- Spring 2009 Events pdf

March 6-8 TransRhetorics Conference
258 Goldwin Smith

Friday Keynote, 4:30, Lewis, GS
Susan Stryker, Gender Studies, Indiana University, and independent filmmaker, won an Emmy for the documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria and a Lambda Literary Award for The Transgender Studies Reader. She co-edited “Trans-“ a special issue of Women's Studies Quarterly (2008) and Transgender History (2008) and her current projects include Sex Change City: Theorizing Urban Trans/Formation in San Francisco and a film about 1950s transsexual celebrity Christine Jorgensen, Christine in the Cutting Room.

Friday Film Screening: 7:00, 258 GS (synopsis below)
Girl Inside, directly by Maya Gallus (2007, 70 min)
Red without Blue, directly by Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills, and Todd Sills (2007, 77 min)

Saturday Keynote, 4:30, Lewis, GS
Shannon Minter, J.D. '93, legal director, National Center for Lesbian Rights, was lead counsel for the same-sex marriage case recently decided by the California Supreme Court. He is the recipient of the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World Award, Anderson Prize Foundation's Creating Change Award, GAYLAW's Distinguished National Service Award, Cornell Law School's Exemplary Public Service Award, and Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom's Unity Award. He has co-edited Transgender Rights and co-authored Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Family Law.

Saturday Special Event, 8:00, Lewis, GS
F to eMbody, a gender-deviant spoken-word hip-hop duo
Athens Boys Choir (aka Harvey Katz) performs gender-deviant, multi-media, spoken-word/homo-hop. His lyrics are heart-on-the-sleeve and his beats are undeniably gay-in-the-pants and he's hit the stage with Ani DiFranco, Leslie and the Ly's, Poets of HBO's Def Poetry Jam, Michelle Tea, Alix Olson, and Amy Ray. Katastrophe (aka Rocco Kayiatos), a San Francisco-based rapper and producer, uses his poetic grasp of language to weave dense tales of lives lived outside the mainstreams of education, gender, and culture. He was crowned Producer of the Year by Out Music Awards for his debut album and has been featured in the films Poetic License and Pick up the Mic. He's shared the stage with Le Tigre, Gossip, Saul Williams, Bitch, Chicks on Speed, Michael Franti, Dead Prez, John Cameron Mitchell, Kiki and Herb, and Amy Ray.

Film Synopsis:
Girl Inside by Maya Gallus (2007, 70 minutes)
Following 26-year-old Madison during a crucial three years of her transition from male to female, GIRL INSIDE is a beautiful film that tracks her emotional, intellectual and spiritual journey of self-discovery that is as important as - if not more than - the physical journey of hormones and surgery. Sharing the spotlight is Vivien, Madison's glamorous 80-year-old grandmother, who has taken on the job of advising her on all things feminine. While Vivien's attempts to school Madison in old-fashioned codes of fashion and behavior are often hilarious, the juxtaposition of two vastly different experiences of womanhood, from very different generations, raises profound issues about the nature of gender, femininity and sexuality.

Red Without Blue by Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills, and Todd Sill (2007, 77 minutes)
This is an artistic and groundbreaking portrayal of gender, identity, and the unswerving bond of twinship despite transformation. An honest portrayal of a family in turmoil, RWB follows a pair of identical twins as one transitions from male to female. Captured over a period of three years, the film documents the twins and their parents, examining the Farley's struggle to redefine their family. The twins' early lives were quintessentially all-American: picture-perfect holidays, supportive parents who cheered them on every step of the way. By the time they were 14, their parents had divorced, they had come out as gay, and a joint suicide attempt precipitated a forced separation of Mark and Alex for two and half years. Through candid and extensive interviews with the twins and their family, RED WITHOUT BLUE recounts these troubled times, interweaving the twins' difficult past with their efforts to find themselves in the present. The film follows the painful steps of Clair's transition, including electrolysis and the difficult decision to proceed with bottom surgery. Through its portrayal of these articulate and independent twins, each haunted by the painful experiences of their adolescence, the film questions normative standards of gender and identity - as Mark and Clair reassert their indescribable bond as identical twins. Through the power of the Farleys' voices, we hear the story of a family's redemption from a dark past, and ultimately, its revival to the present.

March 27-28 Gender, Violence, & the Cinematic Nation Conference
1:00 G-08 Uris Hall
Keynote Cynthia Enloe, International Development and Women's Studies, Clark University

March 31 Eithne Luibhéid, Women’s Studies, University of Arizona
4:30 258 GS
Nationalist Heterosexuality and the Shifting Boundaries Between Legal and "Illegal" Immigration

April 9 CIPA: Jaime Grant, director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute
4:30 233 Plant Science
The Homosexual Agenda Revisited