In memory of Adrienne Rich, Lesbian Poet (1929-2012) by Kittredge Cherry
Posted on the Feminism and Religion project
I light a memorial candle for lesbian feminist poet and essayist Adrienne Rich, who died March 27, 2012 at age 82.
Rich was one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. Her writing was a guiding light to me and countless others, both people of faith and secular readers. The following lines from her poem “Natural Resources” (from The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977) became like a creed for many of us.....
Preying on Victims: Radical Christianity and Exploitation of Tragedy in the Name of God By Michele Stopera Freyhauf
Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project
It is our moral responsibility, whether we identify as Christians or not, to pray for not prey on the victims of... more
It is our moral responsibility, whether we identify as Christians or not, to pray for not prey on the victims of tragedies.
Over the last month, dare I say years, society has witnessed or been subjected to an all out war from radical Christians across America deploying the wrath of God and reveling in the tragedy of others to perpetuate their apocalyptic message of rhetoric and terror. As I hear the news over the last few months, an old Billy Joel song starts to play in my head “We didn’t start the fire.” Whether we started the fire or not, we should not feed the flames of hatred but figure out a way to extinguish it.
Here is a brief synopsis of current events that reflect this hatred and radicalism perpetuated in the name of God – examples of Christianity terrorizing or preying on victims through their actions.
The Westboro Southern Baptist Church: Preying on Victims at Funerals and Thanking God for their Tragic Deaths
A FEMINIST TAOIST VOICE PART 2: MY DIALOGUE WITH ELISA FON, ACUPUNCTURIST, TAOIST, FEMINIST AND FRIEND by Sara Frykenberg
Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project
Taoism is a philosophy that, for me, has been around so long because it is meant to move and change with society…
Acupuncturist, healer and friend, Elisa Fon and I began a discussion of Taoism and feminism in Part 1 of this interview. Elisa defined her vision of feminism and Taoism, explained Taoism’s relational and yet, individual emphasis on what is particular in each of our experiences and considered the basic relationship of yang and yin. Part 2 picks up where she and I left off, returning to the discussion of yin, yang and supposed dualisms.
Sara: I was wondering if you could talk a little about the complementarity of yin and yang?
Sodomy and Gay Men’s Lives by John Erickson
Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project
How do we begin to deconstruct the word sodomy so that it no longer associates and elicits hateful propaganda... more
How do we begin to deconstruct the word sodomy so that it no longer associates and elicits hateful propaganda regarding the sexual activity of consenting gay/queer adults?
Meaning if often produced, not through a one-to-one relation to things in the world, but by establishing the difference you or a particular group of people have in relation to the activity/object you are distancing yourself from. The word sodomy is inextricably linked to the Old Testament (Genesis 19:1-11) and has become a popular manifestation for conservative and fundamentalist social and religious critics to use whenever they are critiquing why gay men are different or deviant from normal, heterosexual adults. Furthermore, sodomy has been and still is highly involved in constructing both positive and negative sexual ethics that often define and rule over the lives of those who participate not in sodomy but other forms of non-vaginal intercourse.
Bareed Mista3jil: Negotiating Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Lebanon by Amy Levin
Originally published on Feminism and Religion project
It’s not often (enough) that I (have the time to) come across non-academic books that articulate and reflect some of... more It’s not often (enough) that I (have the time to) come across non-academic books that articulate and reflect some of the most complex intersections between religion, gender, and sexuality. Those that do are commonly produced in the Western hemisphere, often representing the voices of Euro-American cultures and religious traditions. That is why I want to give voice to Bareed Mista3jil, a book, or collection of “41 true (and personal) stories from lesbians, bisexuals, queer and questioning women, and transgender persons from all over Lebanon.” Bareed Mista3jil was published in 2009 by the organization Meem, a community of lesbian, bisexual, queer women and transgender persons (including male-to-female and female-to-male) in addition to women questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity in Lebanon. The purpose of the book is to give voice to those in Lebanon with non-conforming sexualities and identities in order to give hope to this under-represented, often silenced population. Here is a description from Meem on the origin of the book:
Turning Points in Identity and Theology: Bisexual Women Choosing Between Monogamous and Polyamorous Relationships
This study contributes to the development of nascent bisexual theology by examining bisexual women’s lives in relation... more
This study contributes to the development of nascent bisexual theology by examining bisexual women’s lives in relation to the stereotype that bisexuals desire concurrent male and female partners. Building on qualitative email interviews with forty bisexual women in the Greater Toronto Area, this thesis finds that monogamy and polyamory function as strategic identities. If bisexual theology is to speak authentically to the needs of bisexual women, it must provide a critical analysis of these identities, understand and respond to their role in shaping communities, moral agency and theological knowledge.
