A Space of One's Own:

[Note: This is my response to the Anonymous Post #1 of this week, which you can read -here-.]

This winter break I had a pretty interesting experience; I hooked up with a man. I felt completely and totally attracted to him, and we had a great time. It was exciting and deeply personal-I realized the label of "lesbian" that I've always used does not quite fit me. I realized...maybe I'm just open.

Who did I go to to discuss this experience? Of course I told all sorts of friends.

But then I also told a specific group of people-I told queer women. But I wasn't really just telling them, though, and I'm sure they knew that. :) I was also simultaneously asking for their for advice. They were pretty much all wonderful in reading between my lines of, "I JUST HOOKED UP WITH A MAN" text message as reading something more of, "Hey queer female friend! Look what's going on in my life! It's exciting and enriching and I want to know what you think of it...because you've been there, you're a queer woman too. Tell me what you did. Where do I go from here?" It was a wonderful, enriching experience. I couldn't have asked for more insightfulness or thoughtfulness from queer women as we discussed our queer, female, identity intersection based on personal experience.

****

Let's pretend in an alternate scenario, that WLW doesn't exist. And now re-run the above experience that I had earlier this break.

To begin, I'm probably still closeted without WLW. Afterall, I went to WLW first. WLW was my entry point; it helped me come out. [Only three months after I went to WLW, one of the WLW members invited me to BDU with her, and I went.]

But okay, let's pretend for a second that without WLW I do come out as queer without the support of a women's community like myself, and that I happily integrate myself into the LGBT Center.

Well, so the experience happens-I'm back home my senior year over break and I hook up with a guy. Except this time...who do I go to? Who do I tell that can relate to me on personal experience and personal stories? Would I even know any other queer women?

That answer would be too hard to provide, so here's what happened in the real scenario:

One of the first women I told was someone I met at WLW-we became friends through it. I ended up calling her after the experience and she talked to me about how cool it is to be open, and that as a queer woman she's had this experience before, too.

Let's take another woman I told. I met her at? WLW. She eventually did branch out to BDU and the LGBT Center, but it took a WLW member inviting her to come to the Center during its regular hours, 8am-5pm, and she finally did come to the Center "just to hang out", and eventually she came to BDU , too. She affirmed my experience also, based on her personal experience as an openly queer woman.

Do you...see where I'm going with this? I met all of these queer women through WLW. The community I needed to expain to me what they did when they went through a similar experience was the community I found from women's community. Notice that I'm highlighting the women I told here *not* at the exclusion of men, but just to show that they provided a wealth of experience in a similar identity of queer female-hood that no male could have shared, not because he's somehow inadequate, but because he wouldn't have that personal experience.

The "we're all equal and we deserve equal treatment and equal groups for our equal experiences" is what some parents tell their children in a simplistic way to explain the world. It's not the reality, and in an effort to explore our different experiences we are creating groups to explore that. Do you want to talk about female sexual fluidity and the pressure on bisexual women to prove that their identity is not a "stepping stone" to lesbianism nor is it slutdom nor is it a phase? Can you imagine why that might be difficult to explain to a group of all gay men, or why it might be difficult to try and have that conversation among straight people? If you don't understand why that might be difficult, I challenge you to recognize that it is a privilege to have an identity that society doesn't stereotype or double-bind you for.

It has been my experience that by creating and fostering community through an "official" capacity, or WLW, it's created friendships and brought more women into the LGBTQ community than I ever knew of before. Eliminate it, and you'll not only lose an incredible space for queer women on this campus, but I can gurantee less women would come to BDU or the Center in general. Many women who I know today who attend BDU or the LGBT entered through WLW; it didn't stop them from joining other greater LGBTQ groups, but rather was their stepping stone. Some queer women might not have any desire to go to WLW, either-and that is still great. It's providing a niche and a community for those who wish to seek it.

Does that mean all-queer-women's community, like WLW, wants to get rid of the men and the straight folk so that we can form this community of support? Does that mean...we purposefully attend WLW and then don't bother to go to BDU events cause we're just that malicious?

Absolutely not.

Why have identity groups at all? Why even have the LGBT Center? Why have Spectrum? Why have Women Loving Women?

I would like to challenge the original author on this idea: creating one type of community does not automatically eliminate the possibility of creating another one. Queer women meeting together and forming a strong support network does not mean these women are suddenly removing their gay male friends from their lives or crossing "BDU @6pm" off their iCal. During the Abolitionist movement in the 1800s, separate all-black abolitionist groups formed. Did this mean blacks stopped attending the integrated meetings? Nope, the reverse happened. It created stronger black community that then fostered into stronger abolitionist force as they moved forward.

So what do these spaces mean, then? If they're not out to maliciously separate us all?

It simply means we're finally finding people who might reflect our identity, and who might even share a part of that experience. [Because trust me WLW is full of such a diverse group of women that I know all of our experiences couldn't possibly be shared.] But to find even a small part of your identity reflected in others can be a powerful thing. "Insularity" is, I feel, an unfair word to use for a space that simply tries to foster community not found elsewhere. "Secrect" I feel is also unfair; the Free Masons are a secrect society. What do they do at the Free Mason meetings? Nobody knows! That is a truly secrect society. What happens at WLW? Find our monthly meeting topic or movie online here at the BDU blog, on the BDU listserv (thanks Ari!), the public LGBT listserv, the Black Student Alliance listserv, the Women's Center listserv, the Duke Varsity Athlete listserv, or any other of the many public listservs we advertise on. WLW is simply confidential for the so-many reasons why a person might not want or be able to be "out".

****

One of the founders of WLW told me once, "it was dissapointing...you know...that [WLW] had to be an official thing. You would hope...that these things would just spring up...organically."

Maybe one day we won't need WLW at Duke. Maybe it will spring up organically and all the queer women at any space, any university, any city, any town can just find each other. They'll feel instantly comfortable with their identity and join a group like BDU and integrate effortlessly and find queer female community with which they can share personal experience.

