabled and bisexual: http://petitetimidgay.tumblr.com/post/130816585419/petitetimidgay-on-being-disabled-and-bisexual

Source: http://socialdifference.columbia.edu/files/socialdiff/projects/Article__Mapping_the_Margins_by_Kimblere_Crenshaw.pdf

[saddunebuggy]

Reflecting on “Thinking Sex”

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? 

Sexuality is still highly political, but its placement in political debates has been shifting. One emerging topic I was reminded of is the debate around child and teen sexuality. There were a couple recent high profile cases - in one a 17 year old male was charged for possessing nude photos of himself; in another two teenagers aged 16 were charged with child pornography for mutual sexting - even though it’s totally legal to have sex at 16 in that state. This shows to me that the sexuality of young people is still taboo and laws around it are extremely punitive - even to the point of charging the young people with felony child pornography for having images of their own bodies. What is the purpose of laws like this? To repress young people’s sexualities? I think this is an issue of “drawing the line” in a totally arbitrary place. In an age where girls are menstruating as young as 10-12 years old  I think we need to focus more on sex education and on preventing and helping victims of cross-generational and incestual cases of child pornography and sexual abuse. Because if the Duggar’s incest scandal is any indication - we are not teaching young people anything about the often familial nature of sexual abuse. 

Another difference I thought of was in the realm of kinks. The popularity of 50 Shades of Gray really concerned me. I have been experimenting with BDSM play for a few years now but I’m by no means an expert - just know what I know from my own experiences. But I think that mainstream ideas of what BDSM is or can be are still inaccurate. The most important part of any BDSM play or relationship is ultimately consent. Consent, communication, and care. So this book/film’s idea that consent was something to be manipulated by or taken by the dom was all sorts of effed up to me. Like, don’t teach people that subs are always female and doms are always male. Because it’s not always true. I think some people get involved in it for the purpose of challenging their everyday gender roles. I got into it for the purpose of pushing my gender role past the limit I thought it had. And sometimes partners might take on opposite roles. Anyway my point is that the “normalization” of kink doesn’t mean that it’s being portrayed accurately.

I’m gonna end on one other new standard I’ve noticed. Most of my female friends are straight and single, and a few of them spend a lot of time on dating apps like OK Cupid and Tinder. The new sexual standard I’ve noticed is that men on those apps assume that ALL the women using the apps are sexually available, at ALL times. There’s constant, unwarranted sexual harrassment. Personally I find it kind of gross - I had a Tinder account for literally a day and I deleted it - but my girlfriends say that it’s just a necessary part of getting laid. And that’s what they want to do - get laid. Which I totally respect - like that’s what I want too - but I don’t get why straight women are expected to take the misogynistic crap that comes along with it? Like is it an underlying socially punishing tactic for women who want to be sexually active with multiple partners? I really don’t think it’s OK. If you met a guy in a bar or at a party I bet 99% of the time that his first line would not be “let me slide into dat azz.” It would be “uhhh errr ummm hello.” So that makes me wonder about the emergence of the internet as a violent space for females to be, as a place of anonymous dominance for males. 

[lovethewayyoubi]

the anthem. 

HAPPY BI VISIBILITY DAY!!

[shiracirca-deactivated20140506]

Of all the problems with White Feminism, one of its biggest is that, like other forms of whiteness, white feminism just sees itself as ‘feminism’ without realizing that it’s falling into the old pitfall of viewing whiteness as the default standpoint and point of view. It assumes that white feminism speaks for all womanhood and all people, and that it is the paradigm that will eliminate oppression. White Feminism attacks what it perceives to be misogyny against its own definition of femininity and womanhood, not realizing that it often supports colonization, racism, cultural appropriation, and reinforces white supremacy by discounting and dismissing the experiences and perspectives of women of color.

Why ‘White Feminism’ isn’t effective Feminism (via mscoolcat)

[saddunebuggy]

Happy Bi Visibility Day!

Let’s crush some misconceptions and educate ourselves about the invisible majority!

Bisexuality includes variations such as pansexual, ambisexual, fluid

3.1% of adults identify as bi compared to 2.5% as gay/lesbian

More women identify as bi than as lesbian

Women are more likely to adopt bi identities than relinquish them throughout their life

Famous people you probably thought were gay were actually bi (Freddie Mercury, Eleanor Roosevelt, Walt Whitman) Bisexuals are commonly excluded from gay/lesbian spaces - most commonly the term “gay marriage” excludes bis

Many profiles on dating apps specify “no bis”

Bisexuals are expected to identify as straight in an female/male coupling and gay or lesbian in a female/female or male/male coupling

Bisexuals are expected to prove their bi-ness by having sex with both men and women

Bisexuals are perceived as slutty, as incapable of monogamy, as greedy, as available at all times

Bisexual women are at a 3x higher risk of rape than straight women or lesbian

Bisexual women in relationships with monosexual partners are at a higher risk of domestic abuse

Bisexual women experience mood disorders at higher rates than straight women or lesbians - possibly as a result of stigma 

Common health practices do not address the needs of bi people in HIV/STD prevention and treatment

Bisexuals experience higher rates of suicidal thoughts and actions than gay men or lesbians

