DOCSLIB.ORG

Sudbury, Ontario

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sudbury, Ontario It's not just about HIV: An investigation of the Relationship of HIV Positive Wornen to a Northern Ontario AIDS Service Organization BY Ligaya Leticia Byrch Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts (MA) School of Graduate Studies Laurentian University Sudbury, Ontario O Copyright by Ligaya Leticia Byrch, 2000 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1*1 ofCanada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibiiographic Setvices services bibliographiques 395 WeUington Street 395. nie WelBngion OnawaON K1AON4 OttawaON KIAûN4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Libraxy of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thése ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author' s ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, to change it. Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach." In Marx and Engels, Colfected Works Vol. 5 Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976. Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank the HIV positive women who participated in this research. It is these women's voices and experiences that informed this research. Further, this research could not have taken place without the assistance of the AlDS Service Organization (ASO). 1 am grateful to the staff and positive women who access the services of the ASO. 1 would also like to express my great appreciation to Dr. Gary Kinsman, who as my thesis supervisor provided me with guidance, advice, and encouragement. Gary provided me with a chance to explore theory and put it into practice, as well as Iistened to me during rough times, and became a voice to inspire me to help in the causes of others. I would also Iike to extend gratitude to my other thesis cornmittee members, Dr. Mercedes Steedman, who allowed me through a directed study class to explore notions of professionalism within non-profit organizations, particularly AIDS Service Organizations, and Dr, Jennifer Keck for her constant support- Thank yous must also be extended to Drs. Alan Sears and Anne Forest who both encouraged me to pursue graduate work. This research was partially funded by the lnstitute for Northern Ontario Research and Development (INORD). Finally, 1 would like to thank those who supported me in various ways; Robert Byrch Jr for his rich, powerful and inspirational words; Sarah for her friendship, patience, and support; Ginette and Jen for their laughter; Leticia Byrch and Robert Byrch Sr. for their love, and encouragement. Table of Contents Acknowledgments Abstract Summary Research Findings Recommendations i. Introduction The Research Problematic The Relationship of HIV+ Women to an AS0 as a Social Process Ethnography and the Standpoint of Women Feminism, Sociology for Women, Starting from the Standpoint of Women Critical Textual Analysis Research Strategy Ethical Considerations ii. Gender, Power, and AlDS Gender, and the Social Construction of Al DS The Taken for Granted Social Practices of ProfessionaIism, Ruling Relations and State Regulations of ASOs PowerIKnowledge Relations iii. History & Ethnography of HIV+ Women and the AS0 Northerfi Ontario, The History of the AS0 and The Social Dynamic of Women and HIVIAIDS in Northern Ontario 73 4 The Ethnography of the Relationship of HIV+ Women to the AS0 77 The Agency of HIV+ Women 8 Learning From HIV+ Wornen 78 The Relationship of the Staff of the AS0 to HIV+ Wornen and the Links to HIV+ Women's Lives from the Standpoint of the Staff iv. Conclusions The Shortcomings of the Research Recomrnendations for Change Hope for the Future End Notes References Appendix I Interview Schedule for fernale service users of AS0 Appendix IA Interview Schedule for staff and volunteers of AS0 Appendix II Consent and Release Form Appendix III Referral Script Abstract This thesis is based on the investigation of the social relationship constructed between women living with HIVIAIDS and a Northern Ontario AlDS Service Organization (ASO). Further, upon review of the Iiterature, this research is considered an important contribution to the existing literature since there has not previously been research conducted on the relationship of HIV positive (HIVt) women to a Northern Ontario ASO. This research started in November 1998 and the interviews were cornpleted in Decernber 1999. 1 utilized a feminist, ethnographic approach, namely a Sociology for Women, as developed by Dorothy Smith (1987). This investigation was conducted through open-ended. one-on-one intewiews with HIV positive (HIV+) women who currently access a particular Northern Ontario ASO. Staff of the AS0 were also interviewed. The information and anaiysis presented here is based on interviews with eleven people. Six of the people interviewed were HIV positive (HIV+) wornen and the rest were staff of the ASO, including a previous Women's Project Coordinator. One of the major findings as a result of this research was that the socially mediated or mutually constructed character of the HIV positive woman's life is organized through several social relations she participates in throughout her life. This is not only in terms of her HIV status. but also in relation to class. race, poverty, rnotherhood, and injection drug use. Thus, the socially mediated character of each woman's Iife rnust be considered when providing services for thern. The social process of the relationship of positive women to a Northern Ontario AS0 becomes "professionalized" in character, and it is this "professionalized" character which can prevent women from accessing the services of the AS0 fully, because it marginaiizes positive women by creating a "division" between