Samantha Allen, "Maine Voters Could Ban LGBT Conversion Therapy"
"One month ago, Republican Maine Governor Paul LePage became the first in the country to veto a ban on conversion therapy. So far, 13 governors have signed laws prohibiting the practice of trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity through medical treatment, including six Republicans."
Sabrina Barr, "Parent's Explanation to Child About Non-Binary Gender Goes Viral"
"Just because we’re told by other people that we are something doesn’t mean that it’s true."
Owen Bowcott, "Not enough fish: woman successfully sues dating agency over lack of men"
"Seventy Thirty misled Tereza Burki on true number of male members, judge rules."
Christina Caron, "Transgender Girl, 12, Is Violently Threatened After Facebook Post by Classmate’s Parent"
"A 12-year-old transgender student in a small Oklahoma town near the Texas border was targeted in an inflammatory social media post by the parents of a classmate, leading to violent threats and driving officials to close the school for two days."
Andrea Lo, "Voguing for freedom: Lebanon's LGBTQ fight for equal rights"
"Lebanon is considered more liberal than many other countries in the Middle East—yet equality for the LGBTQ community is still a sensitive topic. Across the capital Beiruit, individuals are exploring different ways for the LGBTQ community to express themselves or fight for their rights."
Tris Mamone, "Until Our Workplaces Are Safe, LGBTQ People Will Be Trapped In The Closet"
"Yet even with the strides that have been made, many queer folks keep their pride private. According to a recent study from the Human Rights Campaign, nearly half of LGBTQ people are still in the closet, specifically in the workplace."
Geir Moulson, "Germany approves 3rd gender option, allows people to register as 'diverse'"
"Germany’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a third gender option for official records that will allow people to be registered as “diverse,” complying with a ruling from the country’s highest court."
Chitra Ramaswamy, "Ruby Rose’s Batwoman casting prompted celebration, but the backlash tells us a lot about our era"
"After being cast as the gay superhero, Rose deleted her Twitter account amid a barrage of criticism that she is not Jewish or ‘gay enough’."
Caspar Salmon, "Casting Jack Whitehall as a gay Disney character is an act of queer erasure"
"Gay people can act straight convincingly, but the reverse is far trickier – just look at Dominic West dancing in the film Pride."
Harriet Sherwood, "Catholic LGBT group rejected by event pope will attend in Dublin"
"An organisation representing LGBT Catholics around the world has been denied permission for a stall at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, which Pope Francis is attending on 25 August."
Article Spotlight
Rainer Herrn and Michael Thomas Taylor, "Magnus Hirschfeld's Interpretation of the Japanese Onnagata as Transvestites," Journal of the History of Sexuality 27, no. 1 (2018): 63-100. https://muse.jhu.edu/
"In 1913 Magnus Hirschfeld created what he referred to as the "Wall of Sexual Transitions" for the International Physicians' Congress in London. The first hint of Hirschfeld's intention to internationally communicate his evolving theories of sex and gender, the wall contained images of individuals structured into four quadrants that reflected categories central to Hirschfeld's theories: hermaphrodites, forms of androgyny, homosexuals, and transvestites. Today, this wall has survived only in several photographs that make it difficult to reconstruct all of its original images. This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that Hirschfeld took his images from a range of sources and contexts: erotica, works of anthropology and medicine, depictions of works of art, and popular publications such as newspapers and magazines. Among the images that can be distinguished, however, are four photos of Japanese onnagata: male actors who played women's roles in Japanese Kabuki theater."
Call for Papers
Suffrage at 100: Women and American Politics Since 1920
Submission Deadline: September 15, 2018
"This collection will map out the last 100 years of this lengthy struggle, focusing on efforts to recognize, appreciate, and cultivate women’s civic engagement since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Our purpose is not celebratory. Instead, we seek to trace the uneven road to suffrage and public office women of different backgrounds and means experienced after 1920. We also intend to expose the institutional barriers and masculinist conceptions of leadership that women in politics have faced and continue to tackle. Women have exhibited considerable democratic imagination within and outside the traditional channels of electoral politics. Melding gender, social, cultural, and political history, this collection seeks to capture examples of women acting together and on their own within and outside electoral and governmental channels to claim a political presence, enlist state action, and create alternative services and solutions. In doing so, we use this historic centennial to make visible the determined presence of women in politics since 1920, while also calling attention to the ways these women have and continue to be written out of history"
Please send article abstracts of 500 words and a CV by September 15, 2018 to: Stacie at staranto@ramapo.edu or Leandra at lrzarnow@central.uh.edu. We also welcome questions and comments at those email addresses.
Episode Spotlight
Decades before the #MeToo movement, flight attendants navigated a workplace in which their employers required them to stay thin, remain unmarried, and squeeze into revealing clothing every day. In the early 1970s, flight attendants organized one of the first campaigns against workplace sexual harassment, assault, and sexual discrimination.
Books
Sexing History Swag
Podcasts
Close Encounters from The Guardian's "Sex when you're asexual"
"Jords has always known he was asexual, but his partners have struggled to understand. Can you compromise over your sexuality for the sake of companionship?"