makotoe / ces257-notes

Genderbread

• Four elements to the genderbread person:
  • Gender identity
    • How you experience and define your gender internally
    • Gender may be defined by social roles, attitudes, disposition, and personality traits
  • Gender expression
    • How you present your gender
    • Fashion, demeanor, hobbies, etc.
    • Is usually fluid - can fluctuate day by day and hour by hour
  • Anatomical sex
    • The physical traits, also known as sex characteristics, and the sex assigned at birth
    • Intersex - Having sex characteristics that are both male and female. For example, someone can have an external appearance of one sex and have the reproductive system of another sex.
  • Attraction
    • How people are drawn to others sexually, romantically, and in other ways
    • Alfred Kinsey found the people do not have attraction based on binary gender identities but on a seven point scale
• These gender concepts are not interconnected, as someone can have a different gender identity than expression. But they are interrelated culturally.
• Gender can be expressed with a spectrum
  • Gender identity

  <------------------------->
  Woman    Genderqueer    Man
  

  • Gender expression

  <---------------------------------->
  Feminine    Androgynous    Masculine
  

  • Anatomical sex

  <------------------------>
  Female    Intersex    Male
  

  • Attraction

  <----------------->
  Men    All    Women
  

• A spectrum improves upon the binary selection
• Not all people can identity within a spectrum system
• A "-ness" model of visualizing gender
  • Gender identity

  ∅ ----------->
  Woman-ness
  ∅ ----------->
  Man-ness
  

  • Gender expression

  ∅ ----------->
  Femininity
  ∅ ----------->
  Masculinity
  

  • Anatomical sex

  ∅ ----------->
  Female-ness
  ∅ ----------->
  Male-ness
  

  • Sexual attraction

  ∅ ----------->
  Woman a/o feminine a/o female people
  ∅ ----------->
  Men a/o masculine a/o male people
  

  • Romantic attraction

  ∅ ----------->
  Woman a/o feminine a/o female people
  ∅ ----------->
  Men a/o masculine a/o male people
  

• A "-ness" model allows identity in an amount of multiple values
  • The spectrum model doesn't allow someone to choose both of two sides, or none of both sides
  • The "-ness" model allows combining multiple traits

The Charmed Circle

• The Charmed Circle is a diagram by Gayle Rubin illustrating how Western cultures dictate what are good sexual practices and what are bad sexual practices
  • Inner elements inside the charmed circle describe good sexual acts and the outside circle include bad sexual acts
  • Good sex practices include: Married, heterosexual, bodies only, no pornography
  • Bad sex practices include: In sin, homosexual, with manufactured objects, pornography
• The sex herarchy contains a scale of best to worst in terms of acceptability and labels sexual acts on this scale
• Highlights the tendency of society to sort sexual acts into good and bad categories
  • No other areas of daily life are scrutinized as much as sex
• The good practices are legitimized and considered natural while bad practices are disparaged
• When society tries to draw a line between good and bad sex, minority and majority groups clash on this judgement

Normal

• The word "normal" a label that is applied to someone that is typical, ordinary, or unremarkable; the word also carries connotations of violence, target, control, correction, confinement, and elimination.
• Science and technologies further developed on the idea of normalization through medical and psychiatric definitions and juditial records
  • Powers that enforce what is normal became active and pervasive
  • Those that are not normal were discriminated
• Freak shows exhibited the "abnormal" and reassured people of what is normal
• "Unsightly beggar laws" defined normal citizens and those who were not
• Disabled people and other groups deemed not normal were killed in Nazi Germany
• Gloria Anzaldúa studied the culture of normalization
• Homonormativity
  • Including same-sex relationships into "normal"
  • Some percieved homonormativity as discrimination against those who are not cisgender
  • In contemporary times, neoliberal capitalism embraces the abnormal and puts a price on it
  • It is a form of normalization which denies those who are not rich

Heterosexual questionnaire

• 17 questions addressed toward heterosexual people that relate to everyday life, sex, and norms
• Describes the absurdity of questioning and criticizing gay cultures or just simple everyday life by asking similar questions but with the word "homosexual" replaced with "heterosexual"
• Highlights the existance of heterosexual privilege

Bisexuals, Passing, and Straight Privilege

• For the author who is bisexual, appearing straight lets them blend into society, but when their sexual orientation is revealed, their straight privileges are taken away
• Bisexuality is rarely presented in media
• The author's bisexuality is often questioned and dismissed
• Bisexual people may have a hard time fitting into the gay community
• Bisexuality can be a privilege as one could live like a straight person, but other privileges are taken away

130+ Examples Of Cis Privilege

• A social hierarchy formed out of differences creates privileges for some and disadvantages for the others
• Cisgender people have privileges that transgender people do not
• The hierarchy does not just exist at the individual level, but it also exists at the cultural, social, and political levels
• Individual attitudes and behaviors can either uphold or challenge systems of oppression
• An ally should acknowledge the social heirarchy and have compassion as a result
• Privilege is not one-dimensional: A person can have different privileges based on race, sexual orientation, gender, etc.
• Intersectionality
  • Experiences of power and privilege are impacted by different aspects of our identities and how they intersect with one another
  • Feminism without intersectionality leads to an erasure of identities
• Large-scale injustice can make people with privilege feel bad
  • Privilege is an opportunity to build compassion and understanding, and to be empowered to make a difference
• Cis privileges
  • Less likely to be bullied
  • Less likely to face harassment for using the bathroom that aligns with your gender
  • Less likely to be barred from attending gender-specific events
  • Less likely to drop out of school
  • Less likely to be misgendered
  • Less likely to face discrimination in the workplace
  • Less likely for your gender to be outed
  • Less likely to receive intrusive questions about your body or gender
  • Don't need to worry about passing
  • Have higher paying positions
  • Less likely to experience homelessness or poverty
  • Athletes are less likely to be barred from competing on the basis of gender identity
  • More likely to be elected to office
  • Represented in the US Census and legal forms
  • Less likely to need life-saving surgeries that can leave you financially vulnerable
  • Less likely to be murdered, attacked, or assaulted
  • Don't need to be mindful of how you act
  • Less likely to be questioned when using a public restroom
  • Can show for clothing without fear of being harassed or ridiculed
  • Can expect your family to not disown you
  • Less likely to have gender dysphoria
  • Less likely to be a target of violence, hate crime, and police brutality

