Winter 2004/Vol. XIV, No. 1

C O N T E N T SCLAGSnews 5Fellowships Winners

New Board Member

LGTBQ Studies Develops at U of AZ,

U of Toronto and Duke

Respect and Equality 3

IRN Develops in Mexico CityPalabras de bienvendia /WelcomingRemarks from Sandra Lorenzano 6

Queer Zagreb 19

Comrades Promote Tongzhi Studies 21

CLAGS Spring ‘04 Calendar 1 2

PedagogyTeaching Judith Butler 15

CLAGSreportsFall Colloquia 17

Bad Law 17

Claiming Disability 18

Queering the Crip/

Cripping the Queer 19

CLAGS Supporters 22

Become a Member of CLAGS 23

FYICLAGS Publications 7

Edward Carpenter Library Collection 8

Interdisciplinary Concentration in

LG/Q Studies 16

Fellowship Guidelines 20

E-ResourcesQCUNY 11

Transoc 18

GenderSexStudies 20

IRN 21

Online Directory of LGTBQ Studies 24continued on page 2

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORDisability and Queerness: Centering the Outsider

When James Anastos, a transgender man, turned 21 and moved into a residentialliving environment for the neurologically impaired in Staten Island, his male genderidentity became a problem.

“Being transgender, they told me they could have me put away if I dressed like a boy.They didn’t like the way I dressed—all boys’ clothes,” he told me during an interview.

His two best friends in the facility were lesbians, and were also very out about theiridentity. “One of my friends there always dressed like a boy, never wore a dress, never. She toldthem ‘I’m going to dress the way I want to dress and that’s too bad for you.’ Another friendwas, according to Anastos, “a real tomboy,” who wore gay themed baseball caps and pins.“That was just who we are, we were comfortable that way,” he added.

But the facility was not comfortable, to say the least, with out queers and transgenderpeople among its residents. “The staff hated it, they would make us wear girls’ clothes, dressesand skirts, make us shave our legs all the time, tell us the way we ‘should’ be.” Themanagement considered this “training” part of their “hygiene” curriculum.

Anastos’ partner Brandi Campbell is a transgender woman with a physical impairment.Anastos can’t travel through the city by himself and Campbell’s mobility impairment makes itvery difficult for her to walk. But to get their food stamps, they have to travel from StatenIsland, where they live with Anastos’ mother, to Brooklyn, an arduous trek negotiating the bus,the ferry, two subway lines and several sets of subway stairs.

“They have programs for the disabled, but they don’t know how to deal with transgenderpeople. And GLBT programs don’t know how to handle people with disabilities,” Campbellsaid. “But we’re told not to make waves, to keep our mouths shut,” Anastos added.

(I met with Anastos and Campbell in a Manhattan coffee shop last fall, wearing mytransgender advocate hat, to answer their questions about getting sex reassignment surgerycovered by Medicaid; in New York, as in the vast majority of states, Medicaid, like almost allprivate insurance plans, does not cover these procedures.)

This story is not just an account of two transgender individuals with physical andneurological impairments “falling between the cracks” of what’s left of the social welfaresystem. Anastos and Campbell’s predicament also brings into sharp relief the intersections ofdisability rights and LGTBQ rights, and the ways that disability studies and LGTBQ studies, tosome measure, might share some common theoretical bases and political projects.

In the disability rights movement and in disability studies, the distinction betweenimpairments and disability has been crucial. Disability studies scholar Lennard J. Davis pointsout in Bending Over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism & Other Difficult Positions that in the“social model” prevalent in the field, “disability is presented as a social and political problemthat turns an impairment into an oppression either by erecting barriers or by refusing to createbarrier-free environments (where barrier is used in a very general and metaphoric sense).”“Impairment” refers more to the physical “facts” of individuals’ bodies, though certainly the

role of medical discourses in constructing particular types ofbodies as pathological comes under heavy scrutiny. In movingaway from the “medical model” of disability, in which theproblem to be solved inheres in individual bodies, disability rightsactivists and disability studies scholars have located the problem insocial practices, discourses, institutions, and landscapes.

Much of the LGBT rights movement is geared toward findinga space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and, more recently, transgenderpeople, within the legal and social structures to which we’vehistorically been denied entrance, rather than challenging thestructures themselves—marriage is perhaps the most prominentexample at the moment. In a “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”age saturated with images of perfect queer bodies, questioningthe way the norms themselves reproduce the outsider status ofthose who fail to meet them seems to have dropped out of thepicture. For example, the fight for same-sex marriage doesn’t endthe state’s ability to be the legal arbiter of an individual’s sex; norwill same-sex marriage distribute rights and privileges to thosewho’ve created communities and ways of living outside ofmarriage-like arrangements.

Disability studies, and the disability rights movement that spawned this lively and importantinterdisciplinary field, reminds us that, as a movement, we need to continue to challenge notonly the historical heteronormativity of the social and legal landscape we find ourselves in, butalso the way those same structures are imbued with race, class, gender, and ableist privileges.

As the story of Anastos and Campell reminds us, queer rights and disability rights are notjust parallel, but intersectional. And the work of disability studies doesn’t just provide aconvenient analogy for those of us in queer studies—it also shows us how useful it might be toanalyze how different types of queer and impaired bodies and desires are cast as “abnormal”together. As queer disability rights activist Eli Clare writes in Exile and Pride: Disability, Queernessand Liberation, “my body has never been singular. Disability snarls into gender. Class wrapsaround race. Sexuality strains against abuse.”

The point of all this is to give you some idea of the work that CLAGS has been doing thisyear in our series, “Disability and Queerness: Centering the Outsider.” At the urging of disabilityrights activists Jim Davis and Anthony Trocchia, and under the leadership of CLAGS’s formerexecutive director, Alisa Solomon, CLAGS formed a committee of queer disability rights activists,disability studies scholars, and queer studies scholars and activists to develop this programming.This fall, we’ve seen some of the fruits of that work and the programming continues this spring:on March 29th, CLAGS and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU will host apedagogy workshop on teaching at the intersections of queer and disability studies with SimiLinton and David Serlin; on April 14th, we’ll have a panel, “Composing Birth Announcements:The Production of Hetero-Normative, ‘Healthy’ Babies,” addressing the effects of newreproductive technologies; and on May 12th, Santiago Solis will present his work, “Unzippingthe Monster Dick,” on ableist penile representations in homoerotic magazines. If you’re in theNew York area, I urge you to come out to these events; if you think you already know about thedisability rights movement and disability studies, and how they might intersect with queer livesand queer studies, think again.

This is just some of the innovative programming that we at CLAGS have been working onthis year, in addition to our on-going initiatives, including the International Resource Network,which, with the support of the Ford Foundation, will now be moving from the planning to therealization stage.

We’re also delighted to announce that the Feminist Press has just published, Queer Ideas: TheKessler Lectures in Lesbian & Gay Studies. The book includes the first ten lectures by Kesslerhonorees: Joan Nestle, Edmund White, Barbara Smith, Monique Wittig, EstherNewton, Samuel R. Delany, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, John D’Emilio, CherríeMoraga, and Judith Butler. Finally, you’ll be hearing more about Gayle Rubins’wonderful 2003 Kessler Lecture, “Geologies of Queer Studies: It’s Déjà Vu AllOver Again,” in our summer newsletter—stay tuned. ◆

PAISLEY CURRAHExecutive DirectorAssociate Professor of Political Science,Brooklyn College,CUNYMARTIN DUBERMANFounderDistinguished Professor of History,Lehman College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

CLAGS BOARD OF DIRECTORSDEBORAH P.AMORYDean and Director,Central New York Center,Empire State College, SUNYMARK BLASIUSProfessor of Political Science,The Graduate Center, CUNYLaGuardia Community College, CUNYLISA BOWLEGAssistant Professor of Psychology,University of Rhode IslandMICHAEL BRONSKIJournalist, Cultural CriticLISA BRUNDAGEPh.D.Candidate in English,The Graduate Center, CUNYKIM CHRISTENSENAssociate Professor of Economics andWomen ’s Studies, Purchase College,SUNYYVETTE CHRISTIANSËAssociate Professor of African American Literature,Fordham UniversityCAROLYN DINSHAWDirector,Center for the Study of Gender and SexualityProfessor of English, New York UniversityDAVID L.ENGAssociate Professor of English,Rutgers UniversityLICIA FIOL-MATTAAssociate Professor of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies,Lehman College, CUNYWILLIAM FISHERAssistant Professor of English,Lehman College,CUNYMARCIA M.GALLOPh.D.Candidate in History,The Graduate Center,CUNYDirector of Donor Programs and Development,The Funding ExchangeBEVERLY GREENEProfessor of Psychology,St.John ’s UniversityCertified Clinical PsychologistAMBER HOLLIBAUGHWriter, FilmmakerDirector of Education, Advocacy &Community Building,Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE)LUIS E. CÁRCAMO HUECHANTEAssistant Professor of Romance Languagesand Literatures, Harvard UniversitySONIA KATYALAssociate Professor of Law,Fordham Law SchoolDON KULICKProfessor of Anthropology,New York UniversityYOLANDA MARTÍNEZ-SAN MIGUELAssociate Professor of Romance Languages,University of PennsylvaniaLISA JEAN MOOREAssociate Professor of Sociology,College of Staten Island, CUNYWALTER (PETER)PENROSEPh.D.Candidate in History,The Graduate Center, CUNYGREGORY PFLUGFELDERAssociate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia UniversityJASBIR K.PUARAssistant Professor of Women’s Studiesand Geography, Rutger’s UniversityJOSÉ QUIROGAProfessor of Spanish, Emory UniversityROBERT FITZGERALD REID-PHARRProfessor of English, The Graduate Center,CUNYJOE ROLLINSAssistant Professor of Political Science,Queens College, CUNYDAVID SERLINAssistant Professor of History,Bard Early CollegeBEN.SIFUENTES-JÁUREGUIAssociate Professor of American Studies &Comparative Literature, Rutgers UniversityDEAN SPADEFounder, Sylvia Rivera Law ProjectCARMEN VAZQUEZDeputy Executive Director,Empire State Pride AgendaHIROKAZU YOSHIKAWAAssistant Professor of Psychology,New York UniversityELIZABETH ANNE YUKINSAssistant Professor of English,John Jay College,CUNY

CLAGS STAFFPRESTON BAUTISTA, CARLOS DECENA,SARA GANTER, LAVELLE PORTER, JORDANSCHILDCROUT

continued from page 1

Paisley Currah

CLAGS's 2003-2004 Kesslerhonoree, Gayle Rubin, mingleswith CLAGS members duringthe post-lecture reception.

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Respect and Equality:Transsexual and Transgender Rights

B Y S T E P H E N W H I T T L E

DISEMBODIED LAW: TRANS PEOPLE’S LEGAL (OUTER)SPACE1

Stephen Whittle was the2003 winner of CLAGS’sSylvia Rivera Award inTransgender Studies forhis book, Respect andEquality: Transsexualand Transgender Rights(London: CavendishPublishing, 2002). Thefollowing passages areexcerpted from the firstchapter.

continued on next page

T he problem of who I legally am in theworld I live in has been vexatiousthroughout my adult life. Like other

transsexual people worldwide, I face aninadequate legal framework in which to exist.Some of us live within states and nations thatrecognise the difficulties and attempt to provide aroute way through the morass of problems thatarise; others barely, if at all, even acknowledge ourbeing. We are simply ‘not’ within a world thatonly permits two sexes, only allows two forms ofgender role, identity or expression. Always fallingoutside of the ‘norm,’ our lives become less, ourhumanity is questioned, and our oppression islegitimised.

I have spent 28 out of my (to date) 47 yearsof life being known as Stephen. Prior to myadoption of the name Stephen, regardless of thename used for me by others, in my head, my daydreams and my plans for the future I referred tomyself as Peter—a name I did not retain onlybecause other people felt it was old fashioned. Ihave a beard, I wear a suit and tie to work - to notdo so would be considered inappropriate. Mypartner and I have four children whom we choseto have together and the children all refer to meas Daddy. My driving licence, passport, librarycard and video-club membership have only everreferred to me in the male gender. Yet mynational insurance pension scheme has only everreferred to me in the female gender; if I break thelaw I will go to a women’s prison and to cap it all,I will depart this life as Stephen Whittle, female.

