gqid:

Genderqueer: Tracing History and Exploring Identities, a GenderqueerId.com Presentation for the Philly Trans-Health Conference!

Hello all,

I’m in the process of building a lecture/presentation workshop for this year’s Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference entitled Genderqueer: Tracing History and Exploring Identities and set for Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 from 8:45 AM - 10:05 AM.  The registration for the entire conference line-up is free! This is intended to be a kind of “crash course” on the history and usage/s of the term and, ideally, a means of engendering respect and understanding. I’ve included a draft description of what I have planned so far below.

While I am in the midst of preparing the content (likely a Powerpoint presentation and an accompanying talk from me), I would love to receive feedback on what you as a participant would most like to see from a workshop like this. Please send along your ideas here if you like (all fields are optional, only fill out what you want to): http://tinyurl.com/gqtracinghistory

Cheers,

~Marilyn

—-Outline—-

Session title: Genderqueer: Tracing History and Exploring Identities

Session description:
This workshop will focus on uncovering genderqueer history and examining the multiple meanings that have been attributed to the term—and associated identities—from its coining in the mid-1990s to the present. Emphases in history will be on precursors such as postmodern feminism and queer theory that enabled the greater articulation of genderqueer identities in the Western world, to a development of a community around the term in the 1990s and 2000s. Identity terms related to the concept of genderqueerness will be defined, with comparisons and contrasts drawn between transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming terminology. The divergent modern use of genderqueer as referring to those with a gender that is “queer” (or outside binary expectations), and, alternatively, as a term with politically radical or performance-centric usage, will be detailed. The workshop is open to all, with a particular aim to present material of interest to those with genderqueer or non-binary identities, those who with to learn more as allies or those in professional fields who work with genderqueer clients.

Goals for Participants:
1. Learn about genderqueer history in several key areas: precursors in postmodern, queer, and feminist theory; its development as a term and community in the mid-1990s through the 2000s; coverage of topically relevant key writers (such as: Riki Anne Wilchins and Kate Bornstein); the place of social media and technology in genderqueer community-building.
2. Learn that the idea of identities outside of the binary has been found in a myriad of identities in cultures around the world from the past and present, referred to by anthropologists as “third gender” identities, and what connections and differences there are with the concept of genderqueerness.
3. Learn the basics of genderqueer terminology: meanings attributed to “genderqueer” as a term, meanings of related, but not synonymous, identities (such as: androgyne, bigender), and the differences and similarities between terms like transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming.

Bio:
Marilyn Roxie is a 22 year-old student in the fields of LGBT Studies and Library Technology and resident of San Francisco. They run Genderqueer Identities (http://genderqueerid.com/), a website dedicated to presenting research and resources pertaining to genderqueer and non-binary gender identities.

gqid:

Is It a Boy or a Girl? Improving Media Coverage Beyond the Binary

Sunday, March 25 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. ET

Join us for a radio-style program on how the media covers non-binary and non-conforming gender and what we can do to make that coverage better.

Hosted by Avory Faucette of QueerFeminism.com and Radically Queer, and featuring guests with expertise in gender-neutral parenting, non-binary identities, and media coverage of transgender issues, we’ll be looking closely at some misunderstandings the media makes and how feminists can take action to educate and improve coverage.  We’ll consider topics including major media coverage of gender-neutral parenting and education in 2011, the media’s refusal to take supermodel Andrej Pejic’s stated identity seriously, and what articles on genderqueer and other identities get right and wrong.  We’ll also be talking about the best way to cover less familiar gender identities, how journalists can describe gender in a way that is less harmful to non-binary or questioning individuals, and how blogs and social media are changing the conversation.

Guests will be:

Arwyn Daemyir, creator of Raising My Boychick;

Marilyn Roxie, creator of Genderqueer Identities and intern at the Center for Sex & Culture;

Gunner Scott, Director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition;

Nat Titman, creator of Practical Androgyny and the Nonbinary.org wiki

To tune in, join us from your computer at 10 am EST on Sunday, March 25.  A live stream of the show will appear when we start.  You’ll be able to ask questions or chat about the show in the chat room on that page or call in with a question using the guest call-in number listed there.  We hope you’ll join the conversation!

This event is part of WAM! It Yourself 2012, a multi-city event by Women, Action & the Media. For more information about events happening all over the world, check here or email Lexi.

A great infographic on Wikipedia from Open Site (click for larger size!). I had written a post about my reignited love for Wikis a couple of months ago and was contacted about this infographic recently. First of all, the effect Wikipedia has had on encyclopedias, research, and dissemination of information in general is astounding. I do still hold, however, that Wikipedia is best used as a “starting point” for research and not an end-point - the citations and external links listed in many articles are essential to explore to dig further. I would also hope that more users of Wikipedia become familiar with evaluation criteria for content on the web. Based on my experience in some college classes which were concerned with web research, many students are learning these concepts for the first time in such environments and much of this is new information to them.

I also would like to see Wikipedia be a complement to a research institution such as a library, rather than an alternative. Much of the printed word is still not available on-line, or is in the “deep web” hidden from the general searcher (journal articles accessible through paid or free-to-patron library databases, for example). It would make sense to think of the Wikipedia growing and growing in the future as an alternative to encyclopedias, or better yet, an expansion upon that format, but as an alternative to content beyond the scope of a concise encyclopedic entry? I hope not.

In my English class, I read Clay Shirky’s article ‘Does the Internet Make You Smarter?’, in which he praises the notion of “cognitive surplus”, the enormous potential of tapping into the vast human networks that have formed on the Internet: “Wikipedia took the idea of peer review and applied it to volunteers on a global scale, becoming the most important English reference work in less than 10 years. Yet the cumulative time devoted to creating Wikipedia, something like 100 million hours of human thought, is expended by Americans every weekend, just watching ads. It only takes a fractional shift in the direction of participation to create remarkable new educational resources.”

The abundance of utilities and ease-of-publishing on the web brings in an influx of amateur content as well but this is not possible without also opening the door to ppen source software such as Wiki platforms allowing for unprecedented intellectual expansion. As rich in content and ever-growing as Wikipedia is today, I think some things about web “culture” will have to change in order for attitudes to shift about Wiki’s purpose and potential, namely integration with other forms of research, understanding of critical evaluation of sources, and for users (especially students and those skeptical about Wikipedia!) to understand how to make quality article edits. The lack of diversity in the Wikipedian editor demographic is frustrating as well, although I think this largely has to do, again, with a culture around what it means to be a participant in the free encyclopedia almost anyone can edit: shouldn’t building a repository of accessible knowledge should matter to all of us?

afutureinnoise:

A Future in Noise is now an ad free blog. I decided to leave the MOG Music Network recently after a 3-year partnership. Free from ads and any feelings of professional obligation, I believe I will actually be inspired to post more frequently than I have been and with a more personal touch.

~Marilyn

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centersexculture:

Tag cloud for the Center for Sex & Culture’s Goodreads collection

The Center for Sex and Culture library collection is on Goodreads! You can follow the collection (books are still being added into the account regularly) and friend us at the link below:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6336591-center-for-sex-culture

A project that I just finished setting up for the Center - please check it out if you’re into books related to gender, sex, and/or sexuality. There are still many more books to be added, so this is going to be an ongoing project. I’m on Goodreads too!:

http://goodreads.com/marilynroxie

neonsigh:

Clarion Alley, San Francisco.

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Clarion Alley, San Francisco.

neonsigh:

Clarion Alley, San Francisco.

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Clarion Alley, San Francisco.

(via neonsigh)

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