Until that happens, I'll be happy to keep coordinating WLW, and I'll be happy to pass it on to someone next semester after I'm gone to lead, and I'll be happy to know that we did something to affirm our identity, which virtually every space on this campus does not. If you have a problem that queer women are growing stronger in community on this campus in a monthly hour and a half-long space (and shoot people, last time all we did was make grahamcracker gingerbread houses!)...then I think there is a bigger problem; and I do not think it is us.

WLW hosts "Set it Off" MOVIE NIGHT this Saturday @6pm!

Hi Duke LGBTQ/questioning women's community! Have you heard of Women Loving Women (WLW) at Duke? We are a dinner and discussion group for graduate and undergraduate LGBTQ-identified and questioning women at Duke.

WLW is excited to be hosting its third and last MOVIE NIGHT of the semester this Saturday night at 6pm in the LGBT Center! We will be showing "Set it Off", a film about four women who band together to fight the system in a radical, kick-ass, (and hilarious) way.

*All LGBTQ and questioning identified women who are graduate or undergradute students at Duke are welcome to attend.* (We respect varying levels of "outness" with both our dinner discussion meetings, listserv, and informal events like these, and members of the group are not discussed beyond the event.)

Also, WLW is going to be having it's next and last monthly dinner/discussion meeting of the semester Sunday, December 11th from 6-8pm in the LGBT Center, so mark your calendar and RSVP to colleen.warner@duke.edu! This month's meeting and every meeting is open to all LGBTQ and questioning Duke undergraduate and graduate women-identified students. (If you're not on our WLW listserv but would like to be, please email myself, meganweinand@gmail.com or Janie (janie.long@duke.edu) and we'll be happy to add you to the private listserv.)

See you there!
-Megan

Event recaps:

1. WLW hosts "Set if Off" Movie Night
When: This Saturday, December 3rd ; 6-8pm
Where: LGBT Center

2. December's WLW meeting
When: Sunday, December 11th, 6-8pm
Where: LGBT Center
Note: please RSVP to Colleen at colleen.warner@duke.edu with your meal
preference (vegetarian or non-veg.)
Also: TOPIC-Most likely an end-of-the-semester party! [Send us your other ideas to meganweinand@gmail.com!]

Cisgender Privilege (Part I); Qualities of A Transgender Ally

[Note: Cisgender (adj). - 1. to describe those who identify with their biological sex, and (a simplified definition) 2. not transgender.]

As a white woman I have white privilege.As a cisgender woman, I have cisgender privilege.

I know the issues are both very different, but for me it is helpful to connect the two in my mind to help guide how I educate myself and how I react in situations. I didn't want to try and tackle cisgender privilege all in one blog post-so I'm starting this off with a part I that focuses on general privilege in my experience.

Privilege is an uncomfortable issue. (I'm interested to see how people respond to this post.)

It's so natural to be defensive and even in fact, actively defensive in order to pretend that privilege doesn't exist. As a white woman, I will be the first to say that many white people constantly create fabrications or remain oblivious (myself included) to mitigate this guilt. "Reverse racism" and "post-racial" society are both false terms that help mitigate white guilt about privilege; even though there is no such thing as "post-racial" anything and reverse racism can't exist, these terms are totally popular even among the most liberal and progressive circles.

Instead of defensiveness with privilege, developing myself as an ally was a better reaction to start forming in the past few years. Below is a combined summary of blogs (citation below) I've read lately. The first is a list of some possible traits of a white anti-racist ally that I particularly liked as I've read them online recently The second is using this first list as a good starting point to think of cisgender privilege/being a trans ally:

Qualities of a White Anti-Racist Ally:

1. "Is responsible for self-education about privilege, racism, and oppression; does not expect people of color to always teach them."

2. "Does not require people of color to prove the truth of their racial experiences or injuries."

3. "Responds to racist statements even when a person of color is not present or does not object."

4. Does not expect recognition or gratitude; addresses racism because it is personally offensive.

5. Recognizes that allies will always fail, and when they do should remain non-defensive, apologize, correct (if possible) and self-educate (see #1).

6. Recognizes that their other minority identities don't erase their white privilege. (And to quote another tumblr article, "do you think white privilege is ever erased, period?")

7. Recognizes their white privilege and actively works to maintain that awareness and act in response.

[Citation: #'s 1-4: Quelola (Tumblr) and #5: What Tami Said (Blogger)]

For me thinking about ways to be a white anti-racist ally is a good starting point for being a better cisgender ally, which I have only begun to seriously consider this year. Here it is modified a bit for possible qualities of a transgender ally:

Qualities of a Transgender Ally:

1. "Is responsible for their own self-education on transgender topics and does not expect transgender people to teach them."

-I've heard trangender friends tell me that they recieve questions about extremely personal and sensitive topics, like genitalia; it can't be the responsibility of the minority individual to constantly educate those with a privilege status.

2. "Does not require transgender inidivudals to "prove" their transgender identity."

3. "Responds to transphobic statements even when a transgender person is not present or does not object."

- Including using correct pronouns (which I will be the first to admit that I have definitely failed at sometimes), including when the transgender person isn't there, etc.

4. "Does not expect recognition or gratitude; addresses transphobia because it is personally offensive."

5. "Recognizes that allies will always fail, and when they do should remain non-defensive, apologize, correct (if possible) and self-educate (see #1)."

6. Recognizes that their other minority identities don't somehow "erase" their cisgender privilege.

-I think this one is so crucial. I can't tell express how many white gay men dominate entire conversations, never listen/acknowledge women or people of color, only to claim they are "feminist!" or "progressive!" or "gay!" and therefore able to erase the possibility of being an "-ist".