I frequently face a dilemma in how I am torefer to myself in various settings. I am all tooaware that I am not like most other men. For astart, if I refer to myself as a man, am I claimingsome privileged position in the patriarchy? Iactually do not want to claim that position; I oftendo not feel very privileged having been dismissedfrom jobs in the past because of my otherness. Ihave received hate mail and been excluded fromsocial events both public and private. I find thefact that I cannot ensure my compulsoryemployment pension contributions are passedonto my partner of twenty five years standing, atbest, demeaning of our relationship, at worst, analmost criminal extortion of money from me.Where is my privilege?

Furthermore, I have a set of skills imbued inme as a child and teenager that other men simplydo not have. Apart from sewing and householdcleaning skills, I listen differently and I contributeto discussions differently. My childhood, like thatof many I suppose, was unhappy but the reasonsfor that unhappiness were considerably differentfrom those of most others. I know my attitude toother people and their lifestyles is one of almostexcessive tolerance, as long as it involves no harmto others. I simply do not function in life with thesame assumptions that other men are affordedthrough their upbringing and position ofprivilege.

In social and medical texts, my sort of manhas, over time, been referred to as a female urningand gynandrist (Krafft-Ebing, 1893), femaletranssexual (Stoller, 1975), and as a ‘woman whowants to become a man’ (Green, 1974). Morer e c e n t l y, the common descriptor applied to me isthat of ‘female to male transsexual.’ This is on thebasis that I was born with genitalia that areregarded as female yet have undergone a bilateralm a s t e c t o m y, take testosterone on a regular basisand I identify myself as male. Yet, am I a man? Iprefer to refer to myself as a trans man—my ownunderstanding is that I am a man who was bornfemale bodied and, as I explain to my children,when I was big enough and old enough I made itclear to other people that I really was a man and Igot it sorted out. This leaves me with a personallyacknowledged situation that I am a different sortof man; I am a trans man with a transsexual status.

With my status, a trans man, the UKgovernment, because I have undergone somesurgical gender reassignment, acquiesces to myrequest to be regarded as male (and not a man)for some social purposes but continues tomaintain that for legal purposes I will be regardedas a woman. They choose not to make my lifereally difficult by making international travel or adriving check embarrassing, but they refuse toallow me many of the privileges that the lawaffords other men. At their worse, they insist that Iam a woman.

It is difficult to explain what being a beardedwoman means to those who have neverexperienced that position. If I want to take out lifeinsurance, I am forced to sit in front of an

insurance broker who does not know mefrom Adam (or Eve for that matter) andexplain that I am a woman—which alwaysraises the eyebrows. I never ever want tolose my job because the idea of sitting inthe dole office waiting for the clerk toshout out ‘Miss Stephen Whittle to cubicle6’ makes me feel sick. I find it appallingthat one of my children might one dayhave to register my death and on theirreturn to collect the certificate will find Ihave been identified as Stephen Whittle,female, and that they will simply become‘friend of the deceased.’

The presumption that has beentaken by most academic writers in the areais that I, and people like me, aredemanding that we be legally recognisedin the gender role in which we live. I amnot sure if that is the case (though it maybe for some) and anyway, surely the role Ilive in is that of a trans man. I am willingto be a different sort of man, but I am notwilling to be a different sort of womanbecause I have never been a woman. Itransitioned into living as a man when Iwas 19 years old; therefore, as I oftenexplain, on that basis I never reached theexalted state of womanhood—myexperience was at most, that of being adifferent girl. But even if I was a girl, myexperience was significantly different fromthat of other girls, ask my sisters and theywill verify that. My life is different, it is theexperience of being a trans man, and assuch, discrimination has been perpetratedon me throughout my life in an entirelya r b i t r a ry manner. I have lost jobs notbecause I do not do them well but becausemy life history is that of a trans man. Mypartner is refused my pension not becausemy money is not good but because I havethe life history of a trans man.

Yet I am proud to be a trans man. Ihave surmounted great odds in life, I havehad the pleasure of experiencing life in avery unique way, I have learnt a lot abouttolerance and I have learnt a lot aboutbravery, hard work and commitment fromthe many other trans people I have met.Should it be so hard to be myself, to be atrans man, and the operative word in thatis ‘man’. This essay is in effect a plea tothe law. I want to be able to be a visibletrans man, to obtain my own identity andto be recognised as myself. But firstly, wemust try to understand exactly what istaking place in order to ascertain what wecan learn about the nature andconstruction of the legal culture, and thenature and construction of gender, initself, by studying the legal problems thattranspire because of the emergence oftranssexualism in our society.

LIVING IN OUTER SPACEFor Irigary (1977) to have an identity

which is not one's own, to be a sex whichis not one, is to be excluded from thefullness of being: it is to be left precisely ina condition of dereliction. One is excluded,therefore, from the social contract withinwhich men participate. A Rousseau'siandesign of the social contract inevitably failsbecause the abstract individual of liberaldemocratic theory is, as Patemen (1989)has shown, in fact a man. Irigary isreferring to women as women, womenwho never have their own identity—awoman's identity is defined through thesocial and cultural persona, they are insociety but not of society. And this couldbe seen as an echo of the women in law; awoman is objectified through interv e n-tionist law, she never is the law. As such,the egalitarian project of law is doomedthrough its own history, and the interv e n-tionist project in law is doomed through itsfurther objectification. Both deal in amythical equivalency.

The question then lies on whetherthere is any other form of project whichcan address the issue of the inadequacies ofsexed / gendered law. ... John Lockeasserted in relation to the law that the useof words is to be the sensible mark of ideas;and the ideas they stand for are theirproper and immediate signification (inDouzinas, Warrington, McVeigh 1991: 228)

Let us consider, then, the extent towhich the UK’s Road Traffic Offender’s Act1988 (RTOA) is a ‘sensible mark of ideas.’In the RTOA, it is a separate offence not toacknowledge, in court documents, a sexclassification for yourself. Does this thenrequire giving a legally correct classifi-cation or is the choice of sex yours, aslong as you give one? Do you have to givethe one that the court would recognise,and anyhow, do you know what systemthe court would use to recognise it?

If we consider the situation of theandrogen insensitive woman, I (andmedicine) refer to her as a woman, yet dowe know for the purposes of the lawwhether she is a woman, or whether she isa man. Is the classification the oneafforded on her birth certificate, i.e. basedon a cursory glance by a midwife to seewhether there is a penis or not? In otherwords, a process that simply assertswhether someone is a ‘man’ or a ‘notman.’ Or should the law follow the three-point test devised by Ormrod LJ in thecase of Corbett2? Her chromosomeswould be XY, her gonads would be un-descended testes, and her genitalia wouldinclude a vagina? In the civil law,therefore, if the court uses the balance of

probabilities test used for ascertainingevidential proof, I suspect she would befound to be a man on a 2:1 rule. Howeverin the criminal court if we were to have toprove her sex, say for an offence involvingsoliciting, would the evidential burden of‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ mean thatthe court would be left with no sex sitethat they could place this woman in?

As UK law currently stands thetranssexual man, if born in Britain, wouldbe legally classified as a woman for thepurposes of marriage3, the criminal law4,Social Security and National Insurancebenefits5, immigration6 and parenting7.For the purposes of employment he wouldbe afforded the special status of ‘womanwho is transsexual’,8 which simply meansa woman with special protection forhaving an identity peccadillo. If the transman were born outside of Britain then hisidentity in each of these areas of the lawwould be dependant upon the nationstate he was born in.9 Yet, the trans manwould be classified on his driving licence(through the codification system) as aman. If the trans man is required to givehis ‘sex’ to the court if he is facing adriving disqualification, presumably thepurpose of that disclosure is to ensure thatthe driving licence records of the correctperson are marked up. Should he say he isa man or male, or should he say he is awoman or female? What is therequirement of the law? It is no defence toa criminal act to argue that you had noknowledge of the law, or that you did notunderstand it. Where lies Locke's ‘sensiblemark of ideas,’ the logic of the law is trulyat times an ass. ◆

1. A version of this essay was published as“The Becoming Man : The Law’s AssSpeaks” in More K, Whittle S (eds) (1999)Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammarsat the Fin De Siecle, London: Cassell

2. Corbett v Corbett [1970] 2 All ER 333. ibid4. R v Tan and others [1983] 2 All ER 125. Sheffield v UK Government Applic. No

22985/93 (1993) E.C.H.R6. Horsham v UK Government Applic. No

23390/94 (1994) E.C.H.R7. X, Y and Z v UK Government [1997]

75/1995/581/667 E.C.H.R8. M v The Chief Constable of the West

Midlands Police (1996) 04/430/0649. For example; if born in Ontario in Canada

he would be a man for the purposes ofimmigration into Britain, yet he would bewoman for the purposes of marriage. (seethe comments earlier in this chapter on thecases of C(L) v C(C) (1992) and B. v A.(1990). If born in Holland he would be aman for all purposes except (probably) thecriminal law.

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N E W S F R O M C L A G S

Fellowship WinnersMonette-Horwitz Dissertation PrizePatty Kelly was awarded the 2003 Monette-Horwitz Prize forher dissertation, "Sex Work in the 'Other' Chiapas: Prostitution,Morality and Modernity in Urban Mexico." Kelly received a PhD inanthropology in October 2002 from the Graduate Center of theCity University of New York, currently holds a post-doctoralfellowship at Baruch College, CUNY, and just published achapter called "I Made Myself from Nothing: Women and SexWork in Urban Chiapas" in Women of Chiapas: Making History inTimes of Struggle and Hope (Christine Eber and Christine Koviceds. Routledge 2003). ◆

Sylvia Rivera Prize in Transgender StudiesStephen Whittle was the second annual recipient of CLAGS'sRivera Prize for his 2002 publication, Respect and Equality;Transsexual and Transgender Rights, excerpted on pg. 3 of thisissue of CLAGSnews. Whittle is the Reader in Law at ManchesterMetropolitan University, as well as Vice-President of Press For

Change, the UK's transgender lobby group. He also co-ordinatesthe FtM Network. In 2002 he received the Liberty/Justice HumanRights Award for 30 years of campaigning work for transgenderrights. He has published widely on transgender law and theory,including his forthcoming A Transgender Studies Reader (TaylorFrancis). ◆

New Board MemberCLAGS welcomes one new board member, who started his termwith us in September. Dean Spade is a trans attorney andactivist, and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, an organi-zation dedicated to ending poverty and gender identity discrimi-nation. Dean was the recipient of the Emil J. Stache PublicInterest Law Fellowship at UCLA for the years of 1998-2001,where he received his J.D. Dean's writing has appeared in theChicano-Latino Law Review, the Harvard Lesbian & Gay Review, andthe Berkeley Women's Law Journal. He is also co-editor of theonline activist journal, www.makezine.org and an active memberof Queers for Economic Justice. ◆

N E W S F R O M B E Y O N D

The Committee on LGBT Studies at the University of Arizona isin the midst of another busy and exciting year. In fall 2003, theCommittee presented the 11th annual Lesbian Looks Film andVideo Series, which brings cutting edge documentaries, experi-mental and narrative shorts and independent feature films to theTucson community. The Rockefeller-funded Sex, Race andGlobalization Project is hosting its 3rd pair of fabulous fellows:Ashley Tellis, who works on the formation of queer identitiesand activisms in the context of globalization in India, and LauraGutierrez, who is working on Unsettling Comforts: Sexualities inContemporary Mexicana and Chicana Performance. And they are gearing up for their annual SRG conference, this year on thetheme Queer Imaginaries, April 16-17. On the curricular front,they now offer, every semester, a freshman general educationcourse, "Interdisciplinary Approaches to LGBT Studies," regularlyoffer a graduate seminar in "Queer Theory," and are working withWomen's Studies to create an undergraduate LGBT Concentrationwithin the WS major. But the most exciting news is that it lookslikely that they will be approved to undertake a national searchfor a new coordinator. This will be an associate level position andwe are particularly interested in finding someone (in anyhumanities or social science field) with expertise in Chicana/o orBorder Studies. So keep your eyes open for the advertisements. ◆

At the University of Toronto, an undergraduate minor programin Sexual Diversity Studies was launched over four years ago,drawing on departmental offerings in the Social Science andHumanities but also on its own new interdisciplinary core of

courses. Its faculty leadership has come from, among others,David Rayside (Political Science), Maureen FitzGerald(Anthropology), Brian Pronger (Physical Education), Fadi Abou-Rihan (Philosophy), Mariana Valverde (Criminology),David Townsend (Medieval Studies), and Michael Cobb(English). It now has over 100 students enrolled in the programitself, and many more in its courses. It has become one of thehighest profile interdisciplinary programs in this very largeuniversity, and the most substantial program on sexuality inCanada. In 2004, SDS will be inaugurating an undergraduate major and a research centre, and in a few years anticipatesdeveloping and a collaborative M.A. and support programs forpost-doctoral studies. ◆

At Duke, once a hotbed of Queer studies, the field of sexualityhas been struggling and underfunded for years. But, inconjunction with a strong Women's Studies program (under thedirectorship of Robyn Wiegman) and active LGBT center(headed by Karen Krahulik), there is new push going on nowto revitalize the undergraduate certificate-giving program, theProgram in the Study of Sexualities, headed by its new director,Anne Allison. With funds for a half line (someone to teach twocourses each of three years starting in fall, 2004), the aim is tobuild this program, strengthen the scholarly interest anddynamism around sexualities (queer/global/cyber/activist/community) studies, and to make sexuality a safe/exciting spacefor study and research once again at Duke. ◆

Racismo, xenofobia, discriminación, homofobia, sexismo...son algunos de los nombres de laintolerancia. El miedo al otro, al diferente, al que tiene otro color de piel, otra religión, otraspreferencias sexuales... El otro se convierte en una amenaza ¿a qué? ¿A la propia identidad?

