• Marlene Dietrich
• Intersex activism
• Justin Bieber’s gender
• David Reimer, or the John/Joan case
• The invention of heterosexuality
• Korean pop band f(x)
• Kyle Alums and gender in college sports
• Genderqueer identities
• Femininity in male-bodied people
• African trans identities/activism
• De-homosexualized femme identities
• Tribe 8’s “Femme Bitch Top”
• Pete Burns’ gender
• Barsexuals
• Feminism and femme activism
• GIDC

It makes grading a lot easier, that’s for sure.

As much as I’d rather see LGBTQ students at a college that really does welcome them, I hate anything that seems like it might be ghettoizing students. For some, their orientation is barely important; what med school they want to get into is most important.

But at the same time, that anyone’s even asking the questions means there is starting to be more consistent recognition that gender and sexual orienation are important aspects of identity.

Now if we oculd just get them to make the question about gender a blank to fill in instead of a choice that dichotimizes our genders.

Thoughts?

They closed the online registration yesterday, but they WILL be registering walk-ins at the conference, so even if you haven’t registered yet, you can still come. They’ve made it very reasonable – $30, $20 for students, and that comes with lunch. Students can go for $11 but with no lunch & no me. Basically, it’s a tiered system, allowing people as much conference access as possible. There’s a meet & greet on Friday, 8/14, AND a brunch on Sunday. (The day-of registrations are more expensive, and may not come with a guarantee that there will be room for you at lunch.)

So yes, make your plans to come while I’m on a train to Pittsburgh!

The Labor HHS subcommittee and the Obama Administration has recognized what we already knew: abstinence-only sex education programs do not work. The evidence is irrefutable that spending for abstinence-only education is not only wasteful, but also the programs put young women’s health at risk. A 2004 study by the House Committee on Government Reform, conducted at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-30-CA) found that over 80% of the curricula used in the largest federally funded abstinence-only programs contained “false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health.” >In addition to pulling the plug on funding for failed abstinence-only sex education programs, the bill eliminates a ban on syringe exchange programs, which have been proven to be a highly effective strategy for preventing HIV.

(via email from FeministMajority.org)

You can find the actual letter here, along with all the supporting evidence. The short version can be found in this article on Queerty.

Taylor said frequently textbooks in primary and secondary schools and in higher education do not address issues like poverty fully and often are reduced and oversimplified. “Far too many schools continue to endorse a curriculum of the absurd that encompasses ‘heroification’ of primarily white males, while the contributions of women and people of color appear in pop-out format in textbooks,” she said.

I wish I were even a little surprised by the results and her conclusions.

Included on the syllabus: Hirschfeld’s Theory of Intermediaries, The Member of the Wedding, “Dazzle” by Truman Capote, Venus Boyz, a couple of Halberstam chapters, Orlando, & Kiss of the Spider Woman.

I’m really looking forward to it.

So laissez les bon temps rouler & have a good Drag Day!

All the info below the break.

“The Politics of Reproduction” will focus on the global social, economic and political repercussions of new forms of reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology (ART) and transnational adoption.
These new technologies have created a “baby business” that is largely unregulated and that raises a number of important social and ethical questions.Do these new technologies place women and children at risk?

Should there be limits on how reproductive technologies are used? How should we respond ethically to the ability of these technologies to test for genetic illnesses? And how can we ensure that marginalized individuals, for example, people with disabilities, women of color, and low-income women, have equal access to these new technologies and adoption practices?

The conference will feature numerous experts in the field of reproductive rights, including:

Debora Spar is president of Barnard College and author of The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.

Rebecca Young is assistant professor of women’s studies at Barnard College and author of Sex, Hormones and Hardwiring: Re-thinking the Theory of Brain Organization (forthcoming).

Dana-Ain Davis is associate professor of urban studies at Queens College and author of Battered Black Women and Welfare Reform.

David Eng is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy and Racial Castration:Managing Masculinity in Asian America.