Capitalism and Gay Identity

• Argues that gay men and lesbians have not always existed historically, and that their emergence is associated with the development of capitalism
• In the seventeenth-century colonists, a family was an interdependent unit of production
  • The survival of each member depended on the cooperation of all
  • Men and women needed to produce offspring for the survival of the family
  • Records of homosexual attraction at the time exist
• As wage labor became more common, men and women were drawn out of the self-sufficient household economy and worked as individuals
• In the 1920s, a family became a unit that produced not goods but emotional satisfaction
• Birthrate declined, and sexuality became a means for pleasure
• In the 1850s to the 1900s, gay men and lesbians established communities
• Gay men have been more visible then lesbians due to the public male sphere and te private female sphere
• While men could financially support themselves, women had to rely on a relationship with men to survive
• During WWII, men and women were employeed in gender-segregated institutions
  • Young men and women could meet others of their own gender and explore their sexualities
  • Gay bars were established
• Right-wing leaders during the McCarthy era and Eisenhower administration purged gay people from federal employment, and a witch hunt on gay people began
• The Stonewall Riots of 1969 ignited the gay liberation movement
  • 1970s saw significant civil rights achivements by the gay liberation movement
• Capitalism has a two-fold effect on society's perspective on family
  • Capitalism has undermined the material basis of the nuclear family with free labor
    • Individuals could be self-supportive and have relationships of their own accord
  • People view the family as the source of love, affection, and emotional security
    • Each generation comes from heterosexual parents who teach heterosexual models of relationships
• Capitalism influenced the population so that there are more gay men and lesbians than in the past
• To act against homophobia generated by families, we need programs that will dissove the boundaries of the family with daycare centers and neighborhood institutions so that groups of families work and socialize together

Sin, Crime, Illness, Identity

• Homosexuality was seen as a sin during 17th and 18th centuries
  • Homosexuality was contrary to natural law
  • The bible was interpreted to argue that homosexuality is a sin
  • Homosexuality does not enter English translations of the bible until 1946
• Sodomy laws
  • Sodomy: Oral or anal intercorse
  • Considered an act of treason
  • Sodomy laws were repealed in states beginning in the 1970s
  • Bowers v. Hardwick: Upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law
  • Lawrerance v. Texas (2003): Overturned Bowers v. Hardwick and ruled that criminal publishment for sodomy is unconstitutional
• Homosexuality as a crime
  • Cross-dressing laws: Prevented dressing in attire that does not match assigned sex at birth
  • Same-sex dancing or public display of homosexuality was illegal
  • Regulation of gay bars
  • Hays code: Literature containing homosexuality banned as "obscene"
  • Gay people were not allowed to work in the government (Executive Order 10450)
  • Immigration bans on gay people
• Homosexuality as an illness
  • Late 1800s, taxonomy and scientific thought begin to challenge religious influences
  • Sexologists study homosexuals
  • What makes queers "tic"? Physical features, character, environment, etc.
  • Homosexuality is regarded as a mental disorder until 1973

Before Stonewall

1. What sparks the evolution of gay culture (and a gay underground) in the US in the 1920s?

A gay underground was established in San Fransisco, New Orleans, Harlem, and Greenwich Village. In the era of speakeasies, people met others of their kind in bars. Parties happened under the radar.

3. How does WW2 serve as a way for gays and lesbians to find each other?

Men and women serving in segregated companies could explore their feelings away from home and their families. Everyone was needed in the military, regardless of race or sexuality. Women who served had financial independence for the first time in American history and did not have to depend on a husband.

3. Why are gays persecuted in the 1950s? What is going on politically and socially?

The lavender scare during the 1950s was a time when the American government was investigating and persecuting homosexual people in the belief that they were a threat to the country. During this period, Eisenhower's Executive Order 10450 barred gay people from federal employment. As the war was over, women were expected to marry men.

The Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis, formed in the 1950s, were gay rights and lesbian rights organizations, respectively. They started an early uprising against the government witch-hunting.

4. Why do you think gay bars have been a building block of the LGBTQ community

The secretive nature of speakeasies during Prohibition meant that people could meet without (or almost without) fear of arrest. This tradition lived on after Prohibition.

5. This film is old… true. But what did you think of hearing direct voices and testimonies of elders within the LGBTQ community?

They seemed to have experienced both fear and joy in their lives. They lived through times of oppression and persecution. But by supporting each other in the community, they found moments of joy and comfort, and they showed this through the smiles. To take this away because of sexuality is, what I think, an unspeakable act.