Chapter One sets the conflation of bisexuality with polyamory in its political and theological context. Four characteristics of Catholic sexual ethics—their foundational, sacramental, social, and moral character—frame this investigation about bisexual women as subjects of theological enterprise. The conflation of bisexuality and polyamory is posed as the key challenge for both secular politics and articulating a bisexual theological perspective. Chapter Two provides a methodological overview of the qualitative research project using voice centred relational analysis (VCRA) as an appropriate tool to conduct and analyse the interviews in their social context. Chapter Three summarises the results of the VCRA analysis and highlights key themes from the interviews. Chapter Four relates the results of the primary research to the theological writing of Robert Goss and Marcella Althaus-Reid by examining five common elements in their work to assess how their work meets the challenges raised by the interview analysis. The final chapter relates these common elements in the work of Goss and Althaus-Reid to the four characteristics of Catholic sexual ethics outlined in Chapter One to emphasize the importance of building bisexual women’s communities and how this relates to the development of bisexual theology. The thesis concludes with concrete recommendations for bisexual women’s community building and offers directions for further bisexual theological work.
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Queer Studies Reader in Serbian (edited, wrote an article and an editor's foreword) Queer Studies Reader in Serbian (edited, wrote an article and an editor's foreword)
As For Chelsea, Goodbye to All That
Co-authored with Joseph LoGiudice. Originally published in The Huffington Post.
“Communicate, communicate, communicate” - building ethical subjectivities within polyamory
Paper presented at the Sexual Cultures Conference, London, 2012
Joint Panel with Meg Barker, Christian Klesse and Jamie Heckert
Though explicitly non-monogamous relationships are anything but new, the last 20 years have seen the rise and... more Though explicitly non-monogamous relationships are anything but new, the last 20 years have seen the rise and development of another identity: polyamory. This new identity brings with it a focus on feelings and emotions, and seeks to build itself around the ethical notions of frankness and communication. But what is frank communication, how is it supposed to be deployed and, most of all, how does it work in constituting an ethical practice and subjectivity? From the analysis of the conversations on the oldest mailing list on polyamory, we consider how this relates to Foucault’s writing of the self as an ethopoietic practice based on parrhesia - the courage of truth. By focusing on feelings, polyamorous subjects seek to improve themselves and be more autonomous by being able to better control and modify those same feelings.
Polyamory awareness-raising: An auto-ethnographic account of a round-table on polyamory and lesbianism
Paper presented at the Sexual Cultures Conference, London, 2012
Co-authored with: Inês Rôlo, Salomé Coelho
Stemming from the auto-ethnographic and personal recounting of a round-table organized by a lesbian-focused activist... more Stemming from the auto-ethnographic and personal recounting of a round-table organized by a lesbian-focused activist group in Lisbon, Portugal, the authors reflect on the intersections between doing research, spreading that research, doing activism and working with / listening to sexual minorities as a way of critically involving the LGBT community and their concerns in the scientific process. As we’ll see, conflicting political and identity agendas might create tension between different minorities, and even the reinstatement of (homo-)normativity. We claim that only through debate, exposure and recognition (which mixes research, scientific dissemination and activism) can we think «about an issue in a way that takes account of the perspectives of others» (Young, 2000), but that the modes of performing debate also need to be critically reflected upon, keeping in sight the ethical concern for the intimate citizenship (Plummer, 1994) of those represented (and of those absent).
Feminists Be Silent! Making a Stand in Solidarity with our LGBT Friends Against Bullying and Harassment By Michele Stopera Freyhauf
Originally published on the Feminism and Religion Project
“A Day of Silence” occurs tomorrow, April 20th. Created in 1996, University of Virginia students wanted to raise... more
“A Day of Silence” occurs tomorrow, April 20th. Created in 1996, University of Virginia students wanted to raise awareness of the bullying and harassment of issues that LGBT students faced on campus. Since then, A Day of Silence makes a statement against those who have tried to silence LGBT teens and young adults in school through harassment, bias, abuse, and bullying. Participating students, led by GLSEN, will hand out cards that read the following:
“Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies in schools. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?”
Statement of the Psychological Association of the Philippines on Non-Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression
Psychological Association of the Philippines. (2011). Statement of the Psychological Association of the Philippines on non-discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. Philippine Journal of Psychology, 44, 229-230.
Co-authored with Jay A. Yacat of the PAP Public Interest Committee. Approved and adopted by the PAP Board on 8 October 2011.
First paragraph:
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Filipinos continue to experience stigma,... more
First paragraph:
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Filipinos continue to experience stigma, prejudice and discrimination in Philippine society. This stigma is manifested in actions such as: bullying, teasing and harassment of LGBT children and adolescents in families, schools and communities; media portrayal of LGBTs as frivolous, untrustworthy and even dangerous or predatory; denying transgender Filipinos entry into commercial establishments; pigeonholing LGBT Filipinos into particularly limited roles and occupations; or curtailing their rights to participate in the political sphere.
Debating polyamory as research: An auto-ethnopgraphic account of a round-table on polyamory and lesbianism
Co-authored with Daniel Cardoso and Salomé Coelho; Presented by Daniel Cardoso in Onscenity Conference at Brunel University, UK, April 2012. With link to the audio of this presentation.