staff and positive women trying to access services. Another research finding is that the social stigrna of HIV/AIDS still greatly impacts upon women making use of services creating alienation far the women who feel outside the homosexualized HIVIAIDS programming or activities, and therefore do not often use its services. Finally, the notion of a "good" versus a "bad" client serves to marginalize some positive wornen in that sorne women are treated differently from others and may even gain different support because of the identity of "bad" or "good" attributed to the HIV positive woman. Summary This thesis is a preliminary investigation of the relationship of women living with HIV infection to a northern Ontario AlDS Service Organization (ASO). The information described and analyzed in this thesis was obtained through interviews with eleven people, six with wornen living with HIVIAIDS, four with staff, and one with a woman who was the 'Women's Project Coordinatof' at the AS0 approximately five years ago (1994 - 1995). Most of the HlV+ women interviewed are between the ages of 20-44, unemployed, and experiencing constraints on their ability to access services due 20 poverty, child-care needs, addictions and drug use, and previous abuse. This thesis focuses attention on the effort and activity HIV+ women develop in order to socially construct their relationship with the ASO. Considerable energy goes into an HlV+ wornan socially organizing her relationship with a northern Ontario ASO, The way in which an HIV+ wornan organizes her relationship is also required for her ongoing health and survival. A finding of this research was that HIV+ wornen definitely had a "reiationship" with the AS0 but this retationship was indicative of the social location/positioning of these HIV+ women. Thus, the relationship of the HIV+ women accessing the services of the AS0 was often mediated through several aspects of her life for instance, class, gender, poverty, level of education, her children, her family, sexual activity, and religion. The relationship is further burdened by the stigma of HIV/AIDS, something which profoundly affects 8 women. especially marginalized women (Mykhalovskiy and Smith, 1994: 16). Therefore, the mediated character of HIV+ women's lives socially organize and inform their lives and their relationship with a northern Ontario ASO. The use of an institutional ethnographic analysis helps to rneld together the broader social analysis and the local analysis of the relationship of HIV+ women to a Northern Ontario AS0 by learning from the everyday social experiences of the people interviewed. This research is developed around the notion that the relationship of HlV+ wornen to a Northern Ontario AS0 cannot be analyzed in a closed or cut-off fashion but rather, it must be analyzed in terms of its connection with targer social processes. Research Findings The professionalized character of the AS0 can prevent wornen from accessing services fully, but also becomes taken for granted by the HIV+ women and staff of the ASO. The socialiy mediated character of HIV positive women's life is mutually constructed through several social relations and not just her HIV status. This must be considered when providing services for thern. For instance, how do we begin to get HIV+ wornen to start thinking of their own needs and wants and not those of the significant others in their Iives? How can we transform the work we do with HIV+ women to account for the mediated character of their lives? The social stigma of HIVfAIDS acts as a barrier for women in fully accessing the AS0 and its services and programs. The notions of a "good" versus a "bad" client serves to undermine the life experiences of HIV+ wornen and separates sorne of the HIV+ women out from others as "bad".
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Gallagher-Cohoon
    Illegal Loves and Sexual Deviancy: Homosexuality as a Threat in Cold War Canada Erin Gallagher-Cohoon This paper analyzes the criminalization and medicalization of homosexuality during the early twentieth century in Canada. Through court records and medical texts the discourse of homosexuality as a threat to the family unit and to the nation is contextualized within Cold War rhetoric. A Foucaultian conceptualization of power and discipline helps frame questions regarding homosexuality as a criminal offense and as a mental illness. It is argued that both state control and societal pressures constructed the homosexual as criminal, the homosexual as mental patient and, as a result, the homosexual as Communist threat. On the 15th of December, 1947, three personal letters were entered as evidence in the court case of James A. Hall, who was accused of “unlawfully commit[ting] an act of gross indecency.” In one, the accused wrote, “‘Thank you’ again for everything, mostly for your love -your consideration and the honor of being able to call you ‘my own.’” The only feature that made this private declaration of love a matter of state intervention was that Hall's lover was another man, Charles Orton. Both men, in their testimony, blamed the other as the sexual aggressor. This contrasts the affectionate and occasionally erotic tone of their private correspondence. Hall pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment. Orton, for his part, reappeared several times in the court records as both witness and defendant.1 But how did a moment of private eroticism become a matter of criminal importance? While court records provide an entry point into the criminalization of male homosexuality during the Cold War era in Canada, the discourse and rhetoric surrounding this marginalized group are also seen in psychiatric and other mental health texts.
