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Aurora Almendral, "A Transgender Paradox, and Platform, in the Philippines"
"Dominated by conservative morals taught by the Roman Catholic Church, the Philippines is also one of Southeast Asia’s most tolerant countries toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. And lawmakers are taking steps to ensure national legal protections that would penalize discrimination against them."
Faiza Amin, "North America’s first sex-doll brothel opening in Toronto"
"A brothel is set to open in Toronto’s north end, but the sex workers won’t be real women but instead high-tech sex dolls made of silicone."
Tom Batchelor, "'Fake gay': Iraqi man denied asylum in Austria because he was 'too girlish'"
"An Iraqi man has had his asylum application rejected because authorities in Austria claimed he was “too girlish” and they did not believe he was gay. The unnamed 27-year-old was reportedly told by officials his behaviour was 'not authentic'."
Finlay Games, "I Didn't Know I Was Trans Until I Got Sober"
"I am now approaching eight years sober and clean, and it’s been six-and-a-half years since I announced the truth of who I am. This morning I awoke to the familiar feeling of gratitude and possibility."
Adam Levy, "Democrats adopt gender nonbinary language to charter"
"Democratic National Committee members adopted language to their charter and rules Saturday to include gender self-identification and gender nonbinary members."
Eliza Mackintosh and Sheena McKenzie, "Pope Francis speaks to thousands at Sunday Mass in Dublin amid sex abuse scandal"
"Hundreds of thousands of people braved wet and windy weather to attend Pope Francis' Mass at Phoenix Park in Dublin on Sunday, while thousands more gathered in the city center for protests against clerical sexual abuse amid fresh reports the Pontiff ignored allegations stretching back years."
Laurie Marhoefer, "Why the Myth of the 'Gay Nazi' Is Back in Circulation"
"Like all dangerous lies, the myth of the gay Nazi is wrapped around a grain of reality. There was a closeted gay man in the early Nazi Party. He wasn’t a myth, and Hitler had him killed in 1934—in part, ostensibly, because he was gay."
Joan McFadden, "Disability rights activist says people think she doesn’t have sex because she has cerebral palsy — and talks pregnancy and feeling confident in her own skin"
"Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at two years old, disability rights activist Vix Jensen, 26, opens up about the impact the condition has had on her love life."
Lorissa Rinehart, "This Black Woman Was Once the Biggest Star in Jazz. Here’s Why You’ve Never Heard of Her"
"Hazel Scott was a piano prodigy who wowed the worlds of music, TV and film. But when she stood up for her rights, the establishment took her down."
Evan Urquhart, "Facing Bullies and Court Battles, Transgender Kids Head Back to School"
"During August and September, all over the country, kids are heading back to school. It’s a time of both nerves and high hopes for every family, but for transgender and gender-nonconforming kids and their parents, there’s an extra layer of concern."
Florin Zubascu, "Hungary’s plan to ban gender studies sparks international backlash"
"The government’s decision is the first time an EU country has unilaterally barred universities from issuing degrees in a certain subject. Critics say it sets a dangerous precedent for state intervention in other academic subjects."
Article Spotlight
Keely Stauter-Halsted, "The Physician and the Fallen Woman: Medicalizing Prostitution in the Polish Lands," Journal of the History of Sexuality 20, no. 2 (2011): 270-290. https://muse.jhu.edu/
"This article explores the implications of broadening medical authority over prostitutes in the Polish lands at the turn of the twentieth century, focusing on the uneasy symbiosis between physicians and the body of the prostitute in the former's quest for heightened power and social status. Armed with an increased mandate in the fight against the venereal plague, doctors were able to leverage their access to the bodies of urban prostitutes and gain greater social status in the complicated milieu of partitioned Poland. At the same time, the newfound invasive capabilities of the medical profession helped to define all working-class women and female migrants as sexually promiscuous, conflating poverty and prostitution into a single social category. This dynamic reflected a shift in elite attitudes about sexuality and poverty in early twentieth-century Polish-speaking society."
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
Chances are you’ve never heard of Ruth Wallis, one of the greatest singers, comedians, and performers of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar United States. Most of her catalogue remains on vinyl and historians have forgotten her. But from the 1940s until the early 1970s, Ruth Wallis was a bestselling performer and a mainstay at supper clubs and hotels. At a time when it was legally risky for entertainers to sing about sexuality for profit and pleasure, Ruth sold millions of records that used innuendo to playfully hint at a variety of straight and queer sexual pleasures.
Books
