#queer technology

[queermediastudies]

Queering The Map

I just found a web page when I was browsing my social media. I think it has something to do with the content we are discussing, so I want to post it here.

This is a map page for the queer community, called Queering The Map. You can see that the color of this map is pink, which has a lot of black pushpins. Each pushpin is a message that records the story of the landmark. I scan some screens here.

This is a big map around the world.

Here is how Colorado looks like.

These are stories happened in Denver around us. 

These are stories happened in Chengdu, the city I born in and arise.

I have been on this page for a long time, reading the stories of the cities I have been to. I suddenly realized that the map can also be very emotional, although these are the stories of strangers, these make me feel authentic and moving.

[queermediastudies]

What is Trans*H4CK

Trans*H4CK is a company which focus on improving trans-gender, genders non-conforming, agender and non-binary people’s life quality. This company has a website serves as a platform in order to solve the unequal treatment they faced in their daily life including discrimination, lack of good job opportunity, violence, etc. On one hand, they use technology to help those people on their daily life, on the other hand, they rely on their website as a platform to attract more attention on this unfair treatment in society in order to make change on the trans’ living quality.

The website Gender Over Flow they created serves for users as a platform for sharing any information of transgenders and they created software like YO Restrooms, which can help those transgenders find out any gender safe restrooms nearby.

[queermediastudies]

Trans4Hack is a a first-of-its-kind organization creating websites and apps for those who don’t fit into traditional gender norms. It is at the forefront of a movement that brings visibility to an underserved community in technology. They shift the ways trans, gender non conforming, agender and non binary people live by creating technology that economically empowers, improves access to social services, promotes gender safety and community sustainability, while bringing visibility to trans tech innovators and entrepreneurs.

Trans*H4CK tackles these social problems by developing new and useful open source tech products that benefit the trans and gender non conforming communities in the following ways:

    Promote economic advancement and financial sustainability

     Promote attention to or improve services for trans people without homes, that      are sex workers, or that are incarcerated.

     Increase gender safety

     Support the overall wellbeing of the community

 Here are some of their applications:

YO Restrooms: Find the closest gender safe bathrooms using REFUGE Restrooms data. http://yo-restrooms.herokuapp.com/

Transgress: An app that lets people bypass web filters to access sites about transgender issues and only transgender issues. https://www.wired.com/2014/05/how-to-build-a-kinder-web-for-the-transgender-community/

GenderOverFlow: The premier site for sharing questions and answers about everything trans. https://github.com/Trans-H4CK/gender_overflow

[queermediastudies]

Copwatching is an app created by Darren Baptiste in 2014. It is used to help people record police-citizen interactions. Police brutality became a serious social issue in 2014 which was the same as the year when Copwatching was created. Cops killed innocent people and lie to the public. However, the video recorded by bystanders helped showed the truth of the event. The app is created to help people collect evidence. The app aims to quickly send video evidence straight from the witness’s private device and into the public sphere. More and more non-profit organizations encourage citizens to use apps like Copwatching to collect evidence and protect themselves. The apps also became supervision for police to help deter police misbehavior. For Baptiste, he hoped that the apps can make people think about the “what it’s going to take to make the killings stop” and help inspire local citizens to stand up for themselves. The app can be a weapon for citizens when they faced with police brutality.

[queermediastudies]

What is Trans4Hack?

Trans4Hack is a web platform that technically serves transgender people, genders non-conforming, agender and non-binary people. They develop new technologies to solve the social problems facing by the queer group, such as unemployment, low income, homelessness, and discrimination. And their goal is to improve Trans*'s social visibility and help them achieve self-affirmation and self-worth. In addition, the platform features the Open House Summit, the theme of how to solve the social problems of the queer group, and will also open the corresponding courses. The site has an archive where people can view previous summit content and other video material.

Apps developed by Trans*H4CK are YO Restrooms, an app that people can "find the closest gender safe bathrooms using REFUGE Restrooms data"; Who Did I Miss, a "form site that contacts conference organizers to encourage and recommend diverse speakers"; Transgress, "an app that lets people bypass web filters to access sites about transgender issues and only transgender issues"; GenderOverFlow, the "premier site for sharing questions and answers about everything trans" etc.

[queermediastudies]

Trans4Hack

Trans4Hack is a group of trans, gender non conforming, agender and non-binary tech innovators an entrepreneurs who work together to create technology that “economically empowers, improves access to social services, promotes gender safety and community sustanibility” to the trans* community. Their goals are to fight the social problems plaguing the trans community by developing tech products specifically for the trans and gender non conforming communities. Their tech innovations aim to improve economic advancement for trans communities while providing attention to the homeless trans or non-conforming people, sex workers within the community, or members of the community who are incarcetrated. They also hope to increase gender safety and support the wellbeing of the community. Trans4Hack has worked on several apps to help the community such as Transgress which is “an app that lets people bypass web filters to access sites about transgender issues and only transgender issues.” Another app that Trans4Hack developed was YO Restrooms. This app allows users to text YORESTROOMS to find the closest bathrooms that are gender safe. Lastly, Trans4Hack has also created GenderOverFlow. With this website, users can share questions and answers relating to trans. If anyone needs any information on anything trans, this site will help. Overall, Trans4Hack has created and launched dozens of applications. They have employed over 50 attendees to their hackathons where over 600 transgender developers, designers, and coders have attended.

[sarahbushdance]

"Arts in Action" this Saturday, and other news

Photo of Nina Wu by Amal Bisharat

Arts In Action – Sarah & Nina perform in final BAC Residency event this Saturday 4-6pm

As summer is drawing to a close and we make the transitions back into fall, we feel the pitch increase as we slide toward the end of the year. This Saturday is the last of SBDP’s scheduled public events as part of our residency at Berkeley Art Center. If you’re in the Bay Area,…

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[mljuul-blog]

“Face Cages is a dramatization of the abstract violence of the biometric diagram .. These examples illustrate that the abstract, surface calculations biometrics performs on the body are gross, harmful reductions … that is extremely painful to wear.” - Zach Blas (2015)