¿Existe algo así como “la propia identidad”? En un momento en que la intolerancia recibe el nombrede “guerra santa” o de “justicia infinita”, en que se toma a dios como bandera para justificar lasmayores atrocidades, en que estamos pagando las consecuencias de los delirios bélicos de unmegalómano metido a presidente, en que los “enemigos” son los que usan turbante o pasamontañas,los que hablan en lenguas "ininteligibles", pero también aquellas otras que "provocan" simplemente porser mujeres jóvenes en ciudad Juárez, y por supuesto los que amanecen sonriendo junto a alguien de supropio sexo ("Amanecí otra vez entre tus brazos...", canta José Alfredo, y arranca suspiros de todos loscolores); en un momento como éste es bueno volver a pensar sobre un tema como la tolerancia, y, sino me equivoco, ése es uno de los temas principales de este encuentro. Es bueno volver a asumirnoscomo militantes por la aceptación del otro no porque es igual a mí sino precisamente porque esdiferente; militantes por la celebración, entonces, de la diferencia y la heterogeneidad, pero no comoun canto pasteurizado (no tengo financiamiento de Benetton, aclaro), sino como modo de trabajarsobre las complejas aristas de lo diferente, de cuestionar y buscar desestructurar prejuicios y binarismosempobrecedores; hablamos de una celebración que sea consciente de que la diferencia no justifica lasdesigualdades: el hambre, la pobreza, el imposible acceso a un nivel mínimo de bienestar. Sabemos quemientras en algunos sitios - cada vez más, afortunadamente - ondea con orgullo la bandera del arcoiris, en muchos, muchísimos otros, lo obligado es el ocultamiento, el silencio, la hipocresía. "¡Ay, vozsecreta del amor oscuro!", escribió alguna vez Federico García Lorca.

Una vez más nos viene bien el más perfecto y breve cuento del mundo, “El dinosaurio” de TitoMonterroso: “Y cuando desperté el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí”. Y el dinosaurio en este caso no essolamente la opinión del Vaticano, que aún me sorprende que sorprenda cuando todos los díastenemos ejemplos de sus posturas retrógradas e intolerantes - quizás dentro de 500 años nos pidan unadisculpa -, sino todos los datos que nos sacuden cotidianamente. Vayan unos pocos ejemplos como

Historian Gabriela Cano (right), Professor at theUniversidad Autónoma-Metropolitana-Iztapalapaand one of the key organizers of the IRN LatinAmerican Meeting in Mexico City, introducedinfluential cultural critic Carlos Monsiváis asopening speaker. One of the most widely readcultural critics throughout the hemisphere,Monsiváis assessed the state of LGTBQ lives andinquiries in his "Chronicle on Queer Studies inLatin America." He emphasized that, althoughthe LGTBQ movement has received scantpublicity in the mainstream, it hasachieved—and continues to achieve—muchthroughout Latin America. For Monsiváis, queerscholarship needs to evaluate achievements in

Latin America. Apart from participating in the struggles for the recognition of queer sexualities, rights, and knowledges aslegitimate, Monsiváis outlined a diversity of areas for possible inquiry. These include the re-reading of canonical texts,historical-archival investigations of issues of gender and sexuality in the region, and local and regional manifestations of"queer globalizations" ranging from the incorporation of sexual orientation into human rights discourse to the circulation ofimages of gayness through mass media.

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Encuentro de CLAGS – Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana4 de agosto de 2003

Palabras de bienvenidaS A N D R A L O R E N Z A N O

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CLAGS Meeting—Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana4 August 2003

Welcoming RemarksS A N D R A L O R E N Z A N O

Racism, xenophobia, discrimination,homophobia, sexism…these are some ofthe names of intolerance. The fear of the

other, of the different, of the one who hasanother skin color, another religion, other sexualpreferences…The other becomes a threat, towhat? To one’s own identity? Is there somethinglike “one’s own identity?” In a moment whenintolerance receives the name of “holy war” or“infinite justice,” when god is waved as a flag tojustify the greatest atrocities, when we are payingthe consequences of the war fantasies of amegalomaniac playing president, when the“enemies” are those wearing turbans and “masks”(pasamontañas) those who speak “unintelligible”tongues, but also those who “provoke” simply forbeing young women in Ciudad Juárez, and ofcourse those who wake up next to someone oftheir same sex (“I woke up again between yourarms…,” sings José Alfredo, provoking sighs of allcolors); in a moment such as this it is good tothink again about a theme such as tolerance, and,if I am not mistaken, that is one of the mainthemes of this meeting. It is good to begin againto see ourselves as militants for the acceptance ofthe other not because that other and I are equalbut precisely because the other is different;militants for the celebration, then, of difference and heterogeneity, but not as a pasteurized tune (letme make clear that I am not financed by Benetton), but more as a way to work on the complexintersections of the different, a way to question and unpack prejudices and binaries that impoverishthought; I am talking of a celebration that is aware that difference does not justify inequalities: hunger,poverty, the impossible access to a minimum level of well being. We know that while in some places—more each time, fortunately—the rainbow flag proudly waves, in many, very many others, what iscompulsory is hiding, silence, hypocrisy. “Ay, secret voice of dark love!” Federico García Lorca wroteonce.

Once again it is useful to cite the most perfect and brief short story of the world, “The Dinosaur”of Tito Monterroso: “And when I woke up the dinosaur was still there.” And the dinosaur in this case isnot only the opinion of the Vatican, which I am always surprised to find surprises some when we getexamples of their retrograde and intolerant postures every day—maybe in 500 years they willapologize—but all of the information that overwhelms us daily. Here are some examples as tokens ofthe Latin American reality. (I talk about Latin America because it is what I know best, but we can findsimilar information about many other places in the world.)

The list is long and atrocious: assassinations, threats, persecutions, police raids, extortions, violenceof all kinds…In some countries, such as Nicaragua, homosexuality is penalized by law; in practically allcountries the police has a very wide and permissive margin to arrest homosexuals. Torture is, more

IRN Latin American Meeting Participants (l-r): JorgeBracamonte Allain (Peru), María Mercedes Gomez(Colombia/US), Juan Marco Vaggione (Argentina/US), andCésar Cigliutti (Argentina). The IRN Working Meeting inMexico City not only provided an occasion to discuss regionaland international exchanges, it also created such exchanges.Indeed, it was structurally designed to foster as muchdialogue and informal interaction among participants aspossible. Apart from the small working sessions and the brief"State of the Field" presentations, there was plenty of timeduring and between sessions for participants to get to knoweach other more informally, to learn more about each other's research interests and work, and to compare notes onthe conditions for the production of knowledge about genderand sexuality in their countries of origin.

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CLAGS has published, withthe Feminist Press, QueerIdeas: The Kessler Lectures inLesbian & Gay Studies. TheNYU series, "SexualCultures: New Directionsfrom the Center for Lesbianand Gay Studies," has justreleased Juana MaríaRodríguez’s Queer Latinidad:Identity Practices, DiscursiveSpaces. Other books in theseries include SamuelDelany’s Times Square Red,Times Square Blue, PhilipBrian Harper’s PrivateAffairs: Critical Ventures inthe Culture of SocialRelations, José Quiroga’sTropics of Desire:Interventions from QueerLatino America, MandyMerck’s In Your Face: 9Sexual Studies, Greg Forter’sMurdering Masculinities,María C. Sánchez and LindaSchlossberg’s Passing:Identity and Interpretation inSexuality, Race and Religion,Lauren Berlant and LisaDuggan’s Our Monica,Ourselves, Robert Reid-Pharr’s Black Gay Man,Juana María Rodríguez’sQueer Latinidad: IdentityPractices, Discursive Spaces,Janet Jakobsen and AnnPellegrini’s Love the Sin:Sexual Regulation and theLimits of Religious Tolerance,and The Queerest Art: Essayson Lesbian and Gay Theater,edited by Alisa Solomonand Framji Minwalla, andQueer Globalizations:Citizenship and the Afterlifeof Colonialism edited byArnaldo Cruz Malavé andMartin F. Manalansan IV.Forthcoming books includeBoricua Pop: Puerto Ricansand the Latinization ofAmerican Culture by FrancesNégron-Muntaner, Manningthe Race: Reforming BlackMen in the Jim Crow Era byMarlon Ross, In a QueerPlace and Time: Essays onGendered Embodiment byJudith Halberstam and WhyI Hate Abercrombie andFitch: Essays on Race andSexuality in the U.S. byDwight A. McBride.

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muestra de la realidad latinoamericana (hablo de América Latina porque es lo que conozco más, peropodemos encontrar información similar en muchos otros lugares del mundo).

La lista es larguísima y atroz: asesinatos, amenazas, persecuciones, razzias, extorsiones, violencia detodo tipo... En algunos países, como Nicaragua, la homosexualidad se encuentra penada por la ley; enprácticamente todos la policía tiene un amplísimo y permisivo margen para detener a loshomosexuales. La tortura es, más que tolerada, alentada, ni qué decir del desprecio y la negligenciacuando de estos casos se trata. La impunidad de las “fuerzas del orden” en su lucha por proteger las“buenas costumbres” como dijo alguno de nuestros alcaldes panistas, es absoluta.

En México, según la Comisión Ciudadana contra Crímenes de Odio por Homofobia, entre 1996 y1999 fueron asesinadas por esta causa 190 personas. Y aclara textualmente el informe de la Comisión,“la promoción de odio homofóbico provino básicamente de las autoridades”. Por supuesto, no puedodejar de recordar a los dos homosexuales asesinados a martillazos el mes pasado en la ciudad deNogales, Sonora.

El informe destaca que "cobran especial importancia las ejecuciones de adolescentes y jóvenes gayentre los 14 y los 20 años de edad". Muchos de nosotros trabajamos en las universidades con chicos deesa edad, me pregunto si no tenemos nada que decir al respecto.

“Con 35 asesinatos de homosexuales por año, México ocupa el segundo lugar, en cifras absolutas,de este tipo de crimen, seguido por Estados Unidos, con 25 muertos”. El primer lugar lo ocupa Brasil.En 2001 fueron asesinados en Brasil 132 homosexuales (88 gays, 41 travestis y 3 lesbianas). Cada tresdías es asesinado salvajemente un homosexual. Por supuesto, la mayor parte de estos asesinatos quedaimpune.

No olvidemos otros casos en nuestro continente como el sospechoso incendio de una discotecagay en Valparaíso hace un par de años, que dejó decenas de muertos, y que siguiendo el esquema queimpera en la región, aún no se ha aclarado.

