Author: CB

Throughout our course we have touched on the two-spirit identity in native American culture. The video that we watched, “Chrystos speaks at Creating Change 2011,” provided an interesting outlook on how two-spirits have been treated by the native American people. Contrary to the colonial ideas brought in from Europe, Native Americans embraced two-spirits. Chrystos said that in native American culture, two-spirits were held in high esteem and used as moderators between men and women. I chose this image for my final instagram post because I felt as though we did not spend too much time in class talking about two-spirits and LGBTQ experiences in native American culture.

 

“Squaw Jim / Osh-Tish (Finds Them and Kills Them), Crow Tribe. On the Left Is Squaw Jim, a Biological Male in Woman’s Attire, His Wife to the Right. Afforded Distinctive Social and Ceremonial Status within the Tribe. Squaw Jim Served as a Scout at Fort Keogh and Earned a Reputation for Bravery after Saving the Life of a Fellow Tribesman in the Battle of the Rosebud, June 17, 1876.” Indian Country Today, 7 Sept. 2017, indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/opinions/two-spirits-one-heart-five-genders/.

For my exhibition piece I am displaying the manifesto “The Woman Identified Woman” because I feel as though it offers an interesting insight into lesbian feminism in the 1970’s. In the manifesto, Radicalesbians describes how women should be defined separately from men. One of the main reasons why I chose this text for both this instagram post and for my exhibition piece is because I read a text called “Le Deuxieme Sexe” by Simone de Beauvoir in my French class last semester which discussed a very similar topic. I was curious about how the topic of the definition of women had been discussed on many different platforms as well as across the world. Although it was written significantly earlier than “The Woman Identified Woman,” the text talks about similar aspects about the definition of women needing to be separate from the definition of men

Woman Identified Woman: Radical Lesbians. n.d. TS Lesbian Herstory Archives: Subject Files: Part 6: Spinsters- Youth Folder No.:15230. Lesbian Herstory Archives. Archives of Sexuality & Gender, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/63tTY2. Accessed 28 Feb. 2018.

This image is a broadway poster for the musical RENT which first played on broadway in 1996. RENT tells the story of a group of friends, most of whom are living with AIDS,  in New York at the end of the 1980’s. This image is interesting to me because I watched the movie adaptation of RENT several years ago and it was the first time that I had heard about AIDS. RENT showed me that AIDS can be contracted by anyone, not just gay men. It also showed me the effects of AIDS, both for those who have it and for the people who surround those people.

One of the biggest pieces of information that interested me and surprised me while watching MAJOR! was how a lot of the women believed that if they had been given the love and support that they wanted form their parents, they would not have ended up living on the streets. This information came after the printed fact that “one in five transgender respondents experienced homelessness at some point in their lives as the result of discrimination or family rejection” (MAJOR! 24:43). Tumeka Godwin recounted the story of how she was kicked out of the house when she was 18 and was not allowed to come back unless she presented herself as a man to the public. She explicitly states that if her parents had loved her the way she was, she probably would not have done the nefarious things that she described. The lack of love and support of family members, which is often thought to be unconditional, is clearly a big problem in the trans community.

The film left we wondering about how many other untold stories existed out there that we would never be able to hear about, simply because they were the stories of less privileged people. At this point in the course, we have heard about Miss Major, Marsha Johnson, and Silvia Rivera. For me, these have all been names that I had not heard about before this course, despite having some knowledge about LGBTQ+ history in the United States. These stories did get told, but I know that there are countless other warriors who fought for LGBTQ+ rights who’s stories won’t ever get told.

I found this poster interesting because you wouldn’t know what it is for unless you took a closer look at it. It also relates back to the topics of intersectionality that we have been discussing in class as it is aimed specifically at Native Americans. The poster, which is presented by the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board has the following quote written in the small text: “The greatest risk of AIDS spreading to Native Americans  isn’t sex, IV drugs or alcohol abuse.  It’s from silence.” This quote proves how important it is for people to talk about AIDS and to be knowledgeable about AIDS so that they can better protect themselves and prevent the spread of AIDS.

Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board. “Shhhh!”. 1989. New Mexico, USA. http://aep.lib.rochester.edu/node/40905. Accessed 20 February 2018.

The objects that were present at my table were a collection of articles that contained information about lesbians during the history of Rochester. One of the articles that I read was written in the campus times for the University of Rochester. The piece was deeply personal as the author reflected on her  experience as a lesbian at the University of Rochester at the time when the Gay Liberation Front was founded. She spoke about how she knew of some other lesbians because of word of mouth and that she had been hoping to find more at the GLF meetings but was unsuccessful because the majority of people at the meetings were always men. One of her biggest points, however, was that the reason that she had been unable to meet other lesbians was because they were all afraid to come out for some reason or another.  This fear stemmed from the fact that  they might not be accepted for who they were and was perpetrated, in some ways, by the lack of a group to represent them specifically.