7. Recognizes their cisgender privilege and actively works to maintain that awareness and act in response.

I know this is only a brief list and that it also might be common or first-hand knowledge to many reading this blog, but I hope it sparks dialogue and that others feel comfortable adding to the list with experiences (as identifying with or being an ally of either community). I'm constantly blown away by how little I've known for such a long period of time when it comes to confronting privilege, and I'd be excited to hear what everyone else thinks about ways to recognize privilege and becoming better allies.

More links:

-The Cisgender Privilege Checklist.

-"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisble Knapsack".

MOVIE NIGHT - "Frida" - Hosted by Women Loving Women (WLW)

Hi Duke LGBTQ/questioning women's community!

Have you heard of Women Loving Women (WLW) at Duke? We are a dinner and discussion group for graduate and undergraduate LGBTQ-identified and questioning women at Duke.

WLW is excited to be hosting a MOVIE NIGHT this Wednesday, October 12th at 7pm in the LGBT Center! All LGBTQ and questioning identified women who are graduate or undergradute students are welcome to attend. (We respect varying levels of "outness" with both our dinner discussion meetings, listserv, and informal events like these, and members of the group are not discussed beyond the event.) Wednesday's movie is planned to be "Frida" [Read about it here at Afterellen.com], which tells the story of the bisexual civil rights and women's rights activist and Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo.

Also, WLW is going to be having it's next monthly dinner/discussion meeting October 17th from 6-8pm in the LGBT Center. This month's topic is "Sexual Fluidity and Questioning", and if you'd like us to ask specific questions for dialogue, email myself (meganweinand@gmail.com) or Janie (janie.long@duke.edu) with your ideas for discussion questions for our meeting. Please RSVP to colleen.warner@duke.edu. This month's meeting and every meeting is open to all LGBTQ and questioning Duke undergraduate and graduate women-identified students. (If you're not on our WLW listserv but would like to be, please email myself or Janie and we'll be happy to add you to the private listserv.)

Event recaps:

1. MOVIE NIGHT - "Frida" hosted by WLW

When: This Wednesday, October 12th, 7pm

Where: The Center for LGBT Life

Note: There will be popcorn & beverages!!

2. Next WLW Meeting: "Sexual Fluidity and Questioning".

When: Monday, October 17th

Where: The Center for LGBT Life

RSVP to: colleen.warner@duke.edu

(please specifiy "vegetarian" meal if desired!)

Note: If you have a specific question that you'd like us to add to the list of discussion questions, please email Janie or myself (meganweinand@gmail.com; janie.long@duke.edu).

-Megan

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Dorothy Allison [at DUKE!]

Who is Dorothy Allison?

To begin, Dorothy Allison is the feminist and queer writer who is COMING to DUKE this Friday, September 23rd to give presentations around campus! [See the bottom of the post for event times and dates.]

Duke acquired Dorothy Allison's papers September of last year, and was excited to bring her work to our Rare Books and Manuscript, and Special Collections Library (RBMSCL) here at Duke. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Allison is a natural fit as a Southern writer who is one of the foremost queer and feminist American writers of the 21st century in her fields.

As the first person in her family to graduate from high school or college, Allison studied anthropology in Eckerd College on a National Merit scholarship, and pursued graduate studies at Florida State University. She held a variety of jobs, and later

moved to NYC, where she enrolled in The New School (a historically progressive academic college in NYC) and in 1981 recieved her M.A. in urban anthropology. While in college, Allison credits a feminist "collective" for introducing her to feminism and credits "militant feminists" for encouraging her to write.

Allison is both a non-fiction and fiction writer, writing novels such as Cavedweller, which brings up issues on class, sexuality, female bonds, domestic violence, Southern society, child sexual abuse, and non-fiction pieces such as "The Women Who Hate Me", which was a response of Allison to critics of her political and social activism. Winner of three Lambda Book Awards, the Lesbian Book award and the National Book Award (p.s. Alice Walker won the National Book Award too! Notice a queer women's authorship trend??) today she continues to write and is a visiting professor at Emory University and Davidson College.

Her social activism takes varied forms, and she is one of the co-founders of the "Lesbian Sex Mafia" in New York City, a LGBTQ women's support group that promotes safer sex regardless of sexual preferences and type of sexual act, emphasizing a woman's choice, unihibited gender and sexual expression, consent, and BDSM.

After realizing Dorothy Allison was coming to Duke-I decided to start reading her collection of semi-autobiographical short stories, "Trash", which has won the Lambda and Lesbian Book Awards. It's moving and powerful and vulnerability and strength all in the same text:

"There was a day in my life when I decided to live..."

"I became an escapee-one of the ones others talk about. I became the one who got away, who got glasses from the Lions Club, a job from Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, and finally went to college on a scholarship."

"Even now I cannot believe how it was that everything I survived became one more reason to want to die."

"I wrote out my memories of the women. My terror and lust for my own kind; the souts and arguments; the long, slow glances and slower approaches; the way my hands always shook when I would finally touch the flesh I could barely admit I wanted, the way I could never ask for what I wanted, never accept it if they offered....-all the stories of my family, my childhood, and the relentless deadening poverty and shame I had always tried to hide because I knew no one would believe what I could tell them about it."

"I write stories...I put on a page a third look at what I've seen in life-the condensed and reinvented experience of a cross-eyed working clas lesbian, addicted to violence, language and hope, who has made the decision to live, is determined to live, on the page and on the street, for me and mine."

-Dorothy Allison, "Trash" (1988).

Here at Duke we are lucky enough to have prominent scholars and leaders in various fields come to our campus, to give lectures to students, engage us, and allow us to ask questions that explore their works. Don't miss this chance to meet Dorothy Allison and discuss her works in person!

Where can we meet Dorothy Allison?

Two or Three Things: Readings from the Works of Dorothy Allison

Thursday, September 22, 4:00 p.m.

Biddle Rare Book Room, Perkins Library

Dorothy Allison in Conversation with Students

Friday, September 23, 12:00 p.m.

Center for LGBT Life

Out in the South: Writers in Conversation Featuring Dorothy Allison, Shirlette Ammons, Jim Grimsley, and Minnie Bruce Pratt

Friday, September 23, 7:00 p.m.