Todo esto sin entrar en otro tipo de violencia como la censura, el silenciamiento, las exclusiones detodo tipo (como el alcalde de Aguascalientes que prohibía que a un balneario entraran “perros yhomosexuales”), y una larguísima lista de terribles etcéteras.

Es por todo esto que nuestro reto está en todos los campos: en la vida académica, en la cotidia-neidad, en los medios masivos, en la práctica política, en las relaciones familiares, en la convivencia connuestra pareja, en el activismo. Nuestro reto está en la reflexión y en la acción, sabiendo que a veces losdesniveles entre uno y otro ámbito son abismales. La vieja discusión acerca de la relación entre teoría ypraxis vuelve con bríos a la escena, y una vez más nos conmina a atenderla. El dinosaurio puede invadircualquier resquicio, y la mejor forma de percibir sus movimientos es siendo conscientes de lasdesigualdades que se dan entre los diversos espacios. Tenemos, por un lado, la posibilidad de discutir

conceptos como queer y queernes,de hablar de lo simbólico, de lasredes de poder, del falogocentrismo,del “cuerpo sin órganos”, de devenirdel deseo, del género comoperformance, etc. Tenemos yaprogramas de Gay and LesbianStudies, o la primera escuela para“diversos” en Nueva York; tenemos latranquilidad y la libertad que suelendarnos nuestros cubículos y nuestrosescritorios (aunque sabemos quetambién hay excepciones). Ytenemos, por otro lado, losasesinatos, la discriminación, laviolencia de género, la hipocresía, elocultamiento, los clósets cerrados contriple llave, el miedo que sólodesparece el día de la Marcha del

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In the last plenary of the two-day meeting, CLAGS's Alisa Solomon, alongwith Mexican anthropologist Patricia Ponce and Mexican literary scholarLucía Melgar, summarized discussions held in the small group sessions,moved the group toward consensus on the work that took place at theClaustro, and made time for all participants to air comments, questions andconcerns that had cropped up throughout the meeting. The meeting closedon an inspired note, as our two days had resulted in realistic workingprinciples for the IRN site, identified existing resources and resources thatmight be helpful to create, and connected a varied group of LGTBQresearchers.

This fall the CLAGSoffice donated over300 titles to theEdward CarpenterCollection of theCUNY GraduateCenter’s Mina ReesLibrary. You too canhelp build the LGTBQlibrary collection atthe CUNY GraduateCenter.

As a first priority,the library needshardback academicpress titles, partic-ularly in the socialsciences andhumanities. To avoiddonating duplicatecopies, check theCUNY+ online librarycatalog from thelibrary homepage athttp://library.gc.cuny.edu. Also, take a lookat the library’s giftpolicy, then downloadand fill out the donorform to bring to thelibrary. The library willmail you a letteracknowledging anditemizing yourdonation for your taxpurposes. The librarywill also add abookplate to yourdonated titles,identifying your gift aspart of the CLAGSlibrary campaign.

To discuss yourdonation or to makespecial arrangements,contact PollyThistlethwaite,Associate Librarian forPublic Services, atpthistlethwaite@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-7071. ◆

than tolerated, encouraged, let alone the scorn and negligence when dealing with these cases. Theimpunity of the “forces of order” in their struggle to protect “good manners,” as said by one of ourmayors from the Partido Acción Nacional (Party for National Action), is absolute.

In Mexico, according to the Citizen Commission Against Hate Crimes Because of Homophobia,between 1996 and 1999, there were 190 people assassinated for this cause. And the report of theCommission clarifies textually: “the promotion of homophobic hatred basically comes from theauthorities.” Of course, I cannot forget the two homosexuals killed by hammer blows last month in thecity of Nogales, Sonora.

The report underlines that “of particular importance are the executions of adolescents and younggay people between the ages of 14 and 20.” Many of us work in the universities with youth of theseages. I wonder if we do not have anything to say about the matter.

“With 35 assassinations of homosexuals per year, Mexico occupies the second place, in absolutenumbers, in this kind of crime, followed by the United States, with 25 persons assassinated.” Braziloccupies first place. In 2001, there were 132 assassinations of homosexuals in Brazil (88 gays, 41transvestites and 3 lesbians). Every three days a homosexual is assassinated savagely. Of course, there areno prosecutions in the majority of these assassinations.

Let us not forget other cases in our continent like the suspicious burning down of a gay disco inValparaíso two years ago, which produced dozens of deaths and that, following the pattern thatpredominates in the region, has not been clarified yet.

I offer all of these examples without even beginning to talk about other types of violence such ascensorship, silencing, exclusions of all types (like the mayor of Aguascalientes who prohibited theentrance to a spa of “dogs and homosexuals”), and a very long list of terrible et ceteras.

It is for all of this that our challenge lies in all areas: in academic life, in quotidian life, in the massmedia, in political practice, in family relations, in the daily sharing with our partners, in activism. Ourchallenge lies in reflection and action, knowing that sometimes the inequalities that separate one andthe other level are abysmal. The old discussion about the relationship between theory and praxis returnsto the scene with vigor and once again, it demands our attention. The dinosaur can invade any cornerand the best way to perceive its movements is being conscientious of the inequalities existing betweendiverse spaces. We have, on the one hand, the possibility of discussing concepts such as queer andqueerness, to talk about the symbolic, webs of power, phallogocentrism, of “bodies without organs,” ofthe becoming of desire, of gender as performances, etc. etc. We already have programs in Gay andLesbian Studies, or the first school for “diverse peoples” in New York; we have the peace and liberty thatour cubicles and desks often give us (although we know that there are exceptions to this too). And wehave, on the other hand, the assassinations, the discrimination, the gender-based violence, the hypocrisy,the hiding, the closets shut with triple key, the fear that only disappears the day of the Gay Pride March,the priests who call their followers to vote against the political parties who talk about homosexuals, thepriests who “love children.” Of course, seeing the landscape in this way may be too schematic, but oneof the challenges of groups like this one here today is to set those different realities in dialogue with oneanother. To learn from grassroots movements, from quotidian struggles, and if the freedom and the levelof tolerance earned in the academic realm or in some spaces of public life can not help us also thinkabout what happens on the other side, to denounce it, to try to push for the extension of the respect of

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International ResourceNetwork (IRN) RegionalMeeting group photo inMexico City. In August 2003,more than 50 researchers from14 countries convened at ElClaustro de Sor Juana (thenunnery that was home to thefamed 17th-Century poet SorJuana Inés de la Cruz) inMexico City for a workingmeeting to advance theInternational ResourceNetwork (IRN). Following upon inaugural discussions heldin New York City the previousNovember, participantsgathered to hash out pilotregional plans for web-basedcomponents of the IRN as wellas discuss how this virtualproject might facilitate face-to-face gatherings and jointprojects. This RegionalWorking Meeting, plannedand hosted by CLAGS, incollaboration with theUniversidad Autónoma-Metropolitana-Iztapalapa anda working committee of LatinAmerican researchers, wasattended by a vast majority ofparticipants from the region-Argentina, Brazil, Chile,Colombia, Cuba, DominicanRepublic, Mexico, Peru, PuertoRico, United States.Additionally, several researcherswho had attended theNovember meeting traveledfrom China, Korea, Poland,and South Africa to meet withtheir Latin Americancolleagues.

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Orgullo Gay, los curas que llaman a votar en contra de los partidos que hablan de los homosexuales,los curas que “aman la infancia”. Claro, el panorama visto así puede ser quizás demasiadoesquemático, pero uno de los retos de grupos como éste que hoy está aquí es precisamente poner endiálogo esas distintas realidades. Aprender de los movimientos de base, de la lucha cotidiana, y si lalibertad y el nivel de tolerancia ganados en el ámbito académico, o en ciertos escenarios de la vidapública, no nos sirven también para pensar qué pasa en el otro lado, para denunciarlo, para intentarque se extienda el respeto a la diversidad, a la alteridad, a la libre elección, a la defensa del cuerpocomo espacio de goce y creatividad, si no es así, todo lo que podamos teorizar o reflexionar, perdón,pero creo que no nos sirve para mucho.

Quisiera aprovechar este ratito para agradecerles a todos ustedes el que estén hoy aquí; agrade-cerles a los compañeros de CLAGS su iniciativa, su convocatoria, sus gestiones para que esta reuniónpudiera realizarse, en especial a Alisa Solomon, presidenta de CLAGS, y a la maravillosa Hilla Dayan,gracias a cuyo entusiasmo y eficiencia estoy segura de que nuestro encuentro será un éxito. Megustaría darle las gracias también, por supuesto, a Gabriela Cano, gran amiga y compañera deavatares en debate feminista y en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, institucióncoorganizadora de esta reunión. Aprovecho también para agradecerle a toda la gente de laUniversidad del Claustro de Sor Juana que ha puesto lo mejor de sí para que podamos trabajar estosdos días, en especial a su rectora Carmen Beatriz López-Portillo.

Y como los temas que nos interesan tienen también que ver con pieles y amores, con humores ypalabras, y dado que nos cobija este maravilloso espacio que habitara Sor Juana, una mujer que sabíabastante de discriminaciones e intolerancias, de prejuicios y sexismo, quiero terminar con uno de suspoemas amorosos, escrito a la condesa de Paredes. Mal que le pese a algunos sorjuanistas queprefieren la hagiografía por sobre la biografía, ya es tiempo, como dijo Antonio Alatorre en nuestroúltimo congreso, de sacar también a Juana Inés del closet.

Esta tarde, mi bien, cuando te hablaba,Como en tu rostro y tus acciones víaQue con palabras no te persuadía,Que el corazón me vieses deseaba.

Y amor, que mis intentos ayudaba,Venció lo que imposible parecía,Pues entre el llanto que el dolor vertíaEl corazón desecho destilaba.

Baste ya de rigores, mi bien, baste;No te atormenten más celos tiranos,Ni el vil recelo tu quietud contraste

Con sombras necias, con indicios vanos,Pues ya en líquido humos viste y tocasteMi corazón deshecho entre tus manos.

Sean ustedes muy bienvenidos. ◆

Sandra Lorenzano es Profesora-investigadora de la UniversidadAutónoma Metropolitana (México).

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IRN Latin American Pl e n a ry Session Pa rticipants (l-r): Licia Fi o l - Mata (Pu e rto Rico/US), Gabriela Ca n o

( Mexico), José Qu i roga (Cu b a / Pu e rto Rico/US), Ca rl o sC á c e res (Pe ru), Jacqueline Jiménez Po l a n c o( Dominican Republic) and César Ci g l i u t t i

( Argentina).

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diversity, of alterity, of free choice, to the defense of the body as a space of joy and creativity. If it is notlike this, all that we might theorize or reflect upon, sorry, but I do not think it is much use for anything.

I would like take this opportunity to thank all of you that you are here today; to express gratitudeto the colleagues at CLAGS for their initiative, their call for collaboration, their work to make sure thatthis meeting could take place, especially to Alisa Solomon, CLAGS’s Executive Director, and thewonderful Hilla Dayan. Thanks to Hilla’s enthusiasm and efficiency I am sure that our meeting will be asuccess. I would also like to thank also, of course, Gabriela Cano, great friend and colleague ofvicissitudes in debate feminista and at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, the co-organizing institution of this meeting. I also take advantage of this opportunity to thank all of thepeople at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, who have made their best effort to make itpossible for us to work these two days, especially Chancellor Carmen Beatriz López-Portillo.

And since the themes that interest us also have to do with skins and loves, with moods and words,and since we are sheltered under the marvelous space inhabited by Sor Juana, a woman who knew somuch about discriminations and intolerances, about prejudices and sexism, I would like to end byreading one of her love poems, written to the Countess of Paredes. Even though this may be hard forthe Sor Juana experts who prefer hagiography over biography, it is about time, as suggested byAntonio Alatorre in our last conference, to also bring Sor Juana out of the closet.

This afternoon, my darling, when we spoke,And in your face and gestures I could seeThat I was not persuading you with words,I wished you might look straight into my heart;

And Love, who was assisting my designs,Succeeded in what seemed impossible: For in the stream of tears which anguish loosedMy heart itself, dissolved, dropped slowly down.

