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Media Post 2
Beyond the national administration’s blatant transgender discrimination over the past year, several state legislatures are currently working to impede transgender rights. Voters in Anchorage, Alaska will soon decide whether to pass Proposition 1 (http://sos.mt.gov/Portals/142/Elections/archives/2010s/2018/I-183.pdf?dt=1502668800034), which would amend an earlier nondiscrimination accordance and dictate bathroom according to sex rather than gender identity. Massachusetts, Montana, Iowa, and Kentucky are other states that may be facing similar legislation later this year (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/02/transgender-rights-targeted-nationwide-ballot-measures-bathroom-bills/). #TransRightsAreHumanRights #BathroomBill #LGBTQdiscrimination #LGBTQexperiencesUSA
Instagram Post – Marsha P. Johnson and NYU Protests (Event)
This picture is from an event the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) hosted to protest the prohibition by the school of two dances for LGBTQ+ folk. On the left is Marsha P. Johnson, handing out flyers in support of queer students at NYU. She and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) focused specifically on trans students because they knew the GAA wouldn’t. This picture is especially powerful to me because it recognizes and legitimizes the place trans women played in the gay rights movement. (STAR First Pamphlet, 1970)
Instagram Post 2
Gus Kentowrthy, Adam Rippon, and Brittany Bowe are making history by being the first out queer athletes to represent the United States at the Winter Olympics. All three athletes are providing role models for other LGBTQ+ athletes at every level of athletics. Something to consider, however, is how few out athletes they are and how only recently these athletes have felt comfortable enough to share parts of their identities with the world. It begs the question as to why gay athletes might not feel comfortable being themselves. How can the USOC use Kentworthy, Rippon, and Bowe to show that all athletes are welcome to participate in the Olympics?
Gus Kenworthy stars in Head & Shoulders advert [Digital image]. (2108, January 22). Retrieved February 12, 2018, from https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gus-kenworthy-celebrates-place-us-olympics-team-starring-gay-ad/#gs.NpDJD2M
Instagram Post 2
Memories of when I was working at Lincoln Center in NYC a year ago with my love, @oanabotez. “Bull in a China Shop” was inspired by Mary Woolley’s and Jeannette Marks’ letter and relationship.
Mary Woolley was a woman’s suffragette supporter and served as the president of Mount Holyoke College. Nationally, she worked with President Hoover and F.D.R. on topics like women’s rights, pacifism, and the League of Nations. Most notably, she was appointed by Hoover to serve as one of the very few women (if not the only) at the Conference on Reduction and Limitation of Armaments to hopefully 
counteract Nazi Germany. During all of this time, there was an exchange of letters between her and her partner, Jeanette Marks, which are some of the most beautiful writings I’ve read (https://transcribe.mtholyoke.edu/collections/show/1). LGBTQ+ individuals have always been present in society, you just have to find them. (I also met Gloria Steinem so that was cool too.) #LGBTQexperiencesUSA #LGBT #suffrage #lincolncenter #bullinachinashop #theater #nyc #teamcostumes #feminism
Instagram Post 2: Pulse Shooting (event)
It’s hard to believe that the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida took place less than two years ago on June 12, 2016. While this tragedy is most certainly a part of the LGBTQ+ movements recent history, it is no less important. This event shook the LGBTQ+ community with the 49 individuals that were shot and killed that night. This event took place during a Latino Night hosted by Pulse, further highlighting the increased difficulties for minority LGBTQ+ individuals. This event was truly heartbreaking and we remember the 49 individuals that lost their lives to hate.
Image retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/US/hours-body-camera-footage-orlando-nightclub-shooting-released/story?id=47753356
Instagram Post 2 – Out Magazine
For my post this week, I decided to focus on the publication Out Magazine. Out Magazine is the highest circulating LGBT publication within the United States. It was created in 1992. I wanted to focus on the issue that came out in January 2017, which was titled “A Moonlight Revolution: The Black Queer Experience Comes of Age in America” and was about the experiences that Queer Black people face in the U.S. as well as correlating with the film Moonlight that is about a Gay Black man navigating his sexuality within the Black community. I believe that this magazine has published a lot of issues that help to show many of the topics that we have discussed in class and the many that we will discuss later on, which is why I chose it.
Instagram Post 2: Pepe, “Untitled”
This sculpture (“untitled”) was on display at the Queering Space exhibition at Alfred University School of Art and Design. The exhibition displayed several pieces by queer artists and was centered on the question of “what is a queer perspective and how does queerness meet form?”
I was intrigued by the fact that the piece took something natural and revered as pure—a tree—and reconstructed it out of something at first thought of as #disgusting and #impure —fingernails. Of course, fingernails are not inherently disgusting, considering everyone has them, but there is a social taboo on them when not attached to the fingers themselves. This seemed very relevant to the #queer experience: like the fingernails, queer people are often cast aside as disgusting. But that doesn’t necessarily mean our #existence is any less beautiful, much like the resulting tree.
Pepe, Sheila. “Untitled.” 1998, hydrocal, wire, plastic finger nails. Queering Space at Alfred University. 2 Feb.–28 Mar. 2018, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, School of Art and Design, Alfred University, Alfred.
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