White Lecture Hall, East Campus

[See the Duke University Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture in the RBMSCL website for more information, here.]

LGBTQ Female Role Models - Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Hey! So I've been wanting to write on the blog

about this woman for a really long time, but up until this point I've been trying to only focus on living LGBTQ female role models. But I think I'm going to break my own rule and write about Frida, simply because she's SUCH an awesome queer female role model and she was absolutely the woman I wanted to write about this week on the blog.

I have to start this post off with a confession. I actually have an enormous poster of Frida Kahlo in my dorm room, but I keep it on the back door of the closet (ironic) because it's really intense [See photo to the left, below-"Pensando en la muerte (Thinking of Death)"-that's the one I have!]. But I love her! Also, if you haven't seen the movie Frida, I would really recommend it! I had been introduced to Frida Kahlo in elementary school in Arizona, but that movie really helped me get a clearer picture of who the artist was and why she's such a strong woman.

Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City (D.F.) in 1907, and just a few years later at the age of 6 she contracted polio, which "began a life marked by physical suffering". At the age of 15 she entered Mexico's oldest high school, (which was the first Mexican school to accept women, and had just begun to do so ) La Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, where she met Diego Rivera (her future husband) for the first time.

On September 17th, 1925, there would be an event that would mark Kahlo's for the rest of her life-physically, mentally, and in everyway possible. While riding on a bus, there was a collision with a street trolley, and a metal pole inserted her body, shattering her spine into various pieces, and also breaking her ribs and pelvic. The accident left Kahlo in a full-body cast, infertile, and bed-ridden for months.

During her painful recovery, Frida used painting as a way to pass the time and help cure boredom. In 1926 she painted her first self-portrait; she often painted herself in bed, or to express her emotional states at the time: "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality", she said.

In 1929 she met fellow Mexican painter, Diego Rivera

again and they married within the year. Throughout her life, Frida had affairs with both men (including Leon Trostky) and women (Dolores del Rio, Paulette Goddard, Maria Felix, & Josephine Baker). She identified openly as a bisexual woman, while preferring men, and she sometimes chose to dress in drag. Her painting "Two Nudes in a Forest" clearly depicts a romantic interaction between two women-[right]. (Rivera apparently knew of and accepted her relationships with women during their marriage, but her male partners made him jealous.) Frida later confronted the emotional pain of watching her husband have an affair with her sister, Cristina, after which she divorced Diego Rivera in Nov 1939; they remarried Dec. 1940.

One of the reasons I love Frida Kahlo is because she was an unbashedly confident feminist and queer woman, converting into a national and international icon for the rights of women, those working towards socialism, indigenous communities of Mexico and others. Frida's powerful ability to represent marginalized topics in her artwork I think relates to others because she can empathize with those suffering struggle via own physical and emotional strife throughout her life [Right-"Los dos Fridas" (Both Frida's).]. Frida didn't hesitate to confront difficult topics in her paintings; in one painting she even expressed her pain after a miscarriage.

Today Frida has made an international impact. She is known for being the first Hispanic woman on a U.S. poststamp, her works today are consistently auctioned off at the highest prices of any Mexican artist, and she was the first 20th-century Mexican artist to be displayed in the Louvre.

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Sheryl Swoopes

Hey! So I know we're still trying to keep the blog active this summer (if you want to write, talk to Risa!), so I thought I'd talk about a wonderful LGBTQ female role model who has been in the news a little bit lately!

When legendary basektball player Sheryl Swoopes came out in 2005, she was the second WNBA player to do so in history.

Over the course of her career, Swoopes has won 3 Olympic gold medals, is a 3-time WNBA MVP, 4-time WNBA Champion and a 3-time winner of the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year award. The player who has been referred to as "the female Michael Jordan" (or maybe Michael Jordan is just the "male Sheryl Swoopes"), she is most famous for her 10-year career with the Houston Comets, and has also played for the Seattle Storm (2008). Most recently, in March of 2011, at the age of 40, Swoopes returned to the sport after a hiatus due to injuries, to play with the Tulsa Shock.

In regards to her sexuality, Swoopes says, "it doesn't change who I am. I can't help who I fall in love with. No one can. ... Discovering I'm gay just sort of happened much later in life. Being intimate with [Alisa, her partner] or any other woman never entered my mind. At the same time, I'm a firm believer that when you fall in love with somebody, you can't control that." Nevertheless, Swoopes doesn't want her LGBTQ identity to become her only identity that people acknowledge: "I don't want people to just focus on me coming out and that part of my life, because there are so many other aspects to who I am. As a strong, black, female athlete, and as a single parent, there are so many different parts of my life that could really influence someone else's life."

In a 2006 interview with ESPN, Swoopes explained why she came later on in her career, rather than earlier: "It's not something that I want to throw in people's faces. I'm just at a point in my life where I'm tired of having to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I'm tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love." She also mentions that she didn't always identify as a queer woman: "I didn't always know I was gay. I honestly didn't. Do I think I was born this way? No. And that's probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that you are. I've been married, and I have an 8-year-old son. Being with a man was what I wanted. When I got divorced in 1999, it wasn't because I'm gay. I'm three years older than my ex-husband, and I matured a lot faster than he did."

When Swoopes went on a cruise with Olivia crusies in 2005, a LGBTQ women's cruise line, she was approached by the CEO, Amy Errett, and asked if she would like to become the face of Olivia cruises, to which she agreed: "Amy came out to L.A. when the Comets were playing the Sparks, and we talked. She asked if I would be the face of Olivia. I was like, 'Wow, that's big.' Martina Navratilova endorses Olivia. Rosie Jones endorses Olivia. But I had to think about it. A few days later, I called Amy back and said yes. It's funny, when I booked the Olivia cruise I didn't even think about people seeing my name on this list full of lesbians. I guess I didn't care. I just felt like, if I'm going to do the cruise and I'm going to be the face of Olivia, why not just come all out? I mean, you have Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell, but you don't have your well-known gay African-American who's come out. Not to my knowledge. I know it's not accepted in the black community. I know I'll probably take a lot of flak. But in all honesty, that's not my biggest concern."