Enough unkindness, now, my love, enough;Don’t let these tyrant jealousies torment youNor base suspicions shatter your repose

With foolish shadows, empty evidence:In liquid humor you have seen and touchedMy heart undone and passing through your hands.

Welcome! ◆

Sonnet translation by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell included in The Answer/La Respuesta. New York:The Feminist Press, 1994, 155.

Text translation by Carlos Ulises Decena.

Sandra Lorenzano is Professor-investigator at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (México).

Q-CUNY ListQ-CUNY is an electronicmailing list thatdeveloped from CLAGS’sfirst Queer CUNYConference, held in May2000. It was created tofoster communicationamong faculty, students,administrators and staff atthe City University ofNew York who areinvolved with—orinterested in—lesbian,gay, transgender, bisexual,or queer life and/orstudies at CUNY. So far,the list has been animportant point ofexchange for a number ofissues includingdiscussions of the QueerCUNY Conferences,notification of jobopenings, sharinginformation aboutLGTBQ course offeringsthroughout the CUNYcampuses, and organizingdiscussion groups aroundspecific topics. Tosubscribe, send a blankemail message to join-qcuny-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu.

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Spring 2004(TUESDAYS) FEB. 10, 17, MARCH 2, 9, 16All meetings will be from 7-9:30pm.

SEMINARS IN THE CITY:Histories of Activism In the spring of 2004, CLAGS will offer anexciting new Seminar in the City that we havebeen developing in collaboration with the AudreLorde Project (ALP). The Histories of ActivismSeminar will examine LGTBQ histories, currenttrends, the politics of the movement, andintersections (and perhaps divisions) withinbroader LGTBQ movements and struggles forracial, social, and economic justice. Themeetings will be facilitated by CLAGS's ownJasbir Puar and Sonia Katyal, along withALP's Rosamond S. King, through a series ofinteractive panel discussions, film screenings andp e rformances, and will also benefit from anumber of guest speakers—both local and outof town—who have been directly involved inorganizing LGTBQ communities of color.

Specific goals for our Histories of Activisminclude: developing an understanding of thebroad historical and cultural forces of the lastseveral decades that shaped—and in turn, wereshaped by—the organizing formations we havetoday; exploring the recent history of LGTBQactivism and organizing in the US, post-1950, bypeople of color and their allies; examiningspecific efforts within 1) mono-racial and multi-racial LGTBQ communities of color to developanalysis of commonalities and differences amongdifferent racial and ethnic communities; and 2)single-gender and multi-gender efforts; tracingthe development of some LGTBQ informalnetworks, organizations, and communities forpeople of color and examining the relationshipof these formations to queer liberation, AIDSactivism and racial justice struggles; Developingan understanding of coalition-building effortswithin LGTBQ people of color communities (andwith other communities); examining shiftstowards transnational and global organizatingespecially in relation to issues of human rights,human security, and the War on Te r r o r i s m ;looking specifically at queer youth of coloractivism and identifying key challenges andstrategies for the future.

The Histories of Activism Seminar is madepossible, in part, by a generous grant from theAndrew Goodman Foundation. Please checkwww.clags.org for updated information aboutthis Seminar. Contact the CLAGS office forregistration information.

All events in theGraduate Center arewheelchair accessible.Please contact theSecurity office at the Graduate Center at (212-817-777) for furtherdetails. X

CLAGS is committed toaccessibility for all partic-ipants at our events, sowe have a SCENT-FREEpolicy. We are also able toprovide ASL interpre-tation if it is requested atleast 10 working daysprior to an event. Pleasecontact the CLAGS officeat clags@gc.cuny.edu or,with a relay operator, at212-817-1955 to arrangefor ASL interpretation orwith any other questionsabout accessibility.

Our spring colloquiumseries is cosponsored byMetrosource Magazine.

All events at TheGraduate Center areco-sponsored byContinuing Education & Public Programs, TheGraduate Center, CUNY.

CLAGS COLLOQUIUMSERIES IN LGTBQSTUDIES: GRADUATESTUDENT COLLOQUIUMTUESDAY, FEB. 10, 7-9PMMy Bloody Valentine:Gay Love and Murder on the AmericanStageJordan Schildcrout,PhD Candidate inTheatre, Graduate Center,CUNY, Room 9204Co-sponsored by QUNY andMetrosource Magazine

THURSDAY, FEB. 19 7-9PMA Quest for a QueerNation: Claude McKay'sDiasporic Plots andPoliticsLinda Camarasana,PhD Candidate in English,Graduate Center, CUNY,Room 9207Co-sponsored by QUNY andMetrosource Magazine

THURSDAY, FEB. 267-9PMBeyond Shame: Putting(Radical) Sex Back intoHomosexuality

Speakers include JeffreyEscoffier, independentscholar and writer;Amber Hollibaugh,Senior Action in a GayEnvironment (SAGE);Patrick Moore,founding director of theEstate Project for Artistswith AIDS, and author ofBeyond Shame; AnnPellegrini, Religious Studies andPerformance Studies,New York University; andmoderator CarolynDinshaw, Center for theStudy of Gender andSexuality, New YorkUniversity.Graduate Center,Room C203/C204

THURSDAY, FEB. 26 6-8PM

THE GRADUATE CENTER DISTINGUISHEDLECTURER SERIESJudith Butler, MaxineElliot Professor,Departments of Rhetoricand ComparativeLiterature, University ofCalifornia at BerkeleyGraduate Center, RoomTBASponsored by the Center forthe Study of Women andSociety, co-sponsored byCLAGS, the Center for theHumanities, CUNY GraduateCenter, and the Center forthe Study of Gender andSexuality, NYU

MONDAY, MARCH 17-9PM

CLAGS COLLOQUIUMSERIES IN LGTBQSTUDIESLesbian Weddings inIndia: The Issues forHindu Marriage Law

Ruth Vanita, Professorof Liberal Studies &Women's Studies at theUniversity of Montana, and ACLS-SSRC-NEHfellow for 2003-04.Graduate Center,Room 9204

THURSDAY, MARCH 47-9PM

CLAGS COLLOQUIUMSERIES IN LGTBQSTUDIESLost Prophet / LostPolitics: TheRecuperation ofBayard RustinJohn D’Emilio, Directorof the Gender &Women’s Studies Programand Professor of Historyand Gender & Women’sStudies, University ofIllinois, ChicagoLocation TBA. Visitwww.clags.org forupdated location info.

MONDAY, MARCH 86:30-8:30PM

INSTITUTE OF TONGZHISTUDIESFemale Same-Sex Desire inModern China: The DiscourseOf Female Same-Sex Love InTwentieth-Century ChinaDr. Tze-Lan D. Sang,Associate Professor, Universityof Oregon, and author of TheEmerging LesbianGraduate Center, Martin E.Segal TheatreSponsored by the Institute forTongzhi Studies, co-sponsored byCLAGS and the Center of the Studyof Women and Society, CUNYGraduate Center

F R I D AY, MARCH 128 : 3 0 A M - 6 : 3 0 P M

Black Feminisms

Black Feminisms is an all-dayconference organized by TheAfricana Studies Group ofCUNY's Graduate Center. Whatis black feminism? What is itssignificance, and relevance, forthe new millennium? Thesequestions and more will beconsidered at this conference,which is free and open to thepublic. Keynote speaker A n nDucille, C h a i r, AfricanAmerican Studies/Director,Center for African AmericanStudies, Wesleyan University,and author of The CouplingConvention and Skin Tr a d e.Additional participants includeMeena Alexander, Tu z y l i n eAllen, Shelly Eversley, JaneM a rcus, Leith Mullings,Barbara Omolade, MicheleWallace, Barbara We b b , a n dm o r e .Graduate Center, ConcourseLevelPresented by the Graduate Center’sAfricana Studies Group. Co-sponsoredby CLAGS, the Institute for Researchon African Diaspora in the Americasand the Caribbean (IRADAC), andthe Center for the Study of Womenand Society, CUNY Graduate Center.

FRIDAY, MARCH 261:00-4:00PMFeminist Theories, FeministTeachingThis interdisciplinaryroundtable of theorists fromCUNY, NYU and other organi-zations will discuss feministtheories, histories and currentpractices.

Graduate Center, Rooms9204/9205Sponsored by the Center for theStudy of Women and Society, co-sponsored by CLAGS and the Centerfor the Humanities, CUNY GraduateCenter.

MONDAY, MARCH 297:00-9:00PM

LESSON PLANS: PEDAGOGYWORKSHOP ON TEACHINGGENDER AND SEXUALITYDisability Studies/QueerStudies in the Classroom

Lesson Plans is presented byCLAGS and CSGS to discussissues raised when teachinggender and sexuality in theclassroom. The workshop is freeand open to educators at alllevels. Reservations arerequired. To reserve space,contact CLAGS at212.817.1955 orclags@gc.cuny.edu.Facilitated by Simi Linton,President, Disability/Arts, andCo-Director of ColumbiaUniversity’s Seminar inDisability Studies; and DavidSerlin, Bard CollegeGraduate Center, RoomC204/C205Co-sponsored by the Center for theStudy of Gender and Sexuality atNYU and presented with thegenerous support of Joan R. Heller

WEDNESDAYAPRIL 14, 7-9PMDISABILITY AND QUEERNESS:CENTERING THE OUTSIDER Composing BirthAnnouncements: TheProduction of Hetero-Normative, "Healthy" Babies

The New Pre-Natal Genetic(PNG) Testing Technologiesavailable for detection of"disorders" are constantly beingreconfigured, enhanced andrefined. Combined withexisting ReproductiveTechnologies (IVF, IUI, EggDonation etc.), PNG tests aremarketed to certainreproductive age women withdeeply entrenched social andmoral imperatives attached.This panel of scholars,researchers and activistsexplore the terrain of newreproductive possibilities andtheir implications for thereproduction of healthy babies.

Participants include: KristenKarlberg, University ofCalifornia at San Francisco;Suzanne Kessler, PurchaseCollege, SUNY; moderator LisaJean Moore, College of StatenIsland, CUNY; and others TBA. Graduate Center, Room 9100

MONDAY, APRIL 26, 7-9PM

CLAGS COLLOQUIUM SERIESIN LGTBQ STUDIES:DUBERMAN FELLOWCOLLOQUIUMExpert Bodies: Regulating'Trans-sexuality' ThroughPublic Health

Ben Singer, DoctoralCandidate, Rutgers University,and 2002-2003 MartinDuberman FellowGraduate Center, Room 9207Cosponsored by MetrosourceMagazine

MONDAY, APRIL 266:30-8:30 PM

INSTITUTE OF TONGZHISTUDIESQueer Citizenship, An EthicalExploration: A Reading Of20th-Century ChineseLiterature And CommunitiesIn Hong Kong, Taiwan AndChina.Tai-Wei Chi, PhD. candidate,Comparative Literature, UCLA;columnist, awarding-winningcritic and journalist with UnitedDaily News, Chinatimes andmore.Graduate Center, RoomsC201/202Sponsored by the Institute forTongzhi Studies, co-sponsored byCLAGS and the Center of the Studyof Women and Society, CUNYGraduate Center

SATURDAY, MAY 1QUEER CUNY VCelebrating the GlobalRainbow CLAGS's Fifth Annual QueerCUNY Conference will focus itsworkshops and plenary sessionson the impact of internationalLGTBQ Studies at CUNY. Theday will include campusreports, roundtables andworkshops, and conclude witha keynote address. As always,the post-conference receptionwill offer the opportunity tomeet and mingle with fellowCUNYstudents, faculty, and

administration who areinterested in or pursuingLGTBQ scholarship. Check theCLAGS website for the day'sitinerary, confirmed speakers,and directions to this student-organized conference.LaGuardia Community College,Rooms TBASponsored by CLAGS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 127-9PMCLAGS COLLOQUIUM SERIES IN LGTBQ STUDIESUnzipping the Monster Dick:Deconstructing Ableist PenileRepresentations in Two EthnicHomoerotic Magazines

Santiago Solis, Doctoralstudent in Learning Dis/abilities(LD) at Teachers College,Columbia University.Graduate Center, Room C205Cosponsored by MetrosourceMagazine

SUBMISSION DEADLINES SATURDAY, MAY 15CLAGS's Student Travel Awardand Paul Monette-RogerHorowitz Dissertation Prize

TUESDAY, JUNE 1CLAGS's UndergraduateStudent Paper Award,Graduate Student PaperAward, and The Sylvia RiveraAward in Transgender Studies All entries must be postmarkedby this date or received (ifbeing sent electronically) in theCLAGS Office by this time.

