Unit III Paper Curran 1 in Regards to the Realm of Internet Activism, The
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Unit III Paper Curran 1 In regards to the realm of Internet activism, the methods by which these systems accomplish goals are often criticized as being ineffective as it does not employ direct action, like protests and sit-ins, which regionalized activist movements have a history of. As a result of this, online activist movements are often dismissed as being irrelevant or unimportant to activist movements as a whole. On a large scale, both inside and outside of activist movements, activism that takes place in geographically specific, physically tangible movements are given more precedence in deciding what the movement looks like, what the issues at large look like, what ways they should be handled, and how the movement operates on a whole. The physically tangible, both in regards to organization, with protests, sit-ins, or group organizations, and goals, like with the changing of local legislation are deemed as more important and useful than what is accomplished by online activist movements. However, to discredit online activism because of its inherent physical intangibility and to set precedence over it with geographically specific movements is to do a disservice both to the history of activist movements, and to how they will progress in the future. We can see this with Tumblr’s online transgender rights movement, #TransLivesMatter. While transgender rights has a long history, it has come under public attention once again recently with the rise of figures like actress Laverne Cox and the suicide of Leelah Alcorn at the end of 2014. While these issues have surfaced in all realms of transgender activism, the dismissal of #TransLivesMatter ignores how it reflects the history and methodology of modern transgender activism and how beneficial #TransLivesMatter can be to the movement as a whole. The suicide of Leelah Alcorn, a transgender woman and activist on Tumblr, sparked the #TransLivesMatter movement to begin with and without this, the recent focus on the controversy behind conversion therapy would not have its focus or even have come to the same light as it has now. Unit III Paper Curran 2 Because of this, it is important to recognize how #TransLivesMatter reflects the history of transgender activism and what this means for the future of transgender activism. As the internet has become an increasingly pervasive force in the way people socialize and get information, it only makes sense that activist movements once bound to and divided by geographic regions would begin to adopt the Internet as a platform for widespread communication. If we truly want to understand how activist movements operate and how the Internet has facilitated discussion and attention to issues for marginalized people, then it is important to take note of the importance of online activist movements, specifically #TransLivesMatter, in spreading information, connecting people, reflecting the history of activist movements, and allowing for the progression of activist movements. This paper will analyze how #TransLivesMatter reflects the history of modern transgender rights activism through several defining categorizations or focus areas of the movement. The first categorization of #TransLivesMatter and the transgender rights movements to be analyzed is the militancy of transgender rights activists. Many activist movements, from the civil rights movement in the United States to socialist workers’ movements across the world, have had a basis in militant activism. The transgender rights movement is no exception to this. According to Paisley Currah, this militant type of activism began in the late 1950’s and notes this by saying “The Compton's Cafeteria Riot of August 1966, was part of a wave of increasingly militant resistance on the part of transgender street people that included street-fighting outside Cooper's Donut Stand in Los Angeles in 1959 and Dewey's Lunch Counter sit-ins and picketing in 1965.” (96). Militancy in the transgender rights movement, like many others, was a response to growing hostility to members of the transgender community. As a result, transgender people began responding in groups that eventually led to geographically specific movements and Unit III Paper Curran 3 organizations. One of the earliest examples of this is the Gay Liberation Front, beginning in response to the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York City. While primarily a group for gay men and lesbian women, the Gay Liberation Front included transgender individuals and had goals overreaching the boundaries of gay and transgender rights when forming, which is noted by Lionel Wright when saying “The name was consciously chosen for its association with the anti- imperialist struggles in Vietnam and Algeria. Sections of the GLF would go on to organize solidarity for arrested Black Panthers, collect money for striking workers, and link the battle for gay rights to the banner of socialism." (Wright). The militancy in transgender rights movements in their beginnings arose from members being militant in their other views, whether they are social or political. Like previous transgender rights activist movements, #TransLivesMatter has also developed a militant nature to some degree. While not divided into formal groups or organizations like the Gay Liberation Front, for example, the community behind #TransLivesMatter is home to members who’s activist issues extend beyond the range of transgender rights activism. In fact, many are interested in the same issues that the Gay Liberation Front also took up in the late 1960’s, from the rights of labor workers and unionization, to race issues, and supporting of socialistic government ideals. This kind of attention to issues outside of the realm of transgender rights has been a defining characteristic for the movement since it’s beginnings and as a result, #TransLivesMatter is an important force to the spreading of transgender rights and activism as it can reach more people than geographically- bound movements, while retaining much of the ideology and rhetoric of the individualized movements that helped to enable the formation of the online activist movement #TransLivesMatter. Unit III Paper Curran 4 By the same hand, #TransLivesMatter also enables the progression of transgender activism, particularly its militant aspects. Before the advent of the internet, transgender activist movements were heavily confined by geographic boundaries, meaning those in metropolitan areas large enough to contain a prominent group of transgender people were most often the only ones to have any exposure to or experience in the transgender activist movement. By its nature, the more militant side of transgender rights activism was even less actively available to people. To be involved in militant transgender rights activism not only meant you had to be in an area with a strong enough presence of transgender people, but there usually must also be a population of transgender people actively involved in other intersecting issues, such as racism or worker’s rights. Due to these constraints, early activist movements were restrained by most often only being available to people with some degree of academic and socio-economic privilege. The dissemination of activist movements into the realm of the Internet, beginning in the late 1990’s worked to help open up movements to people who typically would not have had access to these resources before the Internet. As the Internet and computer technologies have become more prevalent in most people’s day-to-day lives, this has only become more of a resource for people interested in activist issues. #TransLivesMatter is no different from this, and has a particular advantage in that it has become prevalent since the end of 2014. Being embedded in a time period where the Internet is more accessible to people than it was even ten years ago means that #TransLivesMatter has more of a potential to reach people than before. With this comes the ability to spread awareness of transgender rights issues as they apply to militant activists. This access to activist ideologies in one uniform place creates an increased ability to disseminate information to both current activists & experts on transgender rights issues and individuals who do not have experience in these areas. As a result, #TransLivesMatter as an Unit III Paper Curran 5 easily accessible platform for transgender rights activist issues helps to ensure the further spreading of activist ideologies in a manner that helps the transgender activist movement to progress, but also allowing the movement to be secured to the founding ideologies of the movement. Another important part of the history of transgender rights activism is working to raise the publicity of transgender voices into mainstream culture. This has been a key element in all activist movements, from Martin Luther King Jr rising out of the south as a minister to discuss issues of racism in America, to Laverne Cox becoming a large proponent for transgender rights issues after coming into the view of the public with her role on the TV show Orange is the New Black. Movements most often choose to adopt these spokespeople or public figures after they have already received attention by the public, as it is easy to work with someone already accepted by a wide audience. We can see this with Laverne Cox, who after her growth in popularity from her career as an actress was able to do a tour across North American colleges and universities lecturing about being transgender and transgender rights issues. While it is easy to forget, this is the work of many activists. LGBT college groups across the country helped Laverne Cox to have access to speaking at their colleges, and this in it’s own is an act of transgender rights activism. The experience of the first widely public proponent for transgender rights in the United States, Christine Jorgenson, is a little unusual, however. Rather than adopted by a movement after being widely accepted in the circle of activists, like with Dr.