(Swoopes with her partner of 13 years, Alisa Scott)

In addition to being an advocate for LGBTQ individuals in sports, she is also an advocate for changing the face of women in sports leadership positions: "There is definitely a need for good female coaches. In the WNBA and in college, I see teams leaning towards former NBA players — and men in general — as coaches, and that is a slap in the face, because there are so many quality, qualified females out there that should be given the opportunity to coach." She is also an advocate for the American Lung Association and most recently has become a role model for her come-back to the sport at the age of 40, earlier this year: "I may be older, but the competitive fire is still there and I'm excited about the possibilities. The only reason why I'm doing it is because I still love the game. There was the misconception out there that I retired after the 2008 season, but that was never the case. I wasn't done with basketball yet, and I'm still not done."

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Susan Stryker

I recently just finished reading a great book callled, "Transgender History" by Susan Stryker, after it was recommended to me by Jack and Jess McDonald this summer. I was really impressed by Stryker's work and wanted to highlight her accomplishments here on the blog.

Susan Stryker is an openly transgender woman who has worked diligently to advance the transgender equality movement in America as a transgender historian. She recieved her Ph.D. in United States History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Stryker is a community-based historian, and she makes media and works to develop her community's history as a form of activism for the trans movement. Between 1997 and 2003 she worked as the Executive Director of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, which works to preserve and further ongoing research in LGBTQ studies in one of the largest collections of queer history in the nation. She also is a vocal feminist, noting that as someone who previously presented to society as a white male, she has a "good yardstick" for measuring misogyny and sexism.

When I was reading "Transgender History" by Stryker this past month, I realized that San Francisco actually has a really rich trans history. In addition to the Compton Cafeteria Riots (see below!) and housing one of the best LGBTQ historical collections, San Francisco is also home to the country's first transgender activist group, "Transgender Nation", founded in SanFran. in 1992. The

organization worked successfully to begin integrating transgender concerns into the larger movement for LGBTQ equality. One of the activist demonstrations that TN was best known for was it's 1993 protest of the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, in which the group rallied against the APA's diagnosis of the transgender identity as disordered (GID).

In addition to publishing "Transgender History" and many other works on transgender history, Stryker also co-directed the documentary, "Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria". (You can also find an Amazon trailer to the documentary that is a pretty good summary of it, here.) Here's an excerpt from the documentary below (there are some other great vintage footage portions on Youtube, too!)

"What happened at Compton's Cafteria that night wasn't a 'catfight' between screaming queens-it was a riot, and it kicked off a new human rights movement."

The documentary "Screaming Queens" covers the 1966 Compton Cafeteria Riots, which until this book (Transgender History) and this documentary, I knew very little about. It turns out that Stryker hadn't heard of the riots either, until she uncovered a vintage publication about them in the San Francisco GLBT historical society warehouses. The story goes that Gene Compton's cafeteria (at the corner of Turk and Taylor street) was a safe-haven in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco for transgender individuals (as well as other LGBQ individuals), and it was open 24/7.

"It was beautiful. Everybody would just die for window seats [at Compton's], just to show off. Jehovah's Witnesses used to drag crosses in the street in front of Compton's, and tell us we were going to burn in hell, but we ignored them. Compton's was fabulous. It was like Oz. Something like The Wizard of Oz."

The Tenderloin district of San Francisco had a police department that was allegedly paid off in order to keep the area open to prostitution and drug hustling, . The transgender and drag communities were eventually forced to the Tenderloin simply because restaurants, beauty shops, bars, and the hotels, etc. in other areas of the city wouldn't serve transgender people. The Tenderloin (and specifically, Turk Street), became known as "the gay ghetto", home to drag Balls and a larger transgender community. Not withstanding, the police could take transgender individuals as any time to jail for "female impersonation", and oftentimes they would:

"The first night I was in San Francisco I was arrested for 'sidewalk obstruction' by the 'tax squad', which was a police squad that generally made life unpleasant for people who didn't fit in. Later, I was arressted for 'female impersonation'. I never felt that I was impersonating female, I thought, I am a female!"

And while the Tenderloin was safer than other areas of San Francisco for transgender and queer individuals, it wasn't completely free of violence; there was once a serial kiler in the district who specifically targeted transgender individuals. The "Camelot" haven of the Gene Compton cafeteria didn't last forever either. When a new political activist group (composed of

many transgender individuals) named "Vanguard" started meeting at the restaurant, Compton's eventually started kicking them out. Nevertheless, Vanguard members picketed Compton's due to the discrimination they felt, which upset the Compton cafeteria management even further.

One night (the date is uncertain, but it is believed to be August 9th, 1966) the San.Fran. police department raided the cafeteria (presumably after conversations with the Compton management). Fighting started when a policeman grabbed one of the drag queens, and she threw coffee in his face. All hell broke loose after that, "triggering years of resentment", and "all the sugar shakers went through the windows and the glass doors." Police called for more backup as the fighting continued, and eventually a police car and a local newsstand were set on fire. (Business at Compton's never recovered, and a porn shop took it's place a few years later.) After the riot, police officer (and director of Community Relations), Elliot Blackstone pioneered services and helped to overturn many anti-transgender laws, thus improving conditions for the transgender community in San Francisco. Many transgender individuals at the riots also noted the marked change in the community:

"Out of Compton's [riots] came some very beautiful, beautiful women. We felt good about ourselves. And that's the most interesting part of it, because once you feel good about yourself, nobody can hurt you. Nobody can come in and turn anything around that you don't want."