MONDAY JUNE 286:30-8:30PM INSTITUTE OF TONGZHISTUDIESPublishing Tongzhi: BuildingQueer Text In TaiwanHuei-Chiu Chuang,Awarding-winning writer andpublisher, PSYGARDEN, TaiwanGraduate Center, Rooms9204/9205Sponsored by the Institute forTongzhi Studies, co-sponsored byCLAGS and the Center of the Studyof Women and Society, CUNYGraduate Center

Many of us avidly follow her work,cite her in our own, and crowdher lectures. But how do we

convey the ideas of Judith Butler that wefind so compelling to our students?Judging by the large turnout—about 80people on a windswept rainy Novembernight—to a pedagogy workshop hostedby CLAGS and the Center for the Study ofGender and Sexuality at NYU a lot ofpeople want to know. The guestspeakers, Robert Reid-Pharr, Professor ofEnglish at the Graduate Center, CUNY,and Jami Weinstein, Visiting Instructor ofWomen’s Studies at Vassar College, laidout very different approaches to teachingthe texts and ideas of Judith Butler.

Reid-Pharr, in fact, doesn’t teachButler’s texts in his classes. Instead, hechooses to focus on her theoretical contri-butions through the reading other texts.Reid-Pharr said that when he agreed toco-lead this workshop, “I thought it madesense for me to ask people whom I tookto be absolutely in the know about suchmatters how it is that they actually teachJudith Butler.” His queries were met,however, with a great wall of shouldershrugging.

“I did discover one thing that I takeas primary and essential here,” Reid-Pharrcontinued. “Many perfectly competent

teachers have a fair amount of anxietywhen it comes to the matter of how toaddress Butler’s work in the classroom, ananxiety that I suspect is not altogetherdistinct from the general anxiety thatmany of feel when teaching theory andespecially that even more daunting entity,philosophy.”

In teaching Butler’s ideas, Reid-Pharrsuggested, “we ought to pay attention tothe fact that our own celebration ofButler’s work and by extension our owncelebration of the work of a variety of themost significant of contemporarytheorists, queer or otherwise, may havehad the effect of actually de-familiarizingus from that same work, of making itseem much more opaque, difficult and

impenetrable than it actually is.” Reid-Pharr suggested that, given the currentstate of what he euphemistically calls“Butler Studies,” “it is probablyworthwhile for us to return to basics, as itwere, to actually ask ourselves, what wasit about this work, work that many, if notmost, of us encountered as studentsourselves, that initially caused so many ofus to celebrate it and to turn the name,Butler, into a sort of holy, high theorytalisman.”

“I would say an almost continualfailing among practitioners of queertheory then, both inside and outside theclassroom is that though we genuflecttoward the gauntlet that Butler hasthrown down, though we praise it, strokeit, announce it as our own, most often wedon’t actually pick it up.” Instead, Reid-Pharr concluded, “queer teaching might,in fact, involve undercutting the verynorms and standards that allow many ofus to announce ourselves as queerteachers and indeed might initiate apolitics within the classroom for which weare by definition ill-prepared. I would sayto you then that the great difficulty ofreading and teaching Butler is thatprecisely by turning her into a sort ofqueer icon, of sorts, we ultimately workto short-circuit the most radical andindeed frightening of her insights.”

Weinstein, who is trained as aphilosopher, takes a very differentapproach to teaching Butler. Sheregularly includes Butler’s texts in hercourses, despite the challenges, and there

JamiWeinstein(left) andRobert Reid-Pharr discussstrategies forteaching theworks ofJudith Butlerat CLAGS'sfall 2003PedagogyWorkshop.

Teaching Judith ButlerB Y M E L Y N D A C R A I G

The next pedagogy workshop, DisabilityStudies/Queer Studies in the Classroom, ison Monday, March 29, 7-9pm at theGraduate Center.

continued on page 23

ENGL. 75600 - Ralph Ellison, Folklore & ModernismGC: M, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Michele Wallace,[62289]

ENGL. 75700 –Samuel Delany and His TimesGC: W, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Room TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Robert Reid-Pharr[62286]

ENGL. 78100 -The History of Black SexualityGC: R 2:00-4:00 p.m., Room TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Robert Reid-Pharr[62665] [Cross listed with WSCP 81000]

ENGL. 82300 - Paradise Lost/Romantic ReincarnationsGC: W, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Joseph Wittreich,[62273]

ENGL. 83200 - Restoration & 18th Century Women WritersGC: M, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Carrie Hintz, [62274] Cross listed with WSCP 81000.

FSCP. 81000 - Magical Realism/Film Global PerspectiveGC: W, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Jerry Carlson, [62621]

MALS. 72200 - Contemporary Feminist ThoughtGC: Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Profs. Ellen Goldner and Catherine Lavender[62342]

P SC. 83508 - Citizen Part/Community OrganizationGC: T, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 4 credits, Prof. Marilyn Gittell, [62404]

P SC. 82602 - America as EmpireGC: M, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 4 credits, Prof. Ruth O'Brien, [62398]

PSYC. 80103 - Health Gays/Lesbians/BisexualsGC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Margaret Rosario,[62574]

SOC. 80000 - Trauma, Time & Social TheoryGC: T, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Patricia Clough, [62504] Cross listed with WSCP 81000

SOC. 83100 - Social Construction of IllnessGC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Barbara Katz Rothman,[62516]Cross listed with WSCP 81000.

SOC. 83100 - Sociology of DisabilitiesGC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. David Goode, [62515]

THEA. 81500 - Gay & Lesbian Experimental FilmGC: T, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Sarah Schulman,[62061]

THEA. 81500 - Seminar in Film TheoryGC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. William Boddy, [62059] Cross listed with ART 89500

Interdisciplinary Concentration in Lesbian and Gay/Queer Studies Spring 2004

Prof. Alisa Solomon, Coordinator (212.817.1955)

Interdisciplinary Concentration inLesbian and Gay/Queer Studies

T he Graduate Center offers an InterdisciplinaryConcentration in Lesbian and Gay/Queer Studies, arapidly growing, multidisciplinary enterprise whose goal

is the study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender peopleand their histories and cultures, as well as the study ofsexuality and its role in the deployment of cultural and socialpower. Lesbian and Gay Studies is a system of inquiry thatexamines the roles of same-sex desire across and amongcultures and histories. Queer Studies views sexuality not as astable category of identification or as merely a series ofphysical acts, but sees desire itself as a cultural constructionthat is central to the institutionalization and normalization ofcertain practices and discourses that organize social relationsand hierarchies. Together, the two constitute a field whosebest work often weaves together both types of analysis.

Interdisciplinary Concentrations were instituted torecognize that the development of knowledge crossestraditional departmental boundaries and that inter-disciplinarystudy constitutes a sound and stimulating approach toscholarship. Students fulfilling one of the existing doctoralprograms can fashion a specialization in LG/Q Studies with theguidance of the Interdisciplinary Studies Committee and underthe supervision of specialists within these areas.

Requirements: Students are required to be matriculated in oneof the Graduate Center’s established doctoral programs andmust take the core class, Introduction to Lesbian andGay/Queer Studies, as well as three electives within theConcentration’s course lists.

Further inquiries about the Concentration in Lesbian andGay/Queer Studies should be directed to 212-817-1955. ◆

17

Fall ColloquiuaThis fall, the CLAGS Colloquium Series in LGTBQ Studies featured speakers presenting exciting new

research in a range of disciplines--history, law, communication, and rhetorical studies. SandraFaulkner of Syracuse University summarized her initial conclusions from her interview based

research on how LGTB Jewish Americans manage multiple identities, and raised important questionsabout the methodologies and ethics involved in carrying out this research. San Francisco independenthistorian Susan Stryker showed rough cuts from her film, "Screaming Queens: The Compton's CafeteriaRiot of 1966," and argued--to a New York audience--thatthis San Francisco uprising, which predated the StonewallRebellion by three years, has been too long overlookedby LGBT historians. Toni Lester, from Babson College,centered her presentation on intersectionality and thepedagogical challenges it raises, and evaluated differentapproaches to teaching about race, gender, class, andsexuality: the "mosaic" one identity per lecture method, amore layered method integrating two axes of difference;and what Lester calls the "Toni Morrison" approach,bypassing altogether discussion of dominant culturalformations, such as whiteness, to focus specifically andconcretely on minority communities. Finally, RutgersUniversity's Kathryn Greene discussed her on-going largeresearch project exploring how gender and sexualorientation affect safer sex decisions and disclosure of HIVdiagnosis, and talked about some of the censorship she

has encounteredin trying to get"offensivelanguage" fromthe interviewsshe conductedpublished inprofessionalacademicjournals. ◆

Toni Lester, Associate Professor and JohnsonReseach Chair at Babson College, presentsher fall colloquium The Importance andChallenges of Writing AboutIntersectionality: A Discussion of GenderNonconformity, Race and Sexuality:Charting the Connections.

In celebration of Humanities Month in October, and inconjunction with our Bad Law and Centering Disabilityprogramming, CLAGS hosted a special half-day public program that

looked at the broad cultural and social impact, for good and ill, oflegislation and case law that end up defining such terms as 'family'and 'disability' in LGTBQ contexts. Like all civil rights movements,LGTBQ communities press for laws and use the courts to advancetheir access to rights. Yet in ways that extend far beyond the narrowrealm of jurisprudence into the culture and society at large, theconsequences even of victories are often as unexpected and troublingas they are productive. Historians, cultural critics, and legal scholarsdebated these issues in two focused panels, pictured below. ◆

Legal Disabilities panelists (l-r) Dean Spade, Lennard J. Davis and BeverlyGreene.

CLAGS's Queer Family Law panelists (l-r): Roddrick Colvin,Paula Ettelbrick, Darren Hutchinson and moderator Ann Cammett.

CLAGS kicked off our initial year of Disabilityand Queerness: Centering the Outsiderprogramming on September 22nd with an

evening celebrating the release of DesiringDisability, a special issue of GLQ on disability andDisability Studies, and Haworth Press'sforthcoming Queer Crips, a collection of essays andstories by disabled gay men. The event gathered avariety of voices speaking about the intersectionsbetween sexuality and disability as identities, aswell as Queer Studies and Disability Studies asdisciplines and intellectual enterprises. Aroundtable of speakers was supplemented by thescreening of Carmelo Gonzalez, Ted Hinojosa, andDiana Naftal’s video, One Night Sit, which exploresthe subtle and explicit ableism disabled gay menface in queer communities, particularly aroundsexuality and dating.

The opening roundtable represented animpressive array of perspectives on sexuality anddisability. Several of our participants wereinvolved in Desiring Disability or Queer Crips: RobertMcRuer of George Washington University, was oneof the editors of the GLQ issue, and MichaelDavidson, University of California San Diego,contributed an essay; poet/filmmaker/Deaf activistRaymond Luczak and Kenny Fries, the poet anddisability rights activist whose groundbreakingmemoir Body, Remember has recently beenreissued, appear in Queer Crips. The panel alsoincluded CUNY Law Professor Ruthann Robson,who has written extensively on lesbians and thelaw, and most recently about her own experience

as a dyke with cancer, and was moderated by me.The panel provided the audience with a rich

and textured sense of the conversations already inplay between and among queer/disabled people,and the possibilities of interconnections betweenthe often overlapping fields of Queer Studies andDisability Studies, as well as the discontinuities andcultural specificities of both sexuality and disabilityas categories of identity. Kenny Fries’s commentson his experiences living in Japan provided astriking contrast to U.S. models of identity andself-definition. Given the low birthrate, a highpercentage of the Japanese population is agingand in need of disability accommodation. Japan’srecent history, particularly in terms of marginalizedgroups, is very different from that of the U.S., evenas accommodation is becoming an increasinglyimportant part of rethinking design for disabledJapanese. Ruthann Robson discussed a differentprocess of recontextualization: using the lessonsshe had learned from being a lesbian in relation toa diagnosis of terminal cancer. Her experiences ofresisting authoritative narratives, challengingexpert opinion, and forging a community out ofadversity were, she commented, literally life-savingwhen it came to working out a way to survive.