    [Show full text]
  • Homosexuality' and Social Theory
    Homosexuality sexwithothermen,thishasoftenbeencon- tested and transformed given its clinical and GARY KINSMAN male-centered character by the gay, lesbian Laurentian University, Canada feminist, and what is often now referred to as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans), Social theory is the various ways in which or queer movements, through the use of a people have theorized how the “social” works range of other terms and identifications. In in the emerging and developing capitalist this entry, “homosexuality” is used in a broad social relations of the last few centuries. “Ho- sense to include all those who participate mosexuality” is a term that emerges in the in same-gender erotic practices no matter later nineteenth century in the “West” in the howtheysociallyidentifyandalsotoasso- midst of capitalist and state relations among ciate this with challenges to the two-gender psychiatrists and sexologists to describe the (male–female) binary system that includes “truth” of people’s beings (Foucault 1980) trans experiences. whohadsexwithmembersofthesamegen- der, especially men who had sex with other HETEROSEXISM, DEVIANCE, men. Bringing social theory together with AND SOCIAL THEORIZING “homosexuality” combines broader social analysis with the realm of bodies and eroti- The ideology and practices organizing the cism and how “homosexualities” are lived, oppression of homosexuals are often referred constructed, and analyzed. It joins together to as heterosexism – the assumption that only what has often been described as the “pub- heterosexuality is “normal” and “natural” lic” and “political” realms, often considered and therefore that homosexualities are not the proper terrain for social theory, with normal and are unnatural. Classical and whathasoftenbeenportrayedasa“private” modern social theory did not simply ignore realm of erotic desires and practices that was or forget about homosexuality but heterosex- not considered the proper terrain for social ist assumptions emerged at the very heart of theory.
    [Show full text]
  • Monument-Briefing-Documents-EN-Brenda-Cossman.Pdf
    BRIEFING DOCUMENTS Memorializing LGBTQ2 Histories: Thoughts on Moving Beside Our Debates By Brenda Cossman1 On April 23, 2019, the Royal Canadian Mint released a new $1 coin design intended to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. The coin has the dates 1969 and 2019, as well as the word 'equality' in English and French. Many in the LGBT community welcomed the coin. Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, which had been consulted, said 1969 was a "significant turning point" for Canada and the mint's official commemoration is a "big deal."2 But others have denounced it. Tom Hooper, an LGBT historian and activist, said the coin commemorates a "myth", since the 1969 reforms did not decriminalize homosexuality.3 "I feel like they're putting this myth onto a coin. They're stamping this coin with 1969 and right next to it 'equality' and there was nothing in 1969 to do with equality".4 The critique of the coin is part of a larger debate over the meaning of the 1969 reforms. While some within the LGBT community celebrate the 50th anniversary, a coalition of LBGT activists came together to organize the Anti-69 forum and a conference entitled Against the Mythologies of the 1969 Reform.5 The coalition points out that the 1969 reforms did not eliminate the criminal offenses of buggery and gross indecency, but simply created an exception. The criminal offences did not apply in relation to an act in private between husband and wife, or between two individuals over the age of 21.