Historical Considerations: Before Stonewall

• Romantic friendships/Boston marriages
  • 1880s-1920s
  • A couple formed between two women which society saw as cohabitation
  • Women were not seen as sexual beings
  • Gender roles were challenged
  • Rise of feminism
  • Women wanted to work
• Roaring 20s
  • Gay subcultures formed
  • Post WW1 economy, Prohibition
  • Flapper: tomboy look with short hair, fringed skirts, illegal drinking and smoking, provocative dancing at clubs
• Harlem Renaissance
  • Cultural revival of black subcultures
  • The white community went to black businesses and black people were only allowed to entertain and not be patrons
  • Many famous black figures came out
• WWII
  • Gay men in war could meet each other
  • Masculity was tolerated for women in service
• Nazi Germany
  • Pink triangle represented gay men, black triangle represented lesbians
  • Homosexuals were sent to consentration camps
  • Gay prisoners after camp libration were put in jail
• Homosexual people were not allowed to serve
  • Don't Ask, Don't Tell allows gay people to serve if they do not reveal their sexuality
  • DADT repealed in 2011
• After the war, traditional women's roles were enforced
• McCarthyism during 1950s
  • Communist witch-hunting
  • Gay bars were raided
  • Executive Order 10450: Homosexuals barred from federal jobs
  • Gay organizations such as the Mattachine Society formed to raise awareness of the homophile movement
• Kinsey scale
  • Alfred Kinsey interviewed thousands of men and women to study sexuality
  • Very few people are 100% heterosexual in his 7-point scale
• Lesbian pulp fiction
  • Functioned as guidebooks on how to be lesbian
  • Female authors used pseudonyms
• Gay physique magazines
  • Softcore gay porn
  • Classified as "art" to work around censorship
• Second sexual revolution in the 1960s
  • Began challenging the idea that homosexuals are a problem
  • Civil rights movement, feminism movement, anti-war, hippies

How the Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement

• Stonewall riots occurred on June 28, 1969
• A riot occurred at Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City
• Sparked the gay librartion movement
• In the 1960s, sodomy was illegal in 49 states
  • Members of the gay community were often subject to violence, harassment, and discrimination
• Gay bars, such as the Stonewall Inn, were a refuge from the violence
  • Stonewall Inn was owned by the mafia
  • Police raids happened at Stonewall Inn, charging people with solicitation of homosexual relations, and not wearing non-gender appropriate clothing
• On June 28, nine police officers entered Stonewall Inn
  • A riot ensued and the officers barricaded themselves inside the building
  • While police reinforcement evacuated the police officers inside, the mob grew into the thousands
  • Riots continued until July 1
• Gay Liberation Front
  • First group to publicly advocate for equal gay rights
  • On June 28, 1970, the first gay pride parade was organized

Did Marsha P. Johnson Start the 1969 Stonewall Riots?

• Customers had to act "unsuspicious" in the bar to potential police presence
• Discriminiation existed within the queer community
  • White gay men looked down on people of color
  • Gay men looked down on transgender people
• Marsha P. Johnson, a transgender woman, and Sylvia Rivera were activists
• During the night of the riots, Johnson threw a shot glass which shattered a mirror
  • This incited people to start breaking windows and fueled the outrage
  • Marsha P. Johnson is said to have started the riots and the ensuing gay libration movement
• Johnson's body was found in the Hudson River on 1992
  • The police said she died by drowning but others were skeptical
  • Investigators reclassified the cause of death to undetermined
• Stonewall Inn became a national landmark on 2016

After Stonewall

1. How did homosexuality get removed from the DSM?

At a panel called Psychiatry, Friend or Foe to Homosexuals?, a psychiatrist spoke against the idea that homosexuality is an illness under anonymity. In 1974, the APA board voted to declassify homosexuality as a disorder.

2. What were some of the main themes discussed about what gay liberation looked like in the 1970s?

In the 1970s, the first openly gay politicians were being elected to office, like Elaine Noble and Harvey Milk. Homophobic laws were being challenged by activists. The anti-war movement and hippie culture was intertwined with queer culture and activism.

3. What were some of the main themes discussed by lesbian politics and Michigan’s womyn’s festivals?

They talked about white lesbians and lesbians of color, of literature as a way of communication, and the inclusion of many other groups and cultures such as vegetarianism, people with disablities, and the alcohol addicts.

4. Who was Harvey Milk? Anita Bryant and the Briggs initiative?

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person elected to office in California. He was assasinated shortly after election. Anita Bryant ran the anti-gay Save Our Children campaign in Florida. It led to the Briggs Initiative which aimed to ban gay people from becoming teatures in Florida. Milk was a opponent of the initiative.

5. Who was ACT UP and Queer Nation?

ACT UP is an organization which advocates for public awareness of AIDS, for better treatment of people with AIDS, and for AIDS research. Queer Nation is an organization that is fighting homophobia.

Historical Considerations: After Stonewall

• Themes of the 1970s
  • Sex culture of gay men: public sex, cruising
  • Disco, drugs, hanky codes - identifies sexual proclivities
  • Bathhouses
  • Sexual outlaw: Public sex as political demonstration
  • Lesbians: bookstores, music, poetry
  • Lesbians were unwelcome in some feminist circles
    • Radical feminists and lesbian separatists start their own groups
    • Identity politics: Building social movements around singular identity categories
• Late 1970s to 1980s
  • Harvey Milk is elected in 1978 and later killed by Dan White
  • Briggs Initiative: Bans gays and lesbians from working in public schools (failed vote)
  • Increase in religious right
  • Reagan elected in 1980; conservative shift
  • ACT UP
• 1990s
  • Gaining political power and challenging the religious right
  • Don't Ask Don't Tell: Gay people can join military
  • Same sex marriage legalized in Hawaii in 1996
  • Debates on civil unions, domestric partnerships, and marriage
  • Rights in the workplace
  • Queer representation in pop culture
    • Ellen DeGeneres comes out in 1997
  • The word "queer" emerges as a reclaimed word

What is "Queer"?