Gonzalez, Hinojosa, and Naftal’s One NightSit was an eye-opening analysis of the struggles ofdisabled men within the gay community. With asly wink to the obstacles many disabled gay menface even in the pursuit of a “one night stand,”the creators of the video challenged the ableismabsorbed by much of gay male culture, partic-ularly in choosing sexual partners. The meninterviewed for the video spoke honestly and oftenpainfully about the masculine body ideal theyfound prevalent among gay men that so oftenrelegated disabled men to the role of second-classqueers. After the screening, Gonzalez and Naftalled a spirited discussion of the issues the filmraised, particularly the ways in which non-disabledpeople, queer and not, infantilize and desexualizepeople with disabilities.

It would be hard to imagine a moreengaging and thought-provoking kick-off to theDisability and Queerness series. Many thanks toKim Christensen, Jim Davis, Amber Hollibaugh,Simi Linton, Peter Penrose, David Serlin, AlisaSolomon, and Becca Widom for organizing suchan exciting evening.

Sarah Chinn is Assistant Professor of English at HunterCollege, CUNY, and is currently a resident fellow atthe Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center,CUNY.

18

TRANSOC-LCLAGS has created anew listserv for thosedoing research ontransgender or intersexsubjects in the socialsciences. This listprovides a venue forscholars (academic andindependent, includingadvanced graduatestudents) who areengaged in, or havecompleted, substantialresearch projects ontransgender, intersex,genderqueer identities,practices, socialmovements, etc. in thesocial sciences. Listmembers help provideideas, resources, andfeedback in thefollowing areas, thoughthis list is not exclusive:interacting ethicallywith transgender andintersex communities;getting through humansubjects review; figuringout questions of names,nomenclature, identity,practices, communities;getting advice onreaching out to transand intersexcommunities; findingout what type ofresearch is most neededby advocates andactivists; and learninghow to make thatresearch availableto trans andintersexcommunities. Ifyou are interestedin joining thislist, send amessage toPaisley Currah<pcurrah@brooklyn.cuny.edu>introducingyourself andbriefly describingyour researchproject.◆

Panel discussants at CLAGS's September ClaimingDisability: New Work at the Intersection of LGTBQand Disability Studies event: (l-r) moderator SarahChinn, Raymond Luczak, Kenny Fries, Robert McRuer,Michael Davidson, and Ruthann Robson.

C L A G S L a u n c h e s

Disability/Queerness Programming

B Y S A R A H E . C H I N N

19

Q U E E R Z A G R E B

Z V O N I M I R D O B R O V I C

Queer Zagreb is an international festival that took place for the first timein Croatia from April 25-30, 2003. It presented an extensive programwhich included theater, dance, film and visual art, as well as a

symposium of papers from around the globe focused on queer sexuality, artand activism. It was a pioneer event of its kind in post-communist Europe, andwas presented throughout the city in some of Zagreb's most establishedvenues. The festival's main goal was to use art, activism and theory as a catalystto raise awareness about and visibility for queer people, all the whilequestioning heteronormativity. These goals were achieved with more than 150articles in Croatian newspapers and over five hours of TV and radio coveragededicated to the festival. Queer people in the region now have a public voiceand identity and are developing mechanisms and programs to further aregional queer rights movement. Since the end of Queer Zagreb, portions ofthe original festival program have toured to other towns around Croatiaincluding Rijeka, Opatija, Osijek, Pula, Tabor and Vis.

Queer Zagreb 2004 will take place April 23-30, 2004 and will focus onmusic and film. It will present such artists as The London Gay SymphonyOrchestra (UK), John Kelly (USA), Tribe 8 (USA), London, Paris and Berlin clubscenes, as well as numerous other artists and activists from China, Spain, CzechRepublic, Serbia, Slovenia, Moldova, Bosnia and Macedonia. We are alsoputting together an extensive program dedicated to gay skinheads with overten films on the subject, and will have visiting filmmakers and skinheads fromaround Europe to participate in the post-screening discussions. In its regularfilm program, the festival will screen over twenty of the most recent featurefilms as well as approximately fifty shorts and documentaries from around theworld. We are also producing and commissioning local artists and their workand presenting it in the festival program. Additional events, which will showparts of the original Zagreb program, are Queer Rijeka (April 28-May 1, 2004)and Queer Osijek (May 7-9, 2004).

In 2005, Queer Zagreb will be dedicated to examining heteronormativityamong youth and children since they are the last line of defence of hetero-sexist society. This means they usually cannot hear or see anything positiveabout queers in the environment in which they spend most time (schools orkindergartens). Therefore, the festival will try to look into different ways thatchildren are “protected” from queer “influence.” Queer Zagreb 2005 will puttogether a program of interest to youth and children which focuses onquestioning heteronormalcy. Again, we are doing this in cooperation withresponsible government institutions in order to reach a wider population aswell as education and youth programs decision makers.

One of the bigger projects we are developing at the moment is theestablishment of queer studies as an additional field of research for universitystudents in Zagreb, as well as for civil society activists. The focus of the studieswill be construction and deconstruction of norms (hetero and homo alike). Thepilot project should begin in 2005, with a few prior visiting lectures.

Queer Zagreb is a project very much dedicated to strengthenig local andregional initiatives and is collaborating with almost all organizations in the areaon achieving this goal. Further information on our program and plans can befound at www.queerzagreb.org and we can be contacted atqueerzagreb@email.hinet.hr ◆

Zvonimir Dobrovic is Program Director of Queer Zagreb.

Queering theCrip/Cripping the Queer

B E T H K L I N G

What does it mean to reclaim the

terms “queer,” “crip,” or “freak” as

signifiers of personal identity? How

have sexuality and disability changed meaning

over time? How do images of queer and

disabled sexuality differ? These were some of

the questions explored in CLAGS’s Fall 2003

Seminars in the City series, Queering the

Crip/Cripping the Queer: Introduction to Queer

and Disability Studies.In monthly meetings at the LGBT

Community Center, participants explored thesimilarities, differences, intersections, andconflicts between Queer Studies and DisabilityStudies. The series began with a presentationby Simi Linton of Hunter College, whose book,Claiming Disability, was the first assigned text.Other reading assignments included Eli Clare’sExile and Pride and Fleischer and Zames’ TheDisability Rights Movement: From Charity toConfrontation, in addition to shorter readings byqueer and disabled scholars and activists.

Led by Sarah Chinn of Hunter College,and CLAGS Board members Kim Christensen ofPurchase College, and Peter Penrose of theGraduate Center, the semester-long seminarwas open to academics, activists, and interestedcommunity members free of charge. Contactthe CLAGS office for information on futureofferings in its Seminars in the City series. ◆

Beth Kling is a freelance writer who lives inBrooklyn.

20

PAUL MONETTE-ROGER HORWITZ DISSERTATION PRIZEThis award, which honors the memories of Monette, a poet and author, and his partner, Horwitz, anattorney, will be given for the best dissertation in LGTBQ Studies, broadly defined, by a PhDcandidate within the City University of New York system. The dissertation should have been defendedwithin the 2003-2004 academic year. Adjudicated by CLAGS's Fellowships Committee.Award: $1000Deadline: May 15, 2004

SYLVIA RIVERA AWARD IN TRANSGENDER STUDIESThis award, which honors the memory of Rivera, a transgender activist, will be given for the bestbook or article to appear in transgender studies this year (from May 2003 to June 2004). Adjudicatedby CLAGS's Fellowships Committee. Award: $1000Deadline: June 1, 2004

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PAPER AWARDThe Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies sponsors a student paper competition open to allundergraduate students enrolled in the CUNY or SUNY system. A cash prize will be awarded to thebest paper written in a CUNY or SUNY undergraduate class on any topic related to gay, lesbian,bisexual, queer, or transgender experiences. Essays should be between 12 and 30 pages, wellthought-out, and fully realized. Award: $250Deadline: June 1, 2004

GRADUATE STUDENT PAPER AWARDThe Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies sponsors a student paper competition open to all graduatestudents enrolled in the CUNY system. A cash prize will be awarded to the best paper written in aCUNY graduate class on any topic related to gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, or transgenderexperiences. Papers should be between 15 and 50 pages and of publishable quality.Award: $250Deadline: June 1, 2004

STUDENT TRAVEL AWARDThe Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies sponsors a student travel award open to all graduatestudents enrolled in the CUNY system. A cash prize will be awarded to a student presenting subjectmatter that addresses gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, or transgender issues in their respective field.Presentations can be for conferences held in the U.S. or abroad.Award: $250Deadline: June 1, 2004 and November 15, 2004

THE MARTIN DUBERMAN FELLOWSHIPAn endowed fellowship named for CLAGS’s founder and first executive director, Martin Duberman,this fellowship is open to applicants from any country doing scholarly research on the lesbian/gay/transgender/ bisexual/queer (LGTBQ) experience. University affiliation is not necessary, but theapplicant must be able to show a prior contribution to the field of LGTBQ studies. Adjudicated by thefellowships committee of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. The winner of the fellowship maybe asked to participate in CLAGS's Colloquium Series the following academic year to present his/herresearch project. Award: $7,500Deadline: November 15, 2004

THE JOAN HELLER-DIANE BERNARD FELLOWSHIP IN LESBIAN AND GAYSTUDIESThis fellowship supports research into the impact of lesbians and/or gay men on U.S. society andculture. It is open to researchers both inside and outside the academy and is adjudicated by the JoanHeller-Diane Bernard Fellowship committee in conjunction with CLAGS. The winner may be asked toparticipate in CLAGS's colloquium series the following academic year to present her/his researchproject. Scholars conducting research on lesbians are especially encouraged to apply.Award: Two awards each in the amount of $5,000 Deadline: November 15, 2004

Please check CLAGS’s website, www.clags.org, in August 2004 for any updates to the fellowshipsguidelines, requirements, or procedures, or contact the CLAGS office (clags@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-1955). ◆

Fellowshipand AwardGuidelines

2004

GenderSexStudies ListGendersexstudies-l is anelectronic mailing listsponsored by CLAGSdesigned to enhancecommunication amongteachers and scholarsdedicated to the study ofgender and sexuality. Inaddition to being aconduit of informationabout conferences, callsfor papers, job listing,etc., one of its purposesis to facilitate timelyresponses to attacks onthe study of gender andsexuality in the academy.To subscribe, send amessage to majordomo@brooklyn. cuny.edu withsubscribe gendersexs-tudies-l in the body ofthe message. ◆

21

C o m ra d e s P ro m o t e To n g z h i S t u d i e s

IRN-l: InternationalResource NetworkListservCLAGS is pleased toannounce the creation ofour very own InternationalResource Network emaillistserv. This email list isintended to foster LGTBQnetworks around the worldby creating a space forscholars and researchers topost messages forupcoming conferences andevents, notify other listmembers of available jobopportunities in the field,discuss current news itemsfor local and globalLGTBQ communities,and more.

To subscribe, pleasesend a blank email to join-irn-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu. You will receivea response email requestingyou to confirm your IRN-llistserv subscription, whichwill be followed withinstructions on postingmessages andunsubscribing. ◆

M A I K I A N G

As reported in the Summer 2003 issue of CLAGSnews, our organization has teamed up with the Institute forTongzhi Studies (ITS) and, just last fall, helped to bring in a number of scholars and researchers from abroadto share their work on LGTBQ Studies with people in the New York area. In hopes of providing a wider pictureof ITS’s efforts and the ways in which they intersect with CLAGS’s work, we include here a report on theirbackground and recent activities.