    [Show full text]
  • Queer Quarantine: Conceptualizing State and Dominant Cultural Responses to Queer Threats As Discursive Tactics and Technologies of Quarantine
    Queer Quarantine: Conceptualizing State and Dominant Cultural Responses to Queer Threats as Discursive Tactics and Technologies of Quarantine by Péter Balogh A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Canadian Studies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2015 Péter Balogh Abstract This study explores queer quarantine, my conceptualization of processes and practices aimed at assessing, diagnosing and isolating queer threats to the nation. In theorizing queer quarantine, I draw upon the longstanding conflation of queerness with disease and contagion, and build a case for reading the isolation, containment and casting out of queerness as an assemblage of discursive tactics and technologies aimed at quarantining queers beyond conventional understandings of quarantine. I examine the ways queers are imagined to threaten public space, healthy bodies, and the future of the nation, and provide a new accounting for so-called homophobic policies and practices deployed in statecraft and dominant culture. I also trace the emergence of the queer AIDS monster, an effect of disciplinary tactics of queer quarantine and a particular discursive formation in its own right. My study has two aims: building a case for queer quarantine and, at the same time, demonstrating how queer quarantine can be used as a new model of analysis to identify and explore some of the ways the Canadian state and dominant culture continue to marginalize and oppress queers despite the rights gains and “acceptance” that some gays and lesbians have achieved. My analysis reveals that in 1970s Toronto, the rapidly increasing visibility of queerness became a public threat necessitating tactical responses from local authorities and the police to quarantine queer spaces.
    [Show full text]
  • Preserving Lesbian Oral History in Canada* ELISE CHENIER
    Hidden from Historians: Preserving Lesbian Oral History in Canada* ELISE CHENIER RÉSUMÉ L’histoire lesbienne est une partie importante du passé canadien, mais certains documents de recherche les plus utiles sont en danger de disparition. Au cours des vingt dernières années, les activistes canadiens et les chercheurs ont mené des interviews d’histoire orale avec des lesbiennes au Canada. Cependant, seulement quel­ ques-uns ont fait don de leur recherche à un centre d’archives. À partir des résultats obtenus dans un sondage auprès des spécialistes en histoire orale, cet article montre qu’un manque de formation, une pénurie de ressources financières et une incapacité de mettre en place un plan pour faire don des documents de recherche à un centre d’archives sont trois obstacles importants qui empêchent la préservation de l’histoire orale lesbienne. L’article décrit aussi les Archive of Lesbian Oral History, des archives numériques internationales fondées par l’auteure. ABSTRACT Lesbian history is an important part of Canada’s past but some of the most valuable research material we have is in danger of disappearing. Over the past twenty years Canadian activists and researchers have conducted many oral history interviews with lesbians in Canada, yet only a handful have donated their research material to an archive. Drawing on the findings of a research questionnaire distributed to oral historians, this article shows that a lack of training, an absence of financial resources, and a failure to put in place a plan to donate research material to an archive are three of the most important barriers to preserving lesbian oral history in Canada.
    [Show full text]
  • 6 Wolfenden in Canada: Within and Beyond Official Discourse in Law
    6 Wolfenden in Canada: within and beyond official discourse in law reform struggles1 Gary Kinsman Decriminalisation, Wolfenden and Canadian social and state formation In a perceptive critique of the Canadian state law reform process in late 1960s Canada, gay activist Doug Sanders, who was involved in homophile and gay organising at that time, argued that the 1969 reform: Takes the gay issue and describes it in non-homosexual terms. [Decriminalisation] occurs in a way in which the issue is never joined. The debate never occurs. And so homosexuals are no more real after the reform than before ... I felt that an issue had been stolen from us. That we had forgotten that the reform issue was an issue that could have been used for public debate and it had been handled in such a way that there had been none. The only thing that had a promise of helping people was a public debate. It didn’t happen. (Sanders, cited in Kinsman 1996a, p. 264) This chapter focuses on the influence of the ‘British’ Wolfenden report (Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution 1957) and the conceptual practices (D. Smith 1990a) of public/private and adult/youth sexual regulation it articulated on the law reform process in Canada leading up to the 1969 criminal code reform that decriminalised same-gender sex acts in ‘private’ between two consenting adults. It also points to the continuing legacies of this regulatory strategy on sex political struggles within Canadian social and state formation. It was in the context of the extension of the criminalisation of homosexuality, in the 1950s and 1960s, under pressure from legislation and social mobilisations 1 An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Wolfenden 50 Conference as ‘Wolfenden in Canada: Using and Moving Beyond the Text in Struggles for Sexual Law Reform’ – 29 June 2007, London.
