Announcing the NEW Queer Housing Listserv!

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Karalyn S.

This little fuzzy is SO excited to start looking for queer roommates!

We have heard your feedback that a housing-specific listserv would be helpful for members of our queer community and are here to answer your call! Please post your housing-related messages here and let us know how we can make improvements. Click here to be taken to the new google group!
The Queer Commons is a community-based organization dedicated to developing and supporting free educational events by and for queer and LGBTI folks, particularly all of us who exist outside of the gay mainstream. As such, this group is intended to be accessible and affirming for queer and trans-identified individuals from many experiences. Any kind of discriminatory language will not be tolerated, and will result in immediate ban from the group. If you have a concern about the appropriateness of an existing post, please contact us.

** Please also note that an unaffiliated list, the Queer Housing Nacional listserv has existed since 2010 and has over 200 members across the nation, but primarily in NYC. The list moderator is thrilled to see an additional online queer housing resource and encourages folks who self-identify as queer women of color or allies to queer women of color, and ultimately would like to live with queer women of color to also request membership to Queer Housing Nacional. 
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We Love Brooklyn Queer Support!

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Karalyn S.

Brooklyn Queer Support is not a program of the Queer Commons, but we are re-posting this in love, solidarity and support.

Brooklyn Queer Support is a volunteer-run, non-professional, free, peer-support group with rotating pairs of queer moderators. Support meetings are open to all queer-identified (or LGBTQ — with actual understanding of the “TQ”) or queer-questioning people. This is a completely grassroots effort that began in early July of 2012 in response to two suicides in the local queer/trans community. Their next support group is taking place on Wed, July 25th at the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, at 27 Smith Street (click for facebook event page).

BQS will be holding a series of organizing meetings in early August to figure out the logistics of this group. To help with planning, please fill out this short survey before July 26th: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QDMS756

In the meantime, they (and perhaps you!) are working on organizing weekly informal drop-in support groups. Follow the BQS page to find out where/when!

Be well and take good care of one another.

 

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Summary of Transability: ‘Chosen’ Dis/abilities & Trans Experiences

Posted on January 15, 2012 by admin

The term “transability” refers to the desire of able-bodied people to become disabled, or to enact/perform disability, through medical or other means. Whilst, the prefix “trans” carries loaded social and cultural connotations, what are the implications of the prefix “trans” in the context of a dominant culture that asserts that able-bodiedness and cisgenderedness are the normative and most desirable states of being? How does this relate to the ‘cult of ability’ and the supposition that “ability” and “disability” are binary states? Does likening “transability” to “transgender” further a problematic medicalization of transgender experiences? And/or, is the resistance to the association between transability and transgender identity & the argument that “transgender is not a disability” itself ableist?

Please join The Queer Commons for a discussion about the arguments over use of the language and concept of “transability,” the intersections between disabled, deaf, transabled, and transgender communities, and how these communities can work together to build a living language that’s accessible & inclusive.

BACKGROUND ON TRANSABILITY:
These are general background articles on transability & some of the controversies over it within disabled and/or queer communities.

“Cutting Desire.” Newsweek, October 2011. A general piece on Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), mostly from the perspective of people with BIID.
Wannabe Gaga, By Josie Byzek; New Mobility: October 2011. Sometimes, Lady Gaga uses a wheelchair for show. Some disability activists hate her. Others ask, what’s the big deal?

“A comparison between transsexuality and transableism.” Transabled.org, Februray 2007. Piece written from the perspective of someone who identifies as both transsexual and transabled.
“Ain’t Born Typical.” January 2012. A response from a “fat, brown, queer, socially inept, chick” on the subject of transability.

 

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