• "Queer"
  • "Queer" was originally refereed to the strange or abnormal
  • It has been reclaimed as an umbrella term for people outside the heterosexual norm
  • It challenges the LGBT mainstream and norms around gender and sexuality
  • LGBT communities in the 1980s reclaimed the word
    • Queer Nation
  • Older people may have painful memories of the word "queer"
  • Queer can be a noun, an adjective, or a verb
    • To queer something is to resist normal ideals
• Queer umbrella
  • Queer activists view the word "queer" for people outside of the mainstream
  • They question the focus of mainstream LGBT movement because they don't consider everyone inside the queer umbrella who are most marginalized
• Queer theory
  • Queer theory is about breaking down binaries which oversimplify the world
  • Queer theory is about questioning fixed identity categories
  • Queer studies is a discipline that moves beyond gay/lesbian studies to incorporate other sexualities
  • Queer activism celebrates differences and opposes the assimilationist idea that LGBT people are normal
  • Queer activism challenges the commercialization of the gay scene
  • Opposition to identity politics
    • Identity politics: Political agendas based upon specific identities
• Gay rights to queer activism
  • After Stonewall, gay liberationists fought oppresssion in social systems by emphasizing pride over pity and choice over essentialism
  • Presented gay and lesbian people as a minority and aimed to achieve rights within the existing social order
  • Encouraged people to come out and be true to their identity
  • Queer activism emerged due to the AIDS crisis
  • The emphasis shifted to practices, the operations of power, and inclusive and issue-based coalitions rather than identity politics
  • Queer activists pointed out that queers should not be assimilated into heterosexual spaces and that alternative cultures are needed
• Michel Foucault
  • Foucault proposed that sexuality is produced by forms of knowledge rather than truths
  • Society operates like a panopticon, which is a circular prison with a guard tower in the middle that monitors everyone
  • Because people belive they are being judged, people monitor their own actions to be normal
  • Consumer capitalism serves to correct flaws through individual responsibility
  • Power shifted from soverign power of rulers to biopower
    • Biopower is collective control where everyone watches each other
  • Western societies emphasizes bodily discipline and achiving normality
  • The necessity for normality led to the emergence of sexuality as an identity category
  • Other categories are created based on the body: race, gender, mental health, disability, age, etc.
  • Self-monitoring benefits the economy through high levels of productivity and high levels of purchasing
  • It causes alienation to those who are marginalized in any way
• Judith Butler
  • Butler is seen as creating queer theory
  • Black feminists pointed out that being a woman is not the defining feature of identity for them
  • Reinforcing the idea of woman as a unified identity risked cementing inequality and oppression
  • Rights based on identity do not support everyone in the identity group. It excludes the marginalized subgroups.
  • Rights based on identity retain binary assumptions and power relations
  • Heteroseual matrix
    • You have a fixed sex -> Culture builds a stable gender -> Gender determines attraction
    • Butler says that these are not inherently interlinked, unlike the mainstream understanding
  • Gender is performative: Gender is the result of expressions and behaviors
  • There is not "authentic" performance of gender. People are imitating what society thinks is normal for their gender.
• Foucauldian-Butlerian resistance
  • Resistance to gender and sexual constructs
  • Recognize that gender and sexuality are multiple and fluid
  • Question binaries
  • Parody and subversive performances to disconnect links between existing categories like gender and gender expression
• Heteronormativity
  • Cultural assumptions on the normal form of attraction
  • People are assumed to be heterosexual unless proven otherwise
  • Homophobia: Negative set of attitudes toward same-sex relationships
  • Heterosexism: Discrimination in favor of opposite-sex relationships
  • Homophobia and heterosexism originate from the individual
  • From a queer perspective, heteronormativity is reinforced by institutions and policies

Gay vs. Queer

• Lesbian/gay identify and politics
  • Organized around similarities among people in the group
  • Idea that identity is stable and inherent
  • Seeks equal rights and acceptance within the system
  • Identity politics
• Queer identity and politics
  • Emerged in the 1990s
  • Queer is an umbrella term for people outside the cishet norm
  • Lacks a stable definition for identities; sexuality and gender are fluid and not innate
  • Queer rejects binaries
  • Queer draws attention to ways we are not normal to disrupt the idea of normal
  • The current mainstream system is oppressive, binary, and discriminatory, thus rights with heterosexuals do not equal equality and liberation

Dr. Laura, Sit On My Face

• Rocko Bulldagger wants "Dr. Laura" to sit on their face for being ironically right
• Dr. Laura called queers a "biological error"
• Whereas the gay and lesbian alliance is trying to fit into mainstream society, queers need an alternative lifestyle
• Queers are not normal in the popular definition and are proud of it
• The freaky lifestyle and kinky sex, that homosexuals criticize, is liberating
• The things that Dr. Laura says is what fuels queer revolution

Queer Kids of Queer Parents Resist the Marriage Equality Agenda

• The "gay rights" movement is advocating for the right to join the military, the right to marriage, amongst other equal rights
  • Queer activists rejecting the agenda that is supporting military and marriage rights because of its conficts in motive and its collateral effects
• Gavin Newsom presented the image of supporting gay marriage
  • He also has a record of increasing incarceration rates, increased policing, and attacking social welfare efforts
  • A politician with those views would end up hurting the gay marriage movement
• Monogamous partnership is only one structure of a family
  • There are many other family structures, and inclusion of the monogamous parternership ignores the others
  • Queers should not have to assimilate into the traditional family structure
  • Marriage should not have to be registered with the state for it to be recognized
  • Marriage is associated with a privilege that is not in other forms of relationships
  • Certain welfare is only given to married couples and not single moms or extendend families
• Queer history started with the idea of an alternative lifestyle
  • Queer communities should challenge traditional family values and raise children in non-traditional ways
  • Marriage equality tries to put a happy ending to queer history
  • We should not forget about the AIDS crisis
  • Marriage equality appropriates the struggles and achievements of many queer communities
• Marriage equality ignores forces that break families apart
  • Economic forces like incarceration levels and unaffordable costs of living strains the family
  • Even with marriage equality, those economic forces make it impossible for marginalized people to be married
  • Married couples have access to healthcare and leaves others in need of healthcare behind, such as people who are HIV+ and trans individuals who need life-saving care
• The inclusion of gays in the military only seeks for the expansion of the army
  • The US military is not in line with our principles