Through her research, Stryker found that while the Stonewall Riots of June 28th, 1969 are typically cited as the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, the Compton Cafeteria Riots were actually one of the first radical acts against police and institutional trans/homophobia in America. Stryker's work was instrumental in sheding light to this important and watershed event in our LGBTQ history (and if you notice on the Wiki page, Stryker is the primary reference of the entire account). She interviewed people in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco who she believed might have been present at the event, and collected first-hand knowledge of the riots through interviews and personal accounts.

Thus, we have Stryker to thank for uncovering an incredible part of our community's history; "the story was bigger than I could have ever imagined", she says of the night. Stryker also said that researching the riots made her feel the presence of a larger transgender and drag community; I think it's awesome that we can look to this group of empowered individuals in our community as a source of courage and strength.

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Shamim Sarif

Born in 1969 in England, Shamim Sarif is a current writer and filmmaker. She has received numerous awards on her works as both an author and as a screenwriter and film director ("Best Director" at the South African Film Festival, World Cinema Best Director), and more informally she won an AfterEllen.com 2008 Visiblity Award as the "International Lesbian/Bisexual Woman of the Year". Another fun fact: her and her partner, Hannan Kattan, formed their own entertainment production company called "Enlightenment Productions". This is remeniscent of queer women creating their own spaces when the current system just doesn't cut it, such as Joan Jett from two weeks ago, who formed her own recording label-and was the first woman to ever do so.

Sarif's first film and novel, The World Unseen, is a story set in Cape Town, South Africa at the beginning of apartheid in the 1950s. Sarif herself has a personal connection to South Africa, as both her parents and grandparents were born and lived there. The story surronds two Indian South African women who work against the racism, sexism, homophobia and political tensions that they encounter in their lives.

The World Unseen (2008 release)

Sarif has also released I Can't Think Straight, as a film and novel, which is a modern-day story of two women in London who navigate family and cultural prescriptions about sexuality. If you watch the two trailers, you'll notice that Sarif uses the same actresses, Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth in both films, which is sort of an interesting and unique connection between the two films.

I personally really admire Shamim Sarif for making films of substance about LGBTQ women, especially regarding policital/cultural themes. As an openly lesbian herself, Sarif is a role model for visibility in addition to her accomplishments as a filmmaker and author. I've also seen both these movies, and I think I'd definitely rank them both in the top 10 LGBTQ women's films that I've seen, so if you have any free time over break, definitely check them out!

And lastly, if you like these films/novels, Sarif actually has more LGBTQ women's movies in the making: her second novel "Despite the Falling Snow" is being filmed now, and is a lesbian story set in Cold War Stalinist Moscow. I'm personally impressed by the initiative in which Sarif has decided to use her talent as an author and director to advance LGBTQ women's visibility, and I hope other openly LGBTQ women and their allies are motivated by her films and openness.

I Can't Think Straight (2008 Release)

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Alice Wu + [MOVIE NIGHT!]

This is a blog post and an announcement!

Announcement--->THIS Thursday, at 8:30pm in the Center for LGBT Life, we're going to watch Saving Face! There will be blankets, popcorn, and friendly people. All are welcome to attend!

I'm writing about Alice Wu this week, because I personally believe that she has single-handedly wrote and directed the BEST lesbian movie I've ever seen: Saving Face. I haven't seen every LGBTQ-themed movie, that's for sure, but I feel this is one of the funnier, (sexier?), and more realistic movies about LGBTQ women that I've seen.

Wu actually has a really interesting background entering the film industry which I think is part of what makes her a role model. She graduted from Stanford University with a B.S. in Computer Science, and she started working for Microsoft in 1990. While she was at Microsoft, she wrote the story for Saving Face, and eventually enrolled in a screenwriting course on the side. Her screenwriting instructor encouraged her to leave Microsoft and pursue her film-writing career. Five years later, she produced the film and released Saving Face in 2005.

The screenplay won the CAPE award in 2001, (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment), and the film itself was nominated for a GLAAD and Gotham award, and won the "Viewers Choice Award" at the 2005 Golden Horse Film Festival, which is sort of Taiwan's equivalent of the Acadamy Awards. The storyline of Saving Face, according to Wu, is largely autobiographical and focuses on her coming out experience as a Chinese-lesbian woman. Due to it's similarity to her own life, she knew that releasing the movie would out her to her family friends, which she has stated was both rewarding and nerve-wracking:

“It was kind of nerve-wracking to show it to my own mother. My own coming out experience was very similar in some ways to that depicted in the film, but even though my mom was very quiet on the subject of my being gay she’s still always been supportive. It might have taken ten years and a bit of estrangement, but we still love one another and even when she was having trouble understanding mom always only wanted what was best for me. That said, I had to be really clear with her about the subject matter [of the film]. I told her, ‘When this comes out, all your friends will know.’ All she said to me was, ‘This is what I want for you.’ God, that’s love!”

In an interview with New York Magazine about the film, Wu also explains how she made the film a "comedy", despite the relative serious nature of coming out (and the threat of a negative reaction) of the female protagonist:

"I know: A woman gets disowned at 48? Not so funny. There's pain and more pain. But people do weird things and life is funny. The characters don't think its funny-but their situations are just so impossible."

In an AfterEllen interview, Wu also describes the meaning behind the film's title, and its cultural significance:

"Often I think of it as more of an Asian notion, although the concept of it is very universal across many cultures. The way I understood it, growing up is that there is this sense that what you present to the world may not be who you are inside, but there is a responsibility when you come from an immigrant community--even though I was born in the states, my parents were immigrants--so there was this sense of wanting to be the perfect citizen. On some level I’m representing all Chinese people to Americans, even though, technically, I’m an American. So, if you do anything to shame yourself, you’re not just shaming yourself, your shaming an entire community. Also, in terms of the film, Wil is a reconstructive surgeon, who specializes in faces, and her mother works as an aesthetician at a salon, giving facials. There is that double entendre."

