WERK!: Forum on Queer/Trans Employment Issues
Tuesday, October 18 · 8:00pm – 10:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Ave, Room 5409
New York, NY
Join author Kyla Bender-Baird and The Queer Commons for a community forum on navigating the complexities of employment for trans, gender nonconforming and queer identified people. Bender-Baird will share stories from her recently released book, Transgender Employment Experiences, bringing together the workplace experiences of transgender people with a discussion around NYC-specific policy, passing privilege and it’s implications for the workplace, and intersections of age, race, class, dis/ability, gender and immigrant status in employment issues.
Part academic discussion, part community knowledge share, representatives from local organizations (TBA) serving queer and trans people will also be on hand to share resources. Our interactive format will provide ample opportunity for participants to share experiences and information with peers.
Please join our google group in order to access the readings. We will be reading a selection from Transgender Employment Experiences.
AUTHOR BIO:
Kyla Bender-Baird, author of Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law, is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Prior to returning to grad school, Kyla served as the Research and Programs Manager for the National Council for Research on Women. While at the Council, Kyla co-founded its Emerging Leaders Network, offering professional development and networking opportunities to young women in the non-profit sector. Originally from Oregon, Kyla has been a happy resident of Brooklyn, NY for nearly three years. She blogs for Girl w/ Pen and Ms. Magazine.
Join us on Thursday, October 6th from 7-9pm at Bluestockings Bookstore, Cafe & Activist Center for this inspiring, exciting event.
How do we gain empowerment through art? How can the arts be a form of activism? In the space of performance, we have a chance to share our whole selves. Art allows us a voice, a platform to speak our truths. Strength is built on this. Communities are built on this.
Join Butters Papi and the Queer Commons for a queer artists of color showcase, followed by a discussion on the role of art activism for queer people of color & queers in general. Featuring Una Aya Osato, Charan P. Morris and Kit Yan, and moderated by QC Steering Committee Member Melanie Brown.
$5 suggested, no one turned away for lack of funds! .
Featuring:
Charan P Morris: Educator/Poet/ Writer
Una Aya Osato: Independent Performer / Browns Girls Burlesque Company Member (“ExHOTic Other”)
Kit Yan: Poet / Writer / Storyteller
ARTIST BIOS:
CHARAN P. MORRIS is a poet/educator transplanted from Chicago to New York. A LAMBDA Literary Foundation 2011 Emerging LGBT Voices Fellow, she has performed for audiences throughout the East Coast & Midwest, sharing a stage with artists such as Gill Scott-Heron, The Last Poets, Staceyann Chin, Kelly Tsai and others. Her work speaks out about colorism, homophobia and war, but sometimes it’s just about being human. https://www.CharanP.com/
UNA AYA OSATO was born and raised in NYC, where she works as a performer, writer, and educator. Since graduating Wesleyan University, she has created several award winning one-woman shows: JapJAP, Recess, and Keep It Movin’. Una has performed nationally and internationally in theaters, classrooms, community organizations, prisons and universities. Her love for fully embodying her politics in her art has also led Una to Brown Girls Burlesque, where she is company member. For more info please visit: www.facebook.com/una.aya.osato.
KIT YAN was Featured in the HBO Documentary Asians Aloud. He tells stories through slam poetry from the lens of a queer and transgender Asian American from Hawaii who travels all over the world on tour, sharing touching love poems, coming out stories, and comedic tales of his childhood. Kit’s work has been taught at universities all over the world from Singapore to San Francisco State to Harvard. Kit is on Campus Pride’s Top 25 LGBT college campus speakers and artists hot list and is dedicated to creating positive social change. In 2010, Kit appeared in a census psa focusing on same-sex couples and people of color. Kit also spoke to over 200,000 from the stage of the 2009 National Equality March, performed on the 2009 San Francisco Pride main stage, and earned a top three spot at the 2010 National Queer Slam. Kit Yan is the first ever Mr. Transman 2010. http://www.kityanpoet.com/
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BUTTERS PAPI is a queer people of color (QPOC) production company that supports, promotes and increases the visibility of queer artists of color, including through MADHATTERS CABARET (MC), a QPOC cabaret. MC was created by founders Cristina Izaguirre and Zakiyyah Shabazz, affectionately called Papi and Butters. MC prides itself in bringing audiences performance art that subverts, enlightens and questions notions of gender, sexuality and race. For more information about MC, check out our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Madhatters-Cabaret/294095204782?sk=info.