The Institute for Tongzhi Studies (ITS) is an academic research and exchange program led by

Chinese speaking educators and researchers. Housed at the Graduate Center of the City University

of New York, ITS is a joint project of the Center for Women and Society and the Center for

Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS). The Institute seeks to scrutinize layers of discriminating social

attitudes, cultural assumptions, and public policies against sexual minorities in China and in Chinese

communities around the world. Through education, research, and exchange, ITS coordinates with

institutions with shared values in order to build a body of scholarly work to further the study of gender

and sexuality in Chinese societies."Tongzhi" literally means “comrade,” or “people who cherish similar aspirations.” This term was

first used in 1890s by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen to describe his followers, and was based on his three democraticprinciples for a new China: "Freedom, Equality, Compassion." Later, Chinese communists re-interpretedthe term to label their revolutionary compatriots. Even more recently, the expression “tongzhi” wasadopted by a Hong Kong gay activist in 1989 to portray same-sex desire in a positive light. Thetraditional term “tongxing lian” (homosexuals) was purposely rejected by activists because of its strongassociation with a medical term denoting transgression and pathology. “Tongzhi" has now become thepreferred and empowered homegrown phrase for self-identifying Chinese gays and lesbians worldwide.In no time, “tongzhi” was also adopted by expansive and diverse communities of sexual minorities thatare united in the challenging traditional definitions of gender and sexuality, and the norms attached tothem, including Chinese lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, queers (LGBTQ) and manyothers.

Funded by a two-year grant from Ford Foundation, ITS’s tongzhi lecture series is designed to createdialogues between scholars, educators, students, and artists. As an emerging area of academicexploration, the field of "Tongzhi Studies" not only aims to record and describe communities, histories,identity theories, and social activism unique to Chinese culture, it also aspires to open new ground andprovoke dialogues on issues of gender/sexuality/same-sex desires interpreted locally in a global context.

Since fall of 2003, ITS hosted three key speakers from this nascent field: Professor Cui Zi En, aleading queer activist, independent media artist and film scholar from the Beijing Film Academy, whopresented "Filtered Voices: Queer Artistic Production In Today's China”; Dr. Li Yin He, Professor ofSociology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Ching-ning Wang, Ph.D. candidate inSociology at the City University of New York, who presented "Tongzhi, Internet, And Homosexuality InContemporary China." A number of spring 2004 events have already been scheduled, and are listed inCLAGS’s calendar of events on page 13.

For additional information about the work of ITS, please contact info@tongzhistudies.org or visitwww.tongzhistudies.org. ◆

Mai Kiang co-chairs ITS with Wan Yan Hai. She is currently working as a film librarian at New York Universityand has previously served on organizing, programming, and fundraising committees for New York area grassrootsorganizations, such as Asian Lesbian of the East Coast, New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and TaiwanWomen.

22

Dean’s ListDiane Bernard and Joan HellerJohn D'EmilioJack DrescherMartin Duberman and Eli ZalFred EychanerKatherine FrankeJames C. HormelDavid KesslerIvor KraftC. Richard MathewsLoring McAlpinNancy and Peter RabinowitzJohn Silberman and Elliot Carlen Joseph A. Wittreich, Jr.

Honor RollDeborah AmoryStuart AnthonyAndrew Austin and Michael SonbergPaola BacchettaEleanor BatchelderDavid BeckerEdith Benkov and Holly RansomMark BlasiusMark BlechnerGail MellowMichael BronskiRichard BrownLuis E. Cárcamo-HuechanteJulian CarterElizabeth CastelliSarah ChinnDouglas CrimpPaisley CurrahKate DavyMuriel DimenMichael DivelySusan Donnelly and Jennifer LeviLisa DugganDavid EngAnne EnkePaula Ettelbrick and Suzanne GoldbergWilliam FisherDavid FletcherDiana FussMarcia GalloDara GoldmanDeborah GouldLarry Gross and Scott TuckerArnold GrossmanJeffrey Guss and Robert ElliottBert HansenEllis HansonPatrick HennesseySharon HollandJames HolmesNan HunterSuzanne IasenzaJanice IrvineDaniel J. JacobsonJanet JakobsenDrew JonesMiranda JosephCarol KaplanIrene Kleinberg

Steven Kruger and Glenn BurgerBurt LazarinArthur LeonardLesbian and Gay Law Association Foundation of

Greater New York, Inc. (LeGaL)Andrew LondonJoseph Lovett and Jim CottrellJohn David Macey, Jr.Elena MartinezRobert McCullough, Jr.Tom McLoughlinBob and Roberta MeyersJudith MilhousJohn Miller and Robert BixlerWeston MillikenShannon MinterVirginia Ramey MollenkottSylvia MolloyFred Moten and Laura HarrisEsther NewtonAnn NorthropAnn PellegriniDavid Roman and Richard MeyerEverett RowsonAriel RuizTheo SandfortJim Saslow and Steven GoldsteinDavid Serlin and Brian SelznickDanny SextonPamela SheingornSue ShapiroAlisa Solomon and Marilyn Kleinberg NeimarkThomas SpearArthur SpearsBarbara StarrettEdward SteinMarc Stein and Jorge OlivaresEddie TawilLynne WeikartJohn Weis and Larry IannottiFrances WhiteRobyn WiegmanHenry YeagerJim ZebroskiLucinda ZoeWilliam Zwart and David Berchenbriter

Foundation and Institutional SupportersThe Astraea FoundationThe Calamus FoundationThe City University of New YorkThe Office of New York State Senator Tom DuaneThe Ford FoundationThe Office of New York State Assemblymember

Deborah Glick The Andrew Goodman FoundationThe New York Council for the HumanitiesThe Office of New York City Councilmember

Christine QuinnThe Paul Rapoport FoundationThe Rockefeller FoundationUnited Way of New York

CLAGS 2003SupportersSo many organizations

and individuals make

vital contributions to the

Center for Lesbian and

Gay Studies. It is

through their generosity

that CLAGS is able to

fulfill its mission of

improving the

understanding of lesbian,

gay, transgender,

bisexual, and queer lives.

We'd like to take this

opportunity to thank our

major donors and institu-

tional members.

CLAGSnews is publishedtwice a year by theCenter for Lesbian andGay Studies at theCUNY Graduate Center.All submissions relatedto the study of gay,lesbian, transgender,and bisexualexperiences arewelcome. Please addressall inquiries toCLAGSnews, TheGraduate Center, TheCity University of NewYork, Room 7.115, NewYork, NY 10016.Phone: 212.817.1955clags@gc.cuny.edu

CLAGS NEWSSara GanterPaisley CurraheditorsPreston Bautistadesigner

are many, according toWeinstein: the vocabulary,epistemology, and ontology canbe tough; the terms andcatch phrases they’ve heard,“gender is performative,”“repetition,” “citation,” aren’teasily digested on the firstpass; Butler draws on manysources the students won’thave read, especially studentswho aren’t philosophy majors.

While getting past theseintellectual barriers can bedifficult, according toWeinstein, the aim forinstructors should be to adopta clear, jargon-free approachto teaching Butler’s work.Weinstein offered theaudience a variety of concreteteaching suggestions. In herwomen’s studies classes,Weinstein teaches“Performative Acts andGender Constitution”; in hermore advanced queer theoryclasses, she uses “Imitationand Gender Insubordination.”Weinstein even provided theaudience with a diagrammaticrepresentation (see pg. 15)that she developed to explainperformative and expressivemodels of gender to herstudents.

For Weinstein, Butler’s workcan be transformative forstudents, potentially changingthe ways students think aboutthe fixity of their identities andgender, and possibly unsettlingthem as well. “It can rock theirworld, they might need supportfrom you.” As for teachingresources, she recommendedthe documentary SouthernComfort as a great film toenhance discussions aboutButler’s work, and also referredaudience members to DeanSpade’s article “MutilatingGender” (available on the webat http://www. makezine.org/trans.html).

Melynda Craig is a doctoral studentin the Department of Psychology atthe University of Rhode Island.

CLAGS’S BASIC MEMBERSHIPReceive CLAGSnews and be the first to know about exciting upcoming events.■ $10 Student/Limited Income ■ $35 Individual ■ $50 Household/Institution

HONOR ROLLThe above as well as free admission to all CLAGS conferences, an invitation to the annual Kessler lecture, and theoption of having your name listed in the conference programs, website and biannual newsletter.

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■ $500 The above plus a CLAGS publication. Please specify:

DEAN’S LISTAll of the above as well as a personal CLAGS library, which includes a copy of each publication now availablefrom the Sexual Culture Series.■ $1000 ■ $5,000 ■ I’d like to make a contribution to fellowships for $________.

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CREDIT CARD #: EXP. DATEPlease send donations to: Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, The Graduate Center of The City University ofNew York, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 7115, New York, NY 10016-4309

CLAGS is poised At CLAGS’s midway point of our 2003-2004 year, things look promising: our new ExecutiveD i r e c t o r, Paisley Currah, is well in the mix of his new post, creating new events and programs, pursuing newfunding opportunities, and bringing a new perspective to our organization. During the first half of this year,

our programming has showcased fresh perspectives on issues of the moment. Our "Bad Law" series has exploredthe implications of Lawrence v. Te x a s and how queer families are recognized, or not, by the law. And our on-going

"Claiming Disabilitiy" programming has presented new work at theintersections of Disability Studies and LGTBQ Studies in a variety of forums,including a Seminar In The City. And, among other things, our InternationalR e s o u rce Network is reaching out to—and has already convened—scholarsaround the world to discuss local and global politics of the LGTBQ movement,both within and outside of the academy. To make all of these things possible in2003-2004, and to ensure our organization’s vitality in coming year, CLAGSlooks towards its members to help ensure our work continues.

While our programs and projects push forward our organization has, attimes, had to rely more heavily upon the enthusiasm and volunteer labor of ourBoard of Directors and our members, and less upon available money to fundexpenses such as travel costs for getting speakers to our events; ensuring thatfresh and relevant articles are contributed to our newsletter and website;maintaining funds for our much-needed fellowships and awards programs, sothat a graduate student can get to a conference to present LGTBQ work andthat an undergraduate can be rewarded for pursuing LGTBQ Studies in his orher work; the less dazzling but vitally important costs of postage to mail ournewsletters and events and fellowship notices; and the very office supplies thathelp keep our small staff able to perform their jobs.

Indeed, this year has been a particularly difficult one, with budget cutswithin the Graduate Center, where CLAGS makes its home; with city and statebudget cuts, which include some governmental sources that help fund ourwork; and in an economy that continues with a sluggishness detrimental tononprofits and the foundations that fund their work. In the face of thesechallenges, CLAGS is relying upon our members’ support more than ever. Weurge you to support our efforts in the coming year by filling out the formb e l o w, including a donation to the extent that you are able, and mailing it toour offices. And, as a new component to our membership program, CLAGS isnow able to accept donations via credit cards, so that giving is easier to dothan ever. Your donation—even if it is in the amount of $10—will support all ofour organization’s necessities, including those listed above, and allow our workto continue. If you believe in the creation and dissemination of LGTBQscholarship for our communities, now is the time to support CLAGS.◆

CLAGS has published, with theFeminist Press, Queer Ideas: TheKessler Lectures in Lesbian & GayStudies. The NYU series, "SexualCultures: New Directions from theCenter for Lesbian and GayStudies," has just released JuanaMaría Rodríguez’s Queer Latinidad:Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces.Other books in the series includeSamuel Delany’s Times Square Red,Times Square Blue, Philip BrianHarper’s Private Affairs: CriticalVentures in the Culture of SocialRelations, José Quiroga’s Tropics ofDesire: Interventions from QueerLatino America, Mandy Merck’s InYour Face: 9 Sexual Studies, GregForter’s Murdering Masculinities,María C. Sánchez and LindaSchlossberg’s Passing: Identity andInterpretation in Sexuality, Race andReligion, Lauren Berlant and LisaDuggan’s Our Monica, Ourselves,Robert Reid-Pharr’s Black Gay Man,Juana María Rodríguez’s QueerLatinidad: Identity Practices,Discursive Spaces, Janet Jakobsenand Ann Pellegrini’s Love the Sin:Sexual Regulation and the Limits ofReligious Tolerance, and TheQueerest Art: Essays on Lesbian andGay Theater, edited by AlisaSolomon and Framji Minwalla, andQueer Globalizations: Citizenshipand the Afterlife of Colonialismedited by Arnaldo Cruz Malavéand Martin F. Manalansan IV.

continued from page 15

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