As a viewer, all I can say is that I'm so excited to see what Wu decides to do next, considering she's only just begun. Also, if you'd like to watch Saving Face, we'll see you this Thursday at 8:30pm! [all are welcome!] If you can't watch it with us, but would like to see it at a different time, I also know that there is a copy in Lilly Library that circulates outside the building. =) See you soon!

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Joan Jett

Who is Joan Jett?

"The Queen of Rock and Roll"

- as referred to several times during her career

A legendary American punk rock musician, Joan Jett is best known for her song,

"I Love Rock and Roll",

a cover of an Arrows' song of the same name. It's one of the most iconic songs in the world, and it was a U.S. Billboard Hot 100 track for seven weeks in 1981.

Joan Jett's accomplishments today might be taken for granted, but the historical, cultural and societal context of her success cannot be overlooked. Jett was one of the members of the all-female punk band, The Runways (1975-1979), in a time when all-girl punk bands were literally, unheard of. Today, it's easy to think of successful all-women groups, or punk bands

with female leads, but it was only through artists like Jett who transformed the idea from unthinkable, to something possible. Later, she formed her own group called Jett Joan and the Blackhearts, which released hits like "I Love Rock and Roll" and "Crimson and Clover".

A few weeks ago, I would have guessed that Joan Jett was just following in the footsteps of other all-female punk bands, but after working on my 12 page paper on the Riot Grrrl movement for my Spanish class (on pop culture), I realized that Joan Jett wasn't following in any woman's footsteps: she made the path for women in the hardcore punk scene. When she first started out, she was told that "girls don't play electric guitar", and she was laughed at when she tried to buy a black leather jacket and pants. Punk has traditionally been a male-dominated scene, and that was especially true in the late 70s and early 80s when Jett gained popularity. (Women were grouped at punk shows, and pushed to the back of concerts, demeaningly labeled as "coat racks".) Jett's band itself, The Runaways, was not treated very well, and Jett expressed her frustrations as follows [italics added]:

"I didn't understand people's reactions and why they thought it was so strange for women to play music. There were people who looked at us like we had seven heads....I wonder how many women actually looked at what we were doing in the Runaways and said, 'Hey, that's great.' Or, 'You make me feel stronger.' Because it seemed like the Runaways had a mostly male audience, waiting to see us take our clothes off or something-that's what they expected us to do."

In addition to being a woman pioneer in the male-dominated punk genre, Joan Jett is also a success story of the "I think I can" attitude. When she wanted to produce music on her own, she didn't take "no" for an answer. She was rejected by 23 major record labels, until she eventually decided to start her own record-label, called "Blackheart Records". This was another previous "impossibility", as Jett was the first woman to ever start her own recording label. Her "Do-It-Yourself" (DIY) feminist attitude was characteristic of the genre that followed Jett, the Riot Grrrl movement, and so it's no surprise that Jett is also known as "The Godmother of Punk" and the "Original Riot Grrrl". (Riot Grrrl was a feminist music genre in the early 90s that focused on all-female bands, promoting feminine individuality and strength through uninhibited music.) Jett collaborated with one of the most famous pioneer Riot Grrl bands, Bikini Kill, and helped get their band (and thus, the Riot Grrrl movement) off the ground.

I wanted to write about Joan Jett on the blog, because I wasn't very familiar with her as a person, and I certainly had no idea she was queer. Wikipedia won't tell you how she identifies (maybe just an oversight?), but after doing some research, I found that both AfterEllen and 365Gay.com report that she is "open" and "out". (Fun fact: GLBTQ Encyclopedia reports that she has a "Dykes Rule" sticker on her guitar.) Also, when you listen to her hit song "Crimson and Clover", check out the lyrics-they're pretty queer.

I can't think of a better role model. She was one of two women listed in Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists of all time, and she continues to play her powerful music. She still tours (at the age of 52) with The Blackhearts, and most recently, she just played for Greenday's Europe 2010 tour. This woman's strength, and her visible rejection of traditionally rigid female roles (demur, submissive, subservient) in place for an angry, enthusiastic and passionate love affair with music (and life) demonstrate, literally, how cool rule-breaking feminism can be.

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Alice Walker

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." -The Color Purple

I started to write this blog post on Alice Walker, and then I realized that I had never actually read any of her works; I had only heard of her through feminism that I had read. (Fun feminist fact: Walker was an editor for Ms. magazine in the 70s.) I didn't really feel comfortable with the realization that I hadn't read her actual work; if Alice Walker is one of the most famous LGBTQ female authors alive today, why haven't I read anything of hers? That didn't sit well with me.

So, earlier last week, I picked up Alice Walker's most famous novel at Perkins Library and sat down to read The Color Purple.

The Color Purple was written in 1982, and Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1983 (she was the first black woman to win this award, as well as the National Book Award in the same year). The story chronicles the life of a young black woman living in an impoverished community of rural Georgia in the 1930s.

As I was researching the book, I learned that it was one of the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books" due to the fact of its explicit mention of violence. But there's no doubt about it, that what Walker describes in her novel is definitely real. Domestic violence and child abuse are a part of Walker's novel because they are a part of life, and that's something I actually found myself very much appreciating about her work; her style of writing is so real and accessible:

[Note on the below quote: "Mr _____" is the husband that Celie has no choice but to marry, and "fixed" refers to Celie's infertility.]

Pa said to Mr_______, She ugly. But she no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And God done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want to and she ain’t gonna make you feed it or clothe it.

I take out the picture of Shug Avery. I look into her eyes. Her eyes say Yeah, it bees that way sometime.

Something else that I appreciated was the way Walker approaches the bisexuality (or perhaps, lesbianism?) of her characters. The theme of same-sex attraction is just so well articulated in The Color Purple. Same-sex attraction isn't gross; it isn't unnatural. It's literally the best thing that happens to her [the protagonist]:

Shug Avery was a woman. The most beautiful woman I ever saw. She more pretty than my mama. She bout ten thousand times more prettier than me....I ast [the woman] to give me the picture. An all night long I stare at it. An now when I dream, I dream of Shug Avery.. She dress to kill, whirling an laughing.

