toxic worlds

columbia university, 2016-2022.

[toxicseminar]

While looking for more information about some of the National Geographic articles mentioned in the King and Hayward piece, I found this article written by James Owen in 2004, the same year he published "Animals' Sexual Changes Linked to Waste, Chemicals". Embedded within it is much of the queer-phobic rhetoric that Di Chiro discusses. 

-EI

#gayanimals #natgeostirring #toxicworlds 

[toxicseminar]

In tandem with this article, the discussion of the change in onset of sexual maturation for girls in the US made me think back to this article written about my middle school. Though I experienced and witnessed this, the older I get the more angles I can see this issue at. In the case of my middle school, I thought that the Di Chiro piece helped me see a link between disproportionate exposure to endocrine disruptors can play into the sexualization of black and brown girls at a younger age than white girls. 

-EI

#toxicleggings #disproportionateexposures #toxicworlds

[toxicseminar]

 “I don’t think that being intersex or being trans is a problem, any more than being just male or just female is a birth defect. But when we start having babies who are developing in one direction and switch them chemically to develop differently, it shows that chemicals are powerful and are affecting us at levels many of us are exposed to on a daily basis” (Di Chiro 220)

Image: Sculpture by Yu Jinyoung from her series 'the LIFE'. (2018)

-EI

#toxicworlds #yujinyoung #toxicseminar

[toxicseminar]

Male bass with female eggs — intersex fish — have spread beyond the Potomac to three more river systems

First discovered in the Potomac in 2003, male bass with female eggs has spread to three river systems

[toxicseminar]

According to the European Environment Agency "Adaptation means anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimize the damage they can cause, or taking advantage of opportunities that may arise. Examples of adaptation measures include large-scale infrastructure changes, such as building defenses to protect against sea-level rise, as well behavioral shifts, such as individuals reducing their food waste. In essence, adaptation can be understood as the process of adjusting to the current and future effects of climate change."

[toxicseminar]

source: art inspired by Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy

quote: “Neither utopic or dystopic, toxic sex opens the realization that bodies are lively and rejoinders to environments and changing ecosystems, even when those same engines of change provide exposure to carcinogens, neurotoxins, asthmagens and mutagens” (King and Hayward 2013).

Ah-King, Malin, and Eva Hayward. "Toxic Sexes: Perverting Pollution and Queering Hormone Disruption." O-zone: A Journal of Object Oriented Studies 1 (2013)

[toxicseminar]

Among the agents culpable of endocrine disruption in ecosystems are: artificially produced hormones (steroids), which have been widely used as contraceptives for the last fifty years (Langston 2010); steroids are found in other treatments such as anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol (hydro-cortisone) used as an active ingredient in organ transplant anti rejection drugs as well as asthma inhalers; estradiol and Premarin are prescribed to medicate menopause symptoms, provide birth control, and other hormonal replacement therapies” (Toxic Sexes, 2) -- CR

[toxicseminar]

something new (& scary )

In addition, the average age of menarche among US girls steadily declined throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and the rates differed markedly among racial and ethnic groups (Polluted Politics? 217) 

I remember starting my menses in elementary school and both my grandmother and mother remarking on how early it was, relative to their own menses start.

--CR

[toxicseminar]

Alaimo on animals & queer desire

Below is an excerpt from Stacy Alaimo’s chapter “Eluding Capture, The Science, Culture, and Pleasure of ‘Queer’ Animals” from her 2016 book exposed: environmental politics & pleasures in posthuman times:

–KF (post 3)

[toxicseminar]

How do EDC’s work?

“The endocrine system is a network of glands in your body that make the hormones that help cells talk to each other. They are responsible for almost every cell, organ, and function in your body,” ie. not ONLY hormones related to sexual development and sex organs. 

(https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/endocrine-system-facts)

Normally, hormones travel from organs to other organs (especially glands, which specifically makes and secretes hormones), binding with receptors that are located on cells. When EDCs enter the body, they can mimic the shape of the hormone and bind to the receptor instead. This can trigger adverse processes to occur. 

(https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2013/674838/)

–KF (post 2)

[toxicseminar]

Body (re)figured as home

“The body can be reclaimed and refigured as home—that desired place of connectedness, family, and well-being—with full realization that the body/home is sometimes the site of exposure to just the opposite: abuse, hunger, polluted water and air” (Di Chiro 2010, 200).

Image: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Home Body Series: Wrapped In Gramps’ Blanket, In GrandmaRuby’s Velour Bottoms, In Gramps’ Pajamas, Covered In Gramps’ Blanket, 2010.

–KF (post 1)

[toxicseminar]

The book pictured above is (CU prof) Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, and it reminded me of the discussion of the body as home/what is home in DiChiro’s piece.

DL

[toxicseminar]

Article from June 28th, 2002 by Raverdyke

“Getting the courage to ask the “politically incorrect question” to Tracy and C. B. as to whether they thought C. B.’s transgender identity might be connected to endocrine disruption, Ray was surprised when they both nodded yes and immediately mentioned Christine Johnson, a transgender author and administrator of the Web site trans-health.com who has published articles on the issue of the link between endocrine disruptors and the increased numbers of trans people (Johnson 2004).” 

DiChiro, Giovanna. “Polluted Politics? Confronting Toxic Discourse, Sex Panic, and Eco-Normativity” in Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona, and Bruce Erickson. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire. Indiana University Press, 2010.

DL

[toxicseminar]

“Shen argues that “toxic pollution creating reproductive disorders affects us all” and that “focusing on the abnormality of intersex frogs rather than on how oppressive political and economic systems such as globalization are creating injustices that affect our self determination and the self determination of all beings, including the frogs!” is a divisive strategy.” 

DiChiro, Giovanna. “Polluted Politics? Confronting Toxic Discourse, Sex Panic, and Eco-Normativity” in Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona, and Bruce Erickson. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire. Indiana University Press, 2010.

DL

[toxicseminar]

Alex Jones' Gay Frogs Rant

Alex Jones’ Gay Frogs Conspiracy, also known as the Gay Bomb Rant, refers to a viral segment of InfoWars in which host Alex Jones claims that water is being poisoned with chemicals that are “making the friggin’ frogs gay.”

This week’s readings also made me think of this - it was seen as a comedic meme from 2016-2018, that Alex Jones, the host of Infowars, was violently angry that there were chemicals in the water turning frogs gay, but the readings this week have highlighted how a slightly different version of this sentiment is held by environmentalists who would never see themselves politically or ideologically aligned with Alex Jones.

[toxicseminar]

These were the auto-fill suggestions when I went to google for more information about endocrine disruptors. I found it interesting to see all of the different things they’re associated with, and the ways that they are more present in my life than I realized before. 

[toxicseminar]

Rich Von Bieberstein/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images “University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas won the women's 500-yard freestyle on Thursday.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/sport/lia-thomas-ncaa-swimming/index.html

“This version of anti-toxics environmentalism, whole professing laudable and progressive goals, mobilizes the knowledge/power politics of normalcy and normativity and reinforces what queer and disability theorists have analyzed as a compulsory social-environmental order based on the dominant regime of what and who are constructed as normal and natural” 

Di Chiro, Giovaana. “Polluted Politics? Confronting Toxic Discourse, Sex Panic, and Econormativity” pg 202