The first part of the article that I read talked about how women didn’t show up to GLF meetings, possibly because they did not feel included in the meetings. One of the explanations for this exclusion could simply be in the naming of the group. By using the term “gay” as opposed to some all-encompassing term (LGBTQ+, queer, etc) the Gay Liberation Front could have made anyone who did not identify as “gay” feel as though they were not welcomed. This is an example of one of the simplest forms of exclusion that I have found throughout my life: using the term “gay” as an encompassing term for the LGBTQ+ community.  In my personal experience, my high school had a Gay Straight Alliance my freshman through junior years. Although it never prevented me from going to meetings, the fact that I was not represented in the name of a group that I felt as though I belonged in could have made me feel as though I was not supposed to be a part of that group. My senior year, the Gay Straight Alliance changed its name to the Gender and Sexuality Alliance. Because of this change, myself and other people who did not identify as gay could feel as though they were really represented by the group.

One of the biggest surprises that I found when reading about the Stonewall riots was the requirement for there to be a perfect culmination of characteristics in order for the event to leave a lasting impact on the Gay Liberation Movement. Armstrong and Crage show that for an event to be influential it needs to be commemorative, mnemonic, resonant, and it must have “potential for institutionalism” (727). After reading the paper, this “perfect storm,” so to speak, of characteristics required for commemoration make sense. They explain why the Stonewall riots, as opposed to any of the countless other riots that occurred, are now viewed as the turning point in the history of Gay Liberation. In contrast to other riots, the participants of the Stonewall riots included both members of more marginalized groups in the LGBT community (such as poor trans women of color) as well as more privileged groups (such as affluent white gay men). The participation of the privileged groups allowed for broader media coverage and induced more outrage than the marginalized groups would have induced alone. Because of this, however, it is understandable, yet still inexcusable, as to why the more marginalized rioters, despite having a greater impact on the outcome of the riots, have been left out of the history of the Stonewall riots.

Before the readings, I only knew that Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were part of the Stonewall Riots. I did not know how greatly they impacted the outcomes of the riots until after I had finished the readings. Marsha Johnson was a poor black trans woman who lived on the streets and found ways to make money as a sex worker (Rivera, 6). Although she failed to gain recognition for it, Johnson was a large contributing factor to the Stonewall riots. Johnson believed that the trans community had to work for themselves in order to improve their own situation. Her suggestion to other trans people living in areas without the support of STAR was to create a STAR branch themselves because “if transvestites don’t stand up for themselves, nobody else is going to stand up for transvestites” (Rivera, 28). Johnson knew this because she had lived through it. Despite being a pivotal participant in the Stonewall riots, Marsha Johnson and all trans people, were removed from bills that would advance their cause because the members of the gay community believed that their bill would pass more easily if they left out the trans community. Johnson knew that even the gay community would not always look out for the members of the trans community so the trans community had to look out for themselves.

There were two things in the documentary Shoulders to Stand On that really stood out to me. The first is that the city of Rochester was one of the cities at the forefront of the gay rights movement that took place in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Gay Liberation Front held events such as picnics and dances that provided a space for queer men and women to be themselves and to meet other people going through similar situations. Further, the city of Rochester public radio station also had what could have been the first station in the United States where both gay men and lesbian women could talk about and be public with their sexuality. The second thing that I learned from the documentary was that the University of Rochester was the place where the Gay Liberation Front started. The movement was started by University students and extended to the city community. I was happy to hear that, at least for the most part, the GLF had the support of the institution, allowing them to host meetings on campus and even a allowing them to host an on-campus dance. These two things made me proud to be a student at the University of Rochester and a citizen, at least for four years, of the city of Rochester.

 

I was able to find the date of the ‘Perversity to Diversity’ article fairly quickly with the help of Google. In order to filter out most of the searches I used quotations around the title to find web pages with the exact title as opposed to pages that contained the words in the title. With this result the first item that came up was a PDF titled “1991_APRIL,” a clear giveaway of the date the article was written. To confirm, I scrolled to the second page of the PDF where the date was inscribed at the top of the page. From the article itself I was able to pick up some clues about the date that it was published. The article mentions the AIDS epidemic and it shows how controversial contraception was at the time. In fact, the article mentions that some of the most controversial pieces in the art show contained “safe-sex paraphernalia.” With these clues, I probably could have deduced that the article was published in the 80’s or 90’s but it would have been difficult for me to pinpoint an exact date.