Leatherdyke Boys and Their Daddies

• Leatherdyke boys are seen as lesbian/dyke masculine females in queer leather and SM communities
  • But the author and others participants identify as transmale
  • Leatherdyke daddies are butch leatherdykes
  • The leatherdyke culture parallels the gay leather culture
  • The boundaries of the definitions of female, lesbian, dyke, queer, leather, and butch are blurred
  • Play parties are their zone that is seperated from the external world
  • Play functions as a form of gender exploration and resistance
• Age-play is a common theme
  • "Boy" and "daddy" bear no relation to legal ages of players
  • Clothing may indicate status as SM bottoms and butches as well as certain interest
• Gayle Rubin said: "There are more ways to be butch" than "there are ways for men to be masculine."
  • Leatherdykes express masculinity in many ways, even more so than males
  • The culture of leatherdyke and what it means to be masculine can conflict between different leatherdyke subcultures
  • This contributes to an anxiety on how to express masculinity
• Leatherdyke boy or daddy play solidifies self-identification
  • Submission and pain is seen as masculine
  • Daddy play can let one explore masculine dominance
  • Exploration of masculine boyhoods and adolescence that were missing from the lives of participants who had female lifestyles growing up
  • Leatherdyke play is a learning tool and a spiritual exercise
• Although daddying can be associated with dominance and punishment, it is also about love, support, nurturance, and guidance
• SM as gender technology
  • Genderplay enables "retooling" or "recoding" of transgender bodies
  • Remapping of sexualized zones
  • The use of dildoes
  • Describing female body parts as those of male bodies
• The definition of male and female is very different from person to person, despite people thinking that they are simple categories
  • Since leatherdyke culture tries to be separate from the dominant culture, women/men cannot be applied the same way to leatherdykes
• Unitariness of sex/gender status is a myth
  • You can have a birth certificate one one gender and a drivers license of a different gender
  • Not all leatherdyke bodys and daddies identify as a single gender
  • A person's gender can be context-specific
  • Gender multiplicity and gender fluidity can be exhibited through creative productions

Black Gay (Raw) Sex

• This essay is written by Bailey who identifies as black, gay, and as a man. He explains that HIV prevention literature lacks understanding of black gay men's culture.
• The CDC released a report that 46 percent of black gay men in certain cities were infected with HIV and 67 of those infected were unaware of their HIV infection
• The common focus of prevention efforts is on condom use, but it has not proven effective in reducing HIV prevalence among black gay men
• As black gay men tend to have a small socialsexual network, black gay men tend to have a higher chance of being infected
• In the national HIV prevention agenda, they try to test and treat high-risk individuals. There are financial barriers to testing and treatment among working-class black men.
  • The ongoing high prevalence of HIV infection among black gay men suggests that prevention efforts are not effective
• "Raw sex" is a term used by black gay men to describe anal intercourse without a condom
  • "Barebacking" is a similar term that black gay men do not use
• Many studies are on barebacking culture and on gift giving/bug chasing
  • As black gay male cultures do not use the term "barebacking" and there is no evidence that black gay men engage in gift giving, the author comments that those studies have only focused on white gay men
• HIV prevention discourses have painted a picture of how gay men are promiscuous and are in need of sexual management so that the heterosexuals do not get infected with HIV
• Raw sex is a sort of political resistance to the safe sex narrative
• Black gay men want sexual autonomy
• The risk of raw sex makes it pleasurable
• Raw sex is a source of intimacy, connection, and self-affirmation that run counter to their exeriences of social disqualification, marginalization, and alienation
• Social factors should be considered in HIV prevention literature and policies
  • The perspectives of black gay men are important to consider

Confronting AIDS

• Sexual liberation in 1970s
• "Patient Zero" was a flight attendant who was gay
• Many gay men in NY and San Fransisco exhibited cancer-like symptoms, in 1981, that were later found to be AIDS
• Initially named "gay-related immunodeficiency" and thought to occur only in homosexual people
  • Media only reported on cases among "innocent people" (not gay people)
• The government set up a national AIDS hotline which was cut by Reagan
• In mid 80s, people were panicking over AIDS
  • Little scientific understanding about HIV, very little social understanding
  • People with AIDS or gay people are discriminated against
• In 1987, Reagan gave his first speech on AIDS, after 21,000 people nationally have died
• ACT UP
  • AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
  • Used direct confrontation to raise awareness of AIDS
• 1990s
  • Deaths pass 100,000
  • Ryan White dies of HIV complications
  • Ryan White CARE Act was a federal grant for treatments
  • AZT, the triple cocktail medication, is introduced in 1996 and the death toll decreases
    • Although very expensive, Brazil cuts prices so that many lives are saved
    • US sues Brazil and pharmaceutical companies for breaking the monopoly and patents
• 2000s
  • HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects black and hispanic community
  • African American and Hispanic women represent less than 1/4 of US women but account for more than 3/4 of AIDS cases
  • Men who have sex with men have the highest cases among other types of relationships
  • Second wave of HIV from younger generations
  • Bush administration promotes abstinence-only sex education
  • In 2020, 1.2 million people live with HIV
  • 14% of those infected with HIV are unaware of status
• HIV drugs
  • Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)
    • For HIV negative people
    • Prevention medication
  • Post-exposeure prophylaxis (PEP)
    • Taken within 72 hours of exposure to reduce risk of infection
  • Antiretroviral therapy (ART)
    • For HIV+ people
    • Limits progression of HIV into AIDS
    • Is a cocktail of 3 drugs