Bisexuals earn 10% less than straight men, compared to 3% less for gay men and lesbians

Bisexual women are twice as likely to live in poverty than lesbians

[source] http://sf-hrc.org/sites/sf-hrc.org/files/migrated/FileCenter/Documents/HRC_Publications/Articles/Bisexual_Invisiblity_Impacts_and_Recommendations_March_2011.pdf

[bisexual-community]

DEFINITION OF BISEXUALITY: I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted - romantically and/or sexually - to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree. ~ from “Selected Quotes” by Robyn Ochs

[pickyqueer-blog]

(week three post)

In honor of bisexual awareness week (Sept 20-26) I would like to share and discuss this definition of bisexuality as stated by Robyn Ochs, one of my favorite bi writers/activists. I want to be clear that Robyn is not the first person to understand bisexuality this way, but I really like the way she phrases it. 

Since the 1990s, bisexual people have been advocating for bisexuality to be understood outside of a binary gender system, yet many people still hear the word “bisexual” and think it means that we are attracted to men and women. A lot of confusion and controversy always surrounds bisexuality, and there are claims that bisexuality is inherently transphobic because it denotes attraction to only two genders. This could not be further from the truth. Perhaps there are some transphobic bisexual people out there, but I have not met them. In all my years of participating in bisexual communities online and in person, the vast majority of people use a definition of bisexuality similar to Robyn’s.

Her definition resonates with me because this is the way I understand my bisexuality. This definition acknowledges the way that sexual attraction and orientation can shift over time and place. As we discussed in class last week, sexuality is not a static and unchanging thing, but rather something that can be understood in different ways depending on place, time, culture, religion, and many other factors. Perhaps it has the potential to be a ~transnational~ definition!

to my classmates: are you familiar with this definition of bisexuality? does it surprise you or change the way you think about bisexuality? i am curious~

(sources: http://binetusa.blogspot.com/2014/01/1990-bi-manifesto.html, http://robynochs.com/bisexual/, http://www.bisexualweek.com/why-bisexual/)

[saddunebuggy]

Yay! I’m bi and this definition always made me feel validated, like, “God someone actually gets it”

[saddunebuggy]

'Stonewall' Director Addresses Accusations Of Whitewashing History

Since its trailer was released in August, the gay rights drama "Stonewall" has drawn controversy from critics who say the film "whitewashes" the diverse activists who played key roles in the 1969 riots

This weekend I saw a trailer for an upcoming drama film, “Stonewall,” based on the 1969 riots. I had a few questions about the goal of this film, and the choices made in casting the main characters. Is the film meant to be a kind of re-lived documentary or are the events and characters mainly fictional? What does it say to the trans community to cast a cis-gender black man in the role of a transgender black woman?

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with these questions. Huffington Post took calls from a couple people who were involved in the actual Stonewall riots and interviewed the director and actors of the film. One caller said that as a trans woman of color, she was “not surprised by this bullshit.” She talked about how the media consistently erases and denies the existence of trans women of color. In another video (on the same page as the original link), the director responded to criticism about his casting of Otoja Abit in the role of Marsha P. Johnson by saying that Otoja was just the “right fit” for the role. This really bothered me. Like, a lot.

A little background on Marsha. Her middle name “Pay it no mind” was in response to constant questions about whether she was male or female. She was a co-founder of STAR (a gay and transgender activist group created with Sylvia Rivera) and ACT-UP (an AIDS advocacy group) in New York City. She was found dead in 1992 just after the pride parade, and though authorities noted there was foul play, they ruled her death as a suicide.

So the fact that a blockbuster film failed to cast an actual trans woman of color in the role of lifelong activist Marsha seems kind of screwed up. I want to talk more about trans erasure, and how it can leave us with a warped sense of history that leads people to maintain false beliefs about reality and about gender and sexuality.

[huff post interview] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/roland-emmerich-stonewall-whitewashing_5600757ee4b00310edf83aa9?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

[marsha info] http://www.outhistory.org/exhibits/show/tgi-bios/marsha-p-johnson

[marsha doc] https://vimeo.com/41327842 

[saddunebuggy]

The definition of transnational as the rise of global social movements resonated most with me. I think it’s important to recognize what Grewal and Kaplan called the NGO-ization of feminist movements and their sometimes problematic role in feminism. One example that came to mind is the group FEMEN International. Self-described as a sextremist women’s group, FEMEN was in the news on Sunday when two activists disrupted a Muslim conference in Paris discussing women’s roles. Two women, who both grew up in Muslim families, stormed the stage topless and denounced the conference. They were abruptly dragged off stage by many men and thrown to the ground where it looks like they were kicked.

I have a few questions about this event - and this group. How does sextremism fit into modern feminist dialogues, or does it belong in its own category? How does this organization, in its extreme stance on the oppressive regime of any and all religions and institutions, fit into the ideas of a social movement “from below?” And on another note, how do respectability politics and tone policing play into this group’s labeling of itself as sextremist?   [more info] http://femen.org/gallery/id/388 [alternative source] http://www.indiatimes.com/news/world/who-are-femen-and-why-did-their-topless-protesters-disrupt-a-muslim-conference-in-paris-245205.html