    [Show full text]
  • Archives PATRIZIA GENTILE*
    Resisted Access? National Security, the Access to Information Act, and Queer(ing) Archives PATRIZIA GENTILE* RÉSUMÉ Les purges de sécurité anti-homosexuelles organisées par le Security Panel et imposées par la GRC, constituent un triste chapitre dans l’histoire canadienne de la Guerre froide. Ce texte raconte certaines expériences de l’auteure alors qu’elle a traver­ sé un « labyrinthe » de documents classifiés, de documents d’archives et de documents historiques conservés dans des ministères pendant qu’elle faisait de la recherche pour le livre The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation, qu’elle a écrit avec Gary Kinsman. L’auteure soutient que l’État de sécurité nationale peut se servir de la Loi sur l’accès à l’information (AI) pour créer des défis et des obstacles pour les historiens des minorités sexuelles qui sont à la recherche de contenu gai et lesbien dans les archives. Le texte avance aussi l’hypothèse que dans le contexte de la « Guerre contre la terreur », la Loi antiterroriste renforcera l’impact négatif de l’AI, ce qui aura des répercussions nuisibles pour la rédaction de l’histoire gaie et lesbienne. ABSTRACT The anti-homosexual security purges organized by the Security Panel and enforced by the RCMP, represent a sad chapter in Canadian Cold War history. This essay offers some of the author’s experiences as she negotiated the “maze” of classified documents, archives, and historical records held at government depart­ ments while researching her book The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation, co-authored with Gary Kinsman.
    [Show full text]
  • Queer Quarantine: Conceptualizing State and Dominant Cultural Responses to Queer Threats As Discursive Tactics and Technologies of Quarantine
    Queer Quarantine: Conceptualizing State and Dominant Cultural Responses to Queer Threats as Discursive Tactics and Technologies of Quarantine by Péter Balogh A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Canadian Studies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2015 Péter Balogh Abstract This study explores queer quarantine, my conceptualization of processes and practices aimed at assessing, diagnosing and isolating queer threats to the nation. In theorizing queer quarantine, I draw upon the longstanding conflation of queerness with disease and contagion, and build a case for reading the isolation, containment and casting out of queerness as an assemblage of discursive tactics and technologies aimed at quarantining queers beyond conventional understandings of quarantine. I examine the ways queers are imagined to threaten public space, healthy bodies, and the future of the nation, and provide a new accounting for so-called homophobic policies and practices deployed in statecraft and dominant culture. I also trace the emergence of the queer AIDS monster, an effect of disciplinary tactics of queer quarantine and a particular discursive formation in its own right. My study has two aims: building a case for queer quarantine and, at the same time, demonstrating how queer quarantine can be used as a new model of analysis to identify and explore some of the ways the Canadian state and dominant culture continue to marginalize and oppress queers despite the rights gains and “acceptance” that some gays and lesbians have achieved. My analysis reveals that in 1970s Toronto, the rapidly increasing visibility of queerness became a public threat necessitating tactical responses from local authorities and the police to quarantine queer spaces.
    [Show full text]
  • Queer Mobilizations
    Edited by Manon Tremblay QUEER MOBILIZATIONS Social Movement Activism and Canadian Public Policy Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press Tremblay_QueerMobilizations_8305-013f_Final Pass.indd iii 4/2/2015 7:28:25 AM © UBC Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-0-7748-2907-6 (bound). – ISBN 978-0-7748-2909-9 (pdf). – ISBN 978-0-7748-2910-6 (epub) Cataloguing-in-publication data for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada. UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the fi nancial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. Th is book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. A reasonable attempt has been made to secure permission to reproduce all material used. If there are errors or omissions they are wholly unintentional and the publisher would be grateful to learn of them. Cover photos ( left to right, from top ): Cynthia Flood and daughters Isabel and Margaret, Vancouver, 1978?, courtesy of Don Hann; National Gay Conference, Winnipeg, 1974, courtesy of Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA), 1986-032/02P(09); Stop Police Violence,
    [Show full text]
  • 1. What Does Our Progress Mean?