The Sex Markers We Carry

• A lot of daily activities depend on a drivers license
  • The drivers license contains the person's sex marker
  • For transgender individuals, the sex marker may be a source of confusion and embarassment
  • The sex marker can be used as a way to discriminate transgender individuals
• Some government agencies do not define the terms sex and gender for documents
• Gender theorists challenge the ideas that gender is an immutable characteristic or that sex is binary
• Though gender identity and expression are different, they are intertwined through social customs
• The sex marker on a birth certificate is determined soley by the presence of a penis or vagina
  • Sex markers on drivers licenses and passports are based on the genitalia at birth
• Not every parenting couple consists of a mother and a father
  • Hospitals may use the terms "delivering parent" and "second parent"
• Intersex individuals have male and female sex characteristics
  • Medical procedures may be done early in development to "correct" characteristics that do not match their sex
  • When growing up, intersex individuals may feel conflicted with their identity or body
• Though birth certificates are used for many programs, the sex marker is not vital to any objective
• The drivers license and passport depends on the birth certificate
• The REAL ID Act aimed at standardizing drivers licenses uses the term "gender, drivers licenses use the term "sex," and those terms seem to be used interchangably
• Birth certificates and drivers licenses used to contain a race marker
  • Race is subject to perspective of the individual and third-parties
• Sex marker is not helpful in guarding against identity fraud because people can easily present as another gender
  • It is even easier to fake sex identity online
• States used to require sex reassignment surgery or medical treatment as a requirement to change the sex marker
  • The assumption that there is something to "correct" is misleading
  • Not all transgender people are "trapped in the wrong body"
• Adding more sex marker options such as "X" may be supported by non-binary individuals
  • Some feel stigmatized by the idea of a "separate but equal" category and would not help reduce discrimination
• Sex classification has been used for two legitimate reasons
  • Sex-specific policies such as conscription
  • For sex-based affirmative action policies
    • Because the sex marker depends on genitalia at birth and not the current sex, it is not relevant and is an invasion of privacy
• As the racial identity questions on the census has been contested over time, sex classification on the census should be critically assessed
• Other biometric teachniques like fingerprinting may be more useful due to its unchanging and empirical feature
  • Biometric collection is invasive and increases government surveillance
• Removing the sex marker from documents will help reduce sex-identity discrimination

Bathroom Bouncers

• Khadijah Farmer entered the women's restroom and was suspected of being a man
  • The bouncer forced her out of the restroom, even if Farmer offered to show her ID card
  • Farmer often gets funny looks when she enters the restroom due to her masculine presentation
• A 2008 survey showed that 70% of transgender people in Washington D.C. have been denied access, verbally harassed, or physically assaulted in public restrooms
• North Carolina had a bathroom bill, HB2, which mandates that people must use the restroom pertaining to their biological sex as indicated on the birth certificate
• Sexual orientation is commonly mixed with gender expression
  • When people perceive a person's sexual orientation, they are not observing sexual acts but are judging based on appearence
  • Therefore, homophobia may be about policing gender norms than policing same-sex activity
• Race influences transphobia
  • Farmer was accused of being a black man in the women's restroom
  • The experience of a black transgender man is different than that of a white transgender man
  • Society in general is more defensive of black people in restroom than white people
• The first feminists focused on fighting for women's restrooms in addition to the men's restrooms
  • Next, the time inequality became of issue where the women's restrooms have long lines unlike men's restrooms
• Sex-segregation has similarities to racial segregation because of the "equal but seperate" rules
  • Women's restrooms may be less maintained, which mirrors how the colored restrooms were filthy and unmaintained
  • However, while colored people were barred from public accommodation, women and men get equal accommodation
• Segregation is argued to make bathrooms safer
  • If predetors are breaking the law, they would enter the women's restroom without hesitation
• The assimilationist approach of a nondiscrimination policy would not work
  • People are still not prevented from questioning and harassing others
  • Only provides spaces for binary genders
  • A gender-neutral bathroom that is apart from the two men and women's sides stigmatizes transgender identities
• No-gender bathrooms may be the solution
  • Current segregated bathrooms can be converted into no-gender bathrooms
  • Single restrooms for all genders are being built

Checking a Sex Box to Get into College

• Calliope Wong applied to admission for Smith College
  • She is a transgender woman
  • Her application was rejected because the high school transcript had a male sex marker
  • Even after fixing this, her second application was rejected because the FAFSA documentation listed her sex as male
  • What documentation serves to prove that someone is of a particular gender or sex?
• The necessity of a sex marker on college applications is questioned
  • Even for coed colleges, the sex marker is required on the application
  • What definition of sex or gender are they using?
  • What is the relationship between the sex identity information and educational goals of colleges?
• A person who was admitted to a women's college as a woman could transition their sex identity to male
  • Should they be allowed to continue their education at a women's college?
  • A feminist may argue that by transitioning to male, they gain the benefits of patriarchy and cannot claim the identity of being a woman
• Michigan Womyn's Music Festival had a history of excluding transgender women
• Title IX prohibits educational institutions from excluding people on the basis of sex
  • It exempts single-sex colleges founded before 1972 and religious colleges
• Single-sex colleges claim that the single-sex environment fosters education
  • Women's colleges started as a way to fight institutional sexism
  • They have a responsibility to continue fighting sexism by making radical policy changes
  • Simple things like an option on a paycheck to divide the salary between the worker and the spouse ignite changes in thinking
  • Women's colleges can open admission to all genders and retain their feminist mission
• Smith now explicitly includes transgender women for admission
  • Whether or not gender-nonforming people or transgender men with a female sex marker are included in their definition is not clear.
  • None of the men's colleges define men
• There is an argument that girls and boys of grade school have different brains and need single-sex education
  • All-black male schools do not empower black boys but marginalize those who do not conform to masculine standards
  • Some single-sex colleges describe how sexes have different biological makeup
  • It brings to question how they view transitioning or gender-nonconforming individuals
  • The use of "artifical constraints" and statistical sex sterotypes often result in nothing but prejudice
• Colleges should make the sex marker optional on their applications
  • They should acknowledge the temporaral nature of the sex marker
  • They can also ask prospective students how their own sex identity relate to the college's mission to fight sexism