Saturday 8/20: Queer Commons “Revenge of the Nerds” Team at Quo Rum’s Queer House Field Day
The Queer Commons is putting together a team for Quo Rum’s fabulous QUEER HOUSE FIELD DAY, and we want you to join us!
Here’s the dirt (from Quo Rum): “queer house field day is a day of pseudo-competitive pseudo-sports and games played by teams of queers in prospect park. it’s short shorts and glittery costumes. it’s dirty games and good clean fun. team uniforms and orange slices! it’s queer collective homes, activist/organizer groups, and chosen families showcasing their fabulousness while frolicking in the park! it’s for all the queermos who always got picked last and all the kids who never felt right on the boys’ team or the girls’ team.”
Our group’s theme will be REVENGE OF THE NERDS! Embrace your inner geek, nerd or dork, and impress your friends (and frenemies) with your nouveau-outsider persona. Please dress as nerdily as possible – we’re talkin’ glasses, sharp parts, suspenders, high-waisted pants, sweat bands, that floral onesie you got in grade school (or from urban last year). Not ready to dork it out? Then wear something shiny or scandalous, please, and we’ll intimidate folks with our glorious good looks.
Registration will begin at 2pm sharp at the field south of Tennis House in Prospect Park; directions are here: http://www.prospectpark.org/visit/places/tennis_house. Quo Rum is expecting an overwhelming number of participants this year, so please be on time so we can get signed in and get on the field!
Bring hats, lotsa water, lovers, whistles, noisemakers, energy bars – whatever you need to get in the spirit. Players and cheerleaders are equally welcome, but if you plan to play please hit up Adrien at weibgen at gmail dot com so we can make sure to look for you an’ get you all registered the day of. Check the deets on our Facebook event page here.
Rain or shine… GAME ON!
Up Against the Wall: The Criminalization of Queer Identities
Our next discussion session will be on Wed, August 3rd from 7-9pm at Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St, New York, NY (please note the venue change). Free and open to all, please join us!
UPDATE (8/2): Reading Summary / Background Info for the discussion is now online here, check it out!
When, and for whom, does coming out mean becoming an outlaw? What happens to a liberation movement – born as a police riot and bred into a multi-billion dollar nonprofit complex – when only the most mainstream, wealthy and privileged members serve as its spokespeople?
Even as some are celebrating the victory of same-sex marriage in New York and “good,” sympathetic queers continue to receive more widespread acceptance, many other,… less “respectable” queers remain locked in oppressive systems ignored by the mainstream. Is prison abolition and reform a “queer issue”? What do trans and gender nonconforming queers risk to be who they are? How are queer people of color criminalized? How do we not only embrace and support incarcerated queers, but also stand in solidarity with non-queers who have been incarcerated? Is this type of solidarity across seemingly disparate identities and experiences truly possible, and if so, why do our politics not reflect it?
Join the Queer Commons for a discussion of queers in the criminal justice system and how the queer community addresses (and ignores) the issue of mass incarceration. Readings will focus on the role the police play in policing gender, the disproportionate criminalization of queers of color, and the unique challenges faced by queers in the criminal justice system.
READING SUMMARY: Online here.
READINGS:
Queer (In)Justice: “The Ghosts of Stonewall: Policing Gender, Policing Sex.”
“Queer Lockdown: Coming to Terms with the Ongoing Criminalization of LGBTQ Communities.
Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues excerpt – Chapter 3
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS:
Karalyn Shimmyo, founder of The Queer Commons, is a social worker, queer activist and community organizer. At present, she works with formerly incarcerated adults in the process of reentering the community. Karalyn has been a panelist and workshop facilitator at schools of social work, and conducts in-service trainings on topics such as clinical work with LGBTQ people and incorporating a social justice model into clinical work with mandated clients.
Adrien A. Weibgen is a racial justice advocate and activist focused on educational access, criminal justice reform, and other efforts to expand opportunities for communities of color. Adrien is the editor of The Queer Commons’ weekly Homosexual Agenda and previously co-facilitated a QC discussion group on segregation in the queer community. Adrien will be starting law school this fall and intends to continue fighting structural racism through future work as an attorney.
Laura G. Duncan is a sexual health researcher and educator currently living in Brooklyn. Her research is in the field of medical anthropology and focuses on the influence of medicine on social and individual understandings of sexuality, as well as issues of health care literacy in underserved communities. She has taught sexual health education in a variety of academic, non-profit and community venues and is currently a pre-medical student and full-spectrum doula. She is, disappointingly, not a robot.
Bier Bar Brainstorm! Weds June 22, 6:30 p.m.
xo,
the qc
WHY AN OPEN BRAINSTORMING MEETING?
The Queer Commons is a peer-led group dedicated to developing and supporting educational and community-building events by and for queers, particularly people of color, low-income folks, noncitizens, trans, gender nonconforming, genderqueer and intersex people, and all those who exist outside of the gay mainstream. It’s a big job, and we can’t do it alone! There are a wealth of experiences, ideas and skills in the queer community, only some of which are represented by the current steering committee members. We want to collaborate with as many folks as we can to raise visibility for other queer groups and causes and create conversations around issues that aren’t talked about enough.
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR EXACTLY?
Is there a topic you’re burning to talk about that you want us to plan an event around? An article you just read that blew your mind? Another queer organization that might want to collaborate with us to create a conversation for a broader audience? Do you have an idea for a follow-up for a discussion we’ve already had? Do you feel like we could be doing a better job addressing your experiences and priorities? Is there some topic in New York’s queer community that you wish were talked about more? The good, the bad, the strange – we want it all!
WHAT KIND OF TOPICS WILL BE CONSIDERED?
Literally anything. Some ideas we’ve been kicking around (some our own, some suggested by members) include “gay among gays: same-gender love in same-sex relationships;” “werk: queer (or not) at the office;” “queer community responsibility: what privileged queers owe the rest;” “how education shapes our queerness;” queer spirituality; sm as a sexual orientation; and “born this way: abortion and ‘the gay gene.’”
DO I HAVE TO WANT TO LEAD A SESSION MYSELF TO SUGGEST IT?
Nope. We’ll consider all of the ideas folks propose and do our best to make them happen, whether it’s by collaborating with you so you feel ready to lead a discussion (you can do it!) or finding someone else who’s interested in similar ideas.
WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ANY IDEAS TO SHARE?
Don’t sweat it! Come chill with us. We’re fun, swears.
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DIRECTIONS TO LORELY:
J, M to Bowery, F to 2nd Avenue, B, D to Grand, 6 to Spring or R to Prince.
Thursday 6/16: The Queer Commons Goes to ‘Wong Foo’ for FIERCE!
Are you ready to catch one of the first outdoor movies of the season? Want to support a great cause at the same time? And do you want it to be FIERCEly queer?! Please join the Queer Commons for our first social outing of the summer – a chance to socialize with some Queer Commons folks while supporting other fantastic queer organizations. This Thursday, we’ll be heading to the Piers (Hudson River Park, Pier 46) to watch “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” and to support to FIERCE, which works to build the leadership and power of LGBTQ youth of color in New York City.
As the Piers continue to gentrify, FIERCE’s free programming is helping to maintain the Hudson River Park as a safe space for youth, low-income folks and queers of color. Come out and support, and say haaaaay to Colin Ashley, Ali Harris, Adrien Weibgen, Rebecca Weinberger and other friends from the Queer Commons. See you at the Piers!
There will be tabling by several organization starting at 6:30pm; the movie will begin at sunset.