    1. WhAt does our Progress MeAn? Canada is often regarded as a country that is highly evolved in acknowledging the rights of queer people. The American media, for example, often refer to Canada as a “queer utopia,” especially relative to themselves. This perception is largely due to the 2005 fed- eral legalization of same-sex marriage, making Canada the fourth country in the world, and the first in the Western hemisphere, to do so. With that milestone, many assumed that an “end of law” had been reached for queer Canadians in reforming the legal system. We had also certainly managed to outpace our southern neighbours, who continue to struggle in doing the same. But is our queer-friendly designation justified? Canada is indeed one of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to the formal rights of queer people. Officially, we enjoy nearly all of the same legal rights as our heterosexual counterparts, from marriage and adoption to access to housing and employment. But some crucial factors need to be kept in mind when considering Canada’s reputation: first, that this has not always been the case. Young people — queer or otherwise — are likely aware of this simple fact, but likely much less aware of the specifics. Such as how the 1965 arrest of a mechanic in the Northwest Territories triggered the partial decriminalization of homosexuality four years later. Or how, in 1981, police violently raided a series of gay establishments 5 6 About cAnAdA: Queer rights in Toronto, resulting both in one of the largest mass arrests in Canadian history and, shortly thereafter, the largest demonstration for lesbian and gay rights in that same history.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to LGBTQ Studies
    Carleton University Fall 2020 & Winter 2021 Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies FYSM 1402A: Introduction to LGBTQ Studies Tuesdays & Thursdays / 10h-11h30 Location: Courses will be delivered ONLINE for the Fall 2020 term This course will be asynchronous on Tuesdays, synchronous on Thursdays Instructor: Dr. Ryan Conrad Email: [email protected] Office: Virtual on Zoom Office Hours: Thursdays by appointment, Noon-13h15 Course Description An interdisciplinary introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer studies, from the historical emergence of the field to the contemporary cultural and political issues that remain central to the discipline. Students’ critical thinking and writing skills will be sharpened through an exploration of film, art, archives, oral histories, ethnographies, legal documents, scholarly texts, and literature organized into thematic units on the social construction of sexuality, colonization, criminalization, proto-gay and lesbian movements, gay liberation, lesbian feminism, trans liberation, rights-based organizing, queer theory, HIV/AIDS, sex work, censorship, immigration, and more. Course materials will emphasise how LGBTQ identities are co-constituted along other axes of difference including, but not limited to class, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, and ability. As such, this class will foreground queer interventions in feminist, disability, and critical race studies. This will be an interactive and lively discussion-based seminar that will prepare students for deeper engagement with sexuality studies and/or queer/trans activism. There are no prerequisites for this course. This course precludes WGST 1808. Course Delivery This course will be delivered in a blended asynchronous/synchronous style. This means students will work independently for Tuesday’s scheduled class, but will be required to attend virtual seminars on Thursdays from 10h30 to 11h30 EST.
    [Show full text]
  • The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure
    TheEpistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure KenjiYoshino* In thisarticle, Professor Kenji Yoshino seeks to explainwhy the category of bisexualityhas beenerased in contemporaryAmerican political and legal discourse.He firstargues that the invisibility ofbisexuality relative to homo- sexualitydoes not reflect the incidences of those orientations in thepopulation. Definingbisexuality as thepossession of more than incidental desire for both sexes,Yoshino shows that the major sexuality studies demonstrate that the inci- denceof bisexuality is infact greater than or comparableto theincidence of homosexuality.Yoshino explains the erasure of bisexualityby positing that bothself-identified heterosexuals and self-identified homosexuals have overlap- ping interestsin theerasure of bisexualitythat lead theminto an "epistemic contract"of bisexual erasure. These interests include: (1) thestabilization of exclusivesexual orientation categories; (2) theretention of sex as an important diacriticalaxis; and (3) theprotection of normsof monogamy.Noting that suchcontracts tend to becomevisible only when they are challenged,Yoshino describeshow bisexualshave increasinglycontested their own erasure. Fi- nally,Yoshino examines the effects of bisexual invisibility and visibilityin the legal realm,focusing on thesexual harassment jurisprudence of recentdec- ades. * AssociateProfessor, Yale Law School. I thankAkhil Amar, Ian Ayres,Jennifer Gerarda Brown,Ariela Dubler, Bill Eskridge,Oren Izenberg, Robert Post, Bill Rubenstein,Vicki Schultz, RevaSiegel, and Amanda
    [Show full text]