Shug Avery standing upside a piano, elbow crook, hand on her hip. Lord I wants to go [with her] so bad. Not to dance. Not to drink. Not to play card. Not even to hear Shug Avery sing. I just be thankful to lay eyes on her.

I found the book to be beautifully crafted. I'm particularly impressed by the way Walker uses simple, unflowerly language to capture some of the deepest of human expression that I've ever read. She is truly a genius writer:

I feel bad sometimes Nettie done pass me in learnin. But look like nothing she says can git in my brain and stay.

She try to tell me something bout the ground not being flat. I just say, Yeah, like I know it.

I never tell her how flat it look to me.

The strength of Walker's characters would seem to parallel instances from her own life as well. When Walker was a child she had an accident that left her blind in one eye. Later, thanks to medical advances, she was able to gain sight in it again, but it forever impacted the way she viewed the world. She wrote that it "helped her to really see people and things, to notice relationships and to learn to be patient enough to care about how they turned out."

If you're interested in Alice Walker's work, particularly on black feminism, you might also like to check out Tyler Perry's film, For Colored Girls, while it's currently in theaters. (I saw it this past weekend and was glad that I did.) The playwright, Ntozake Shange, is Alice Walker's contemporary, and wrote the play in 1975 around the same time of The Color Purple. (There's also a dialogue with the African and African-American studies department tonight, at 7pm in the Mary Lou.)

Queer women in literature: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

[Small spoiler note: I tried not to include any huge spoilers about the plot of Mrs. Dalloway, but I did include a few excerpts about the relationship between Clarissa and Sally Seton.]

This semester I decided to take my first English class at Duke, and so I signed myself up for “English131S: Topics in a Single British Author – Virginia Woolf”.

I have to admit that I signed up for the class because I knew Virginia Woolf was a feminist and a queer woman. As someone who wrote openly about her relationships with women and men, Virginia Woolf has been retrospectively labeled as a bisexual author of the early 20th century. Our instructor, Professor Sarah Nuttall, confirmed this fact, noting that Woof’s relationships with women are extremely well documented, particularly one with Vita Sackville-West, a fellow English author and poet.

Both Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf were members of a literary circle called the Bloomsbury Group, which discouraged sexual exclusivity. The two married women had a long romantic affair, and Woolf’s novel Orlando (1928) was later called “the longest and most charming love-letter in literature” (according to Vita Sackville-West’s son). Published in 1928, Orlando was considered one of her best novels and is a story about a young man who awakens one day to find himself in a woman’s body.

Anyone looking to read about lesbian, bisexual or transgender women in early 20th century literature should definitely consider giving Virginia Woolf a try. While she’s not the most accessible author (she drops key moments in her plots between parentheses and in the middle of long-winded descriptive paragraphs), her stylistic qualities make her worth all of the effort.

Having just finished Mrs. Dalloway for this class, I can easily say that Woolf’s depiction of the relationship between Clarissa Dalloway and Sally Seton is by far the most eloquent romantic relationship between two women that I have ever read about in fiction. Within the first thirty pages of the novel, the protagonist, Clarissa Dalloway remarks on her wondrous relationship with a woman:

“Yet [Clarissa] could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman, not a girl, of a woman confessing, as to her they often did. And whether it was pity, or their beauty, or that she was older-like a faint scent, or a violin next door (so strange is the power of sounds at certain moments), she did undoubtedly then feel what men felt. Only for a moment; but it was enough. It was a sudden revelation. Then, for that moment, she had seen an illumination."

When I first read this paragraph in Woolf’s novel, I was floored. I felt like I could have written this-not in terms of the quality, but the context. It seemed very similar to my own coming out experience, or perhaps anybody's:

"The strange thing, on looking back, was the purity, the integrity, of her feeling for Sally. It was not like one’s feeling for a man. It was completely disinterested, and besides, it had a quality which could only exist between women, between women grown up…the charm was overpowering, to her at least, so that she could remember standing in her bedroom at the top of the house holding the hot-water can in her hands and saying aloud, ‘She is beneath this roof…She is beneath this roof!'"

Perhaps something equally remarkable about Mrs. Dalloway, is that it was a best-seller. I had no idea that a novel published in England in 1925 with prominent same-sex romance throughout the work (5 of the main characters are implied to be LGBT) would be so well-received by the public at the time. Today the book is still immensely popular, making TIME magazine's 2005 Top 100 novels list. I have to wonder what kind of political or social undercurrents the novel might have brought with its publication, considering the equality it demands for same-sex romantic attraction:

"But nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people."

Equally exciting about the novel is that it is highly affirmative of same-sex relationships between women. The stereotypical portrayal of LGBTQ women in older literature is that if lesbians do exist (which they rarely do), one or both of them ends up depressed, desolate or dead. Nevertheless, Woolf’s portrayal of Clarissa Dalloway’s relationship with Sally is largely positive, perhaps more so even than any of Clarissa's relationships with men:

"All this was background for Sally. She stood by the fireplace, talking, in that beautiful voice which made everything she said sound like a caress. Suddenly she said, ‘What a shame to sit indoors!’ and they all went out on to the terrace and walked up and down. Peter Walsh and Joseph Breitkopf went on about Wagner."

And of course…it’s just beautifully depicted as well:

"She and Sally fell a little behind. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a store urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it – a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!"

Personally I think that if you want to read empowering literature about LGBTQ women in fiction, reading Virginia Woolf if you haven't already is a great idea. I had actually tried to read Mrs. Dalloway two different times before this class, and I always stopped by page 10 or 20 because she's really difficult to get into. ("Plot" isn't her main focus-description is.) For me, being in this class and knowing ahead of time that Woolf writes equally about same and opposite sex attraction was a huge motivator to get through the novel.

"But this question of love, this falling in love with women. Take Sally Seton; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had not that, after all, been love?”