Seeing Sex in the Body

• Caster Semenya was disqualified from the women's 800 meter
  • She is female-identifying and intersex
  • She has hyperandrogenism: has XX chromosomes but elevated androgen levels which makes some body parts appear masculine
  • She went through a visual genitalia test
  • Competitors criticized her track records based on her masculine looks
  • This kind of homophobia may be related to racism, as black women are sterotyped as being more masculine than white women. Serena and Venus Williams have been subject to the same sterotypes.
• As bodies are directly involved in sport, sex identity is closely inspected
  • People are also born with other genetic advantages
  • Sport isn't just about winning; camaraderie, self-discipline, and recreation are part of sport
• The harm created by sex segregation in sports
  • Tyranny of the majority
    • Transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming individuals are signaled out
  • Pushes the sexist idea of sex-based advantage which are not necessarily true
    • Socioeconomical and cultural factors influence women's records and participation
  • Restricts where people belong in social groups
    • Top-level athletes are role-models and people follow these role-models
    • Sends a message that sex identity is visually obvious and stable over time
• How the olympics identifies sex
  • The IOC's first sex-verification policy was a "nude parade" where athletes' genitals were visually examined
  • The nude parade was replaced with a mouth swab to identify the sex chromosomes
  • The current test is on the functional teststerone levels
  • There is no test for being a man
• In the NCAA, a transgender female athlete using testosterone may only compete as female
  • A transgender male athlete who is not using testosterone may compete as male or female
  • A transgender female athlete who is not using hormone treatments may not compete as female
• Those in favor of sex equality argue that sex segregation enables a fair playing field
  • It is reminiscent of the "man in the women's bathroom" panic: masculine female players are accused of harming other female players
• Feminism and sports
  • The 1970s feminist movement focused on assimilation of female athletes into male-only sports. Women's teams were created.
  • Then, feminists fought for making female sports equal to those of men's
  • Little League only accepted boys, until 1992 when state court ruled that federal public accommodations nondiscrimination laws apply to Little League
  • Public accomodations law has been used to assimilate transgender women into female-only organizations
• A policy that is based on birth sex assumes that our assigned sex determined by the genitals is the same our entire life
• The LPGA approach to examining trans female golfer's status on a case-by-case basis is a reactive approach rather than a proactive approach
• Accommodation for female sports
  • Many female sports organizations use different rules and fields than those of male counterparts
  • WNBA uses a smaller basketball than NBA, LPGA uses shorter golf courses
  • It perptuates the idea of female inferiority
  • There has been no effort to recruit significant number of women for NHL, NFL, PGA, or NBA
• What sport really means in the commercial world
  • Sports are sold as a showcase of excellence in talents and gifted abilities
  • Those talents are usually financially dependent
  • More marketable athletes gain popularity
• Administrative bodies should state the purposes for sex-segregation
  • Organizations should be proactive on inclusion rather than reactive
  • At highly competitive levels, physiological features like height, weight, and androgen levels should be considered for sorting purposes
• Sex segregation harms athletes
  • It harms intersex and transgender athletes
  • It harms cisgender athletes who are told that they do not fit into masculine and feminine norms

What's Wrong with Rights?

• Trans equality advocates have pursed reform in: anti-discrimination laws that protect gender identities and hate crime laws
• Discrimination and violence against people of color have persisted despite hate crime laws
  • Systemic racism has not been addressed by the laws
• Anti-discrimination laws are not adequetly enforced
  • Most people who are discrminated against cannot afford legal help
  • The Supreme Court has made it hard to prove discrimination
  • Trans litigants have lost discrmination cases regarding bathrooms at work, because it was not interpreted as a violation of law
• Discrimination laws fail to understand how racism works and fails to effectively address it
  • Discrimination laws categorizes actors of racism into perpetrator and victim, which makes racism seem like individual problems. Systemic racism involves more than just the perpetrator.
  • Racial divide in schools and their conditions and budgets are not understood as violations under discrimination laws
  • Discrimination laws assume that the playing field is fair for everyone when it is inherently unequal
  • Fixing discriminatory policies does not solve systematic racism and transphobia
• Hate crime laws work by punishing the perpetrator
  • The perpetrator is not informed of all laws, so laws will not stop their bias-motivated violence
  • Hate crime laws would not increase the life chances of victims
  • Hate crime laws legitimize the criminal punishment system
  • Would the queer community feel comfortable siding with the police who also colludes with racist, transphobic attacks on citizens?
  • Hate crime laws give an illusion that the criminal punishment system provides safety while it only increases violence
  • Even though hate crime laws aim to punish bad people, it only locks up marginalized communities
  • Hate crime laws add more people to the list that the criminal justice system can lock up
  • Prison reform efforts only succeed in increasing the budgets of prisons
• We need to examine how welfare systems, punishment systems, health care systems, immigration systems, etc. sort people into security or insecurity.
  • We can use legal reform to dismantle capitalist involvement in politics and create alternative methods of meeting human needs and organizing political participation