Stemming from the auto-ethnographic telling of a round-table organized by a lesbian-focused activist group in Lisbon,... more
Stemming from the auto-ethnographic telling of a round-table organized by a lesbian-focused activist group in Lisbon, Portugal, the authors reflect on the intersections between doing research, spreading that research, doing activism and working with / listening to sexual minorities as a way of critically involving the LGBT community and their concerns in the scientific process. As we’ll see, conflicting political and identity agendas might create tension between different minorities, and even the reinstatement of (homo-)normativity. We claim that only through debate, exposure and recognition (which mixes research, scientific dissemination and activism) can enable us to think «about an issue in a way that takes account of the perspectives of others» (Young, 2000), but that the modes of performing debate also need to be critically reflected upon, keeping in sight the ethical concern for the intimate citizenship (Plummer, 1994) of those represented (and of those absent).
Keywords: Polyamory, auto-ethnography, intimate citizenship, lesbianism, public debate
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What the Sands Remember
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 2012 Volume 18, Number 2-3: 325-346.
Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Anne sit on opposite shores—both territorially and symbolically—of Martinique, a French... more
Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Anne sit on opposite shores—both territorially and symbolically—of Martinique, a French territory in the Caribbean Sea. During the nineteenth century, Saint-Pierre was known as the “Sodom” of the Antilles, as a cosmopolitan city where decadence and liberal sexual mores were at the heart of bourgeois and elite culture. In 1902 Mount Pelée, the volcano that sits just above the city, erupted—killing Saint-Pierre's population of over thirty thousand within five seconds. Today, the black, volcanic sand beaches that line the coast remind visitors to Saint-Pierre of the city that once was. Sainte-Anne is a town with a far different reputation. During the 1950s it was known as a refuge for rebels, for people who contested the continued dominance of white and mixed-race elites in the lives of ordinary (mostly black) Martinicans, and was the center of the island's small cultural nationalist movement. Nearly fifty years later, the town retains that reputation—but Sainte-Anne is known for another reason, too, for it is home to one of Martinique's few meeting spaces for men who have sex with men, a secluded section at the end of the commune's most popular beach, Les Salines.
This essay seeks to cross temporal, scalar, and disciplinary boundaries while revisiting tropes of queer invisibility that mark representations of same-sex desire in the Caribbean. Cycling from the world described in the 1901 erotic novel Une nuit d'orgie à Saint-Pierre, Martinique to field notes taken in 2010 among men who frequent Les Salines, this essay unites, in a provisional way, a scattered archive of same-sex desire on the island, while relating these desires critically to place. These archives ask us to reconsider a narrative that insists on movement—away from Martinique, away from the Caribbean, away from the global South—as the grounding force for a radical queer (of color) politics. Instead of privileging diasporic subjectivities, these markers of local presence and emplacement offer an alternative framing of what it means to stay put. They give us access to modes of queer relationality that resist documentation, but are indicative of the kinds of lives that certain subjects live: shot through with ambiguity and grounded in a refusal of fixed identity politics. Sand emerges as a compelling metaphor for this kind of theoretical and ethnographic intervention, as its ability to be diffuse yet still irreducibly material provides a model for one way to understand the memory of same-sex desire and gender transgression. Making use of fragments, then, this essay thinks simultaneously through the sexual politics of memory and landscape, linking queer presence to the sands of both Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Anne.
The Ruptured Consolidation of MSM and TG: The Vernacular Translocality of ‘AIDS Cosmopolitanism’ in West Bengal, India
Forthcoming (2011) in Govindan, P. (Ed). Sexuality and Activism in South and Southeast Asia: Critical Perspectives on the Intersections Between Theory, Politics, and Action. Routledge: New York & London.
The uneven but widespread emergence of politicized gender and sexual identities in many parts of the world during the... more The uneven but widespread emergence of politicized gender and sexual identities in many parts of the world during the ongoing decades of ‘globalization’ has caused much debate among scholars and activists. One contentious question is the relation between these diverse movements and the apparent spread of western (or metropolitan) discourses of sexuality and gender identity. In this context, I critique the emergence of MSM (males-who-have-sex-with-males) and TG (transgender) as categories through which marginal lower class subjects become organized and intelligible as disempowered constituencies demanding civic inclusion, aid, human rights, etc., from the state and donors in Eastern India. This is not the simple story of the empowerment or visibilization of pre-existing identities or struggles, but the creation of a restrictive framework of community and identity-formation. As I argue, a politicized community is both constructed and regulated through categories like MSM and TG, with attempted exclusions of desires and practices that do not conform to the dominant rubric of identification. But this cannot be simply explained as the expansion or influence of elite activists, NGOs and modern/western discourses of sexuality/gender spreading out from Indian metropolitan centers. Rather, I explore how the current meaning and uses of these categories emerge at the juncture between institutionalization and extant forms of (sub)cultural difference and resistance, such as the Hijras (communities of male-born ‘third gender’ persons, with distinct internal organization and norms). I examine how their intra-community 'vernacular' codes have contributed to the lexical resources through which MSM and TG become a rubric for community and identity construction, enabling the translocal reach of HIV/AIDS interventions and hegemonic forms of identity politics through the consolidation of existing subcultural networks.
Between Aid Conditionality and Identity Politics: The MSM-Transgender Divide and Normative Cartographies of Gender vs. Sexuality
Dutta, Aniruddha. Kafila.org, April 5 2012.