LGBT issues were among the topics discussed at the annual Engendering Change Chicago area graduate student conference April 5 at Northwestern University.
Two of the panel discussions focused on LGBT issues: "Mediating Communities" and "Structures, Governance, and Self-Fashioning." The day-long conference also featured discussions on reproduction and health, youth cultures and future, public embodiment, gendering performance in the modern west, gender in African history and representation in public discourse.
About 30 people attended the "Mediating Communities" panel discussion which focused on how LGBT people have occupied public spaces over the years. Kemi Adeyemi, Northwestern graduate student in the school of communications, served as the moderator and discussant during the session.
Jody Ahlm, graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, spoke about "Respectable Promiscuity: Digital Cruising and Queer Liberalism." Specifically, Ahlm looked at Grindr, the all male location based social network, and the impact that the mobile app has had on how gay, bi and curious men interact in that space.
The main research questions that Ahlm posed were: "How do masculinity and race mediate the experiences of gay men in a sexualized 'virtual' space and how does Grindr, as both a 'virtual' space and mediator of physical space, change prior spatial dynamics of gay male sexual culture?"
Ahlm conducted 20 semi-structured interviews over four months of participant observation on the app, including setting up a profile as a researcher and going on the site every day. Recruitment for the study resulted in 18 cisgender and two transgender men, with 14 being white, two Black, two Latino and two Asians. Most held bachelor's degrees.
The themes that emerged from the surveys that participants filled out following the study included Grindr's reputation, the importance of the non-sexual uses for the app, issues about safety, and the seamlessness of finding sex partners, noted Ahlm.
"I have concluded that the structure of public and private space on Grindr, combined with users practices, is facilitating the privatization of gay sex. This privatization is also part of a queer liberal agenda, if you will, that attempts to sanitize and desexualize gay space and gay culture," said Ahlm.
University of Chicago's Chase Joynt showcased "Transitioning in Public: An Introduction." In his presentation, Joynt showed a short film "I'm Yours" that he produced with Nina Arsenault in which they answered typical questions that trans people get asked on a daily basis.
"As a transgender man, I employed first person strategies of artistic engagement to disrupt, reposition, and call attention to assumed indentifactory truths about transgender people," said Joynt.
His presentation looked at the problematic first person testimonial projects generated by transgender people on the internet including the on-line presentation of self and transition diaries.
"A Stepping Stone to Queer: Denver's Gay Community 1945-1975" was the topic of University of Colorado at Denver grad student Keith Moore's presentation.
To frame his study Moore explained the history of LGBT identity over the decades and the emergence of Denver's queer community as well as the history of policing that occurred during World War II along with the role that the military played in changing Denver society.
"Bisexual and questioning men routinely fly under the radar of historical homosexual studies because of their lack of adherence to one sex in regard to sexual partners," said Moore. "As such, the use of sexual acts to denote homosexuality in the early twentieth-century misidentified and excluded a large subset of people from the larger queer narrative especially in Denver's early history."
About 15 people attended the "Structures, Governance, and Self-Fashioning" panel discussion. The discussion focused on how the LGBT community is represented and understood among the populace and within the workplace. Kareem Khubchandani, Northwestern graduate student in the school of communications, served as the moderator and discussant during the session.
DePaul University's Joy Ellison presentation focused on "Recycled Rhetoric: Brand Israel 'Pinkwashing' in Historical Context".
"In my research, I explore the intersections between gender, race, sexuality and settler-colonialism and their implications for anti-pinkwashing activism," said Ellison "I endeavor to demonstrate that the persuasive power of Brand Israel relies on racist discourses about Arabs and Muslims that reflect the rhetoric of the Zionist kibbutz movement and larger colonial discourses, especially orientalist discourses about Arab/Muslim women."
To illustrate this Ellison showed examples of Brand Israel ads and explained that the messaging behind them celebrates Israel at the expense of Palestine and the rest of the Middle East.
University of Chicago graduate student Kate Jaffe's presentation addressed "'The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love:' Gender Expectation and the Peace Corps."
Jaffe shared the history of the Peace Corps and what happens to individuals when they go abroad ( learning the culture of the country they are sent to ) and when they return to the United States. Jaffe explained that since lesbian and gay couples have only recently been able to serve together there isn't much research on their experiences as Peace Corps volunteers. In her research, Jaffe focused on the ways that serving in the Peace Corps informs a person's interactions with their host country and their friends and families when they return home.
"Legal Mediation of Cultural, Medical, and Legal Claims to Transgender Identities" was the topic of Northwestern University grad student Jeff Kosbie's presentation.
In his research, Kosbie asked, "How do lawyers construct the meaning of gender and discrimination in federal employment discrimination cases involving transgender plaintiffs since 2004?"
Kosbie noted that his study included 18 federal cases with 131 plaintiff and defendant briefs and motions from these cases.
My argument is that institutions are a constraint and a resource. I really focus on how institutions are a resource," said Kosbie. "I use this institutional theory to explain the meaning making process. How they contest an unsettled law. Institutions comprised of multiple actors, organizations, governing structures. Each has an internal 'logic,' or set of assumptions about what is a social problem and how it should be addressed."
In the end, Kosbie explained that nothing definitive came from his study since plaintiff and defendant arguments still all over the map, however, recently defendants have emphasized non-discrimination much more and whether Title VII applies to trans people.