How to Make Prisons Disappear

• Tan, Juan, and Lal were people arrested by ICE whos lives are vastly different.
  • Shirley Tan
    • Tan was arrested for violating a court order for deportation
    • She is in a lesbian partnership and follows many suburban family values
    • Attends church
    • Their sons go to Catholic school
    • Her testemony painted the picture that contrasted the common idea of an "illegal alien"
  • Juan
    • Juan was in a Greyhound bus when he was arrested for his undocumented status
    • His working-class parents bailed him out of jail
  • Perna Lal
    • Her life was marked by parental abuse due to her queer identity
• Uniting American Familes Act
  • A bill to ammend immigration laws to eliminate discrimination
  • Would allow the permanent partner of a citizen to obtain permanent resident status
  • It forces immigrants to demonstrate many American ideals like a working parent and a stay-at-home parent
  • Though the UAFA would help Tan, it wouldn't be useful for Jan or Lal since they are not in a partnership
• For queer immigrants seeking asylum, they have to prove repression in their home country while hiding their non-normative backgrounds.
  • The idea of family reunification is preferred over labor issues. Many queers leave their families due to an unwelcome family.
  • "Free trade" acts like NAFTA have forced families to immigrate because their home countries' economy has been laid to waste
• The immigration system is highly biased against queer people
  • Victoria Arellano died of complications from AIDS while in the custody of ICE because she was denied medication

A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

• Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi started the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag
  • It was a call to action after the murder of Trayvon Martin
  • Black Lives Matter stands against anti-Black racism
• People started adopting BLM into their own movements like All Lives Matter
  • They did not acknowledge the origins of BLM and the BLM mission
  • They ignore the exploitation of Black people and white supremacy
  • Staight men erased the work of queer Black women
  • BLM struggles with anti-Black racism even within its own community
• What BLM is
  • BLM addresses the extrajudicial killings of Black people by police
  • BLM affirms the lives of Black queer people, including disabled and undocumented folks
  • BLM centers those that have been marginalized by other liberation movements to rebuild the Black liberation movement
  • The phrase Black Lives Matter refers to how Black people are deprived of basic human rights and dignity
• Black lives matter as much as anyone else's
  • When the opression against Black people stops, everyone will benefit as well
  • When Black people get free, everybody gets free
  • BLM stands in solidarity with other oppressed people because their goals are shared
• Adopting BLM
  • If people want to adopt BLM into their own movement, they should credit the lineage of adopted work
  • They should acknowledge the legacy of Black contributions for the struggle for human rights
  • Acknowledge that Black lives matter

The Fat Boi Diaries

• The author takes selfies of themself and posts them online even though the world prefers perfect bodies
  • The author describes themself as fat, dark, has a wide nose, has kinky hair, messy eyebrows, and visible pores
  • The author has a body that is far from what society would call perfect
• The author does not have the body privilege or race privilege granted to others
  • They used share selfies to understand what others thought of them
  • Now they share their selfies to express their true physical identity
  • They want people to see that they are human and that they don't need to explain their existance

Litanies to My Heavenly Brown Body

• By Mark Aguhar
• Ignore others' judgement
• Be yourself; don't conform to others' idea of normal

These Joyful Photos Celebrate Transmasculine People

• Features 15 transmasculine people and their experiences
• Miyagi Superior Scott (He/Him)
  • Differences are illusions, we are more connected than separated
• Brandes Yenchick (He/Him)
  • Masculine most of the time but loves to explore his fluidity
  • "gender identity doesn't describe who I am, my gender expression does"
• Jaxson Marie (He/Him or They/Them)
  • Identifies as demiboy
  • Wants to wear what he wants without his gender being assumed
• Lucas Eliot (He/Him)
  • Identifies as trans male with a female experience
  • "We're just like cisgender people."
• Tashan Lovemore (He/Him/Emperor)
  • Believes being trans in New York grants him privilege because of trans-inclusive services and care
• Lex Horwitz (They/Them)
  • Non-binary transmasculine
  • As society has created gender, society can also dismantle gender
• Landyn Pan (He/They)
  • He is usually assumbed to be cis, and that comes with privileges
  • When people find out he is trans, people ask invasive questions like what his former name was
• Julian Van Horne (He/Him)
  • Identifies as transmasculine who likes to explores his feminine side
  • He has faced many obstacles being trans
  • Wants people to be educated about trans issues and to speak up if someone is being transphobic
• Sir Knight (Sir/He/King)
  • Identifies as a Black Royal Man
  • His two labels, man and Black, are strongly connected and either one cannot exclusively describe him
• Savy Dunlevy (They/Them)
  • Trans-masculine and gender non-conforming
  • Although labels can describe a person, they are more than just the labels
• Chett D’Angelo (He/Him)
  • Trans man
  • When people make transphobic comments about Chett, he knows that they have nothing to do with him
• Devin-Norelle (Ze/Zim/Zis)
  • Androgynous and non-binary
  • Ze wants to break down the misconception that non-binary people must have a certain look
• Marquise Vilsón (He/Him/Marquise)
  • Wants cis people to know that his existence is not a burden or problem
  • Is inspired by marginalized people who persist to exist
• Theo Germaine (They/Them and He/Him)
  • Non-binary, transmasculine, androgynous boy
  • Is tired of being objectified, fetishized, and assulted. Dislikes when people vocalize confusion about their gender identity or pronouns.
• Zach Barack (He/Him)
  • Transmasculine
  • The best way to support trans people is to listen and spread valid information
  • Make sure people are being gendered correctly, don't make jokes out of trans people, and don't dehumanize trans people