The full details are on the FIERCE event page here.
Busted, Broke & Queer: Radical Ethics and Poverty in Queer Communities
Please join the Queer Commons for our next community workgroup on Wednesday, May 25 from 7:00pm – 9:00pm at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY (room TBA). Venue is wheelchair accessible. Please click here to RSVP via our Facebook invitation.
It has been argued that the experience of poverty and internalized shame shape and define the queer experience, including the personal and social spheres, queer spaces, etc. Even within the queer community, bias, shame and subtle forms of discrimination often determine who is experienced as “poor,” and who is just “broke.” Is there an intentionality afforded to white, able-bodied, cisgender queers to reject certain cultural norms that is withheld from other queers? How do we differentiate between the grateful/deserving poor and the ungrateful/undeserving poor, and who do these distinctions hurt the most?
FURTHER QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION: How do the experiences of ‘radical’ queers who choose opt out of more mainstream occupations and ways of interacting with social institutions intersect with or compare to the experiences of those whose exclusion is imposed, such as people of color, those with disabilities, and those whose gender identity or presentation, class, etc. relegate them to the outskirts of the queer/gay mainstream?
As Dorothy Allison writes in ‘Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature,’ many of us are “not only queer in a world that hates queers,” but are also “poor in a world that despises the poor.” Do our community values romanticize poverty, or do DIY ethics allow queers to transcend and reject hetero/homonormative models for acquisition, affluence and accountability?
Join us for our upcoming Community Workgroup session, where we will seek to address these questions. All Community Workgroup sessions are free and open to the public. Please join our Google Group for updates and to receive the reading summary before the event.
READING/MEDIA SELECTIONS FOR WORKGROUP SESSION:
- “A Question of Class,” from ‘Skin: Talking about Sex, Class & Literature’ by Dorothy Allison
- “Queers Without Money.” Amber Hollibaugh, The Village Voice, June 20, 2001
- “Black Working Class Gays Left out of National Gay Rights Agenda.” Kenyon Farrow, The Grio.
- Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual Community, a report by The Williams Institute
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
- “Living on the Margins” (video), In the Life, October, 2009
- “A Fabulous Attitude: LGBTGNC people thriving & surviving on love, shelter & knowledge.” Participatory action research study by the Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative, Queers for Economic Justice.
FACILITATOR INFO: Karalyn is the founder and a current steering committee member of The Queer Commons. She is a social worker, queer activist and community organizer, and is the is the former Executive Director of the New York State Coalition of LMSWs. At present, Karalyn works with formerly incarcerated adults in the process of reentering the community, and conducts trainings on topics such as incorporating a social justice model into clinical work with mandated clients.
April 26th – Queers Are Segregated. So?
UPDATE: Reading summary now available here. Also, due to the unexpected and overwhelming response, the survey on your experience of race in the queer community will stay online through this Friday, April 29, and a summary of the survey results will be separately published soon. Check back here for updates! Join the Queer Commons for an examination of segregation in queer communities, how queer people of color continue to be marginalized even in spaces that imagine themselves to be ‘inclusive’ and ‘radical,’ and how qpoc navigate such dynamics to make spaces and stories of their own. The discussion will explore ‘gay ghettos,’ whether and in what context segregation in the queer community is a problem, and for whom. Participants will be encouraged to reflect how they have perpetuated, challenged or responded to these dynamics through their own travels in New York’s queer communities, and to consider some of the benefits of concentrated communities. We’ll also explore some of the tensions around race and queerness in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. This session will be facilitated by Colin A., a doctoral student in sociology at the CUNY Graduate center who theorizes raced queers in space, and Adrien W., an Asian American racial justice advocate who enjoys uncomfortable conversations about race.
Time and Date: Tuesday, April 26 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: CUNY Graduate Center, Room 5414 (venue is wheelchair accessible) 365 5th Avenue
ARTICLES:
Please note, you’ll need to be a member of the Queer Commons Google Group to access the first article! Sign up at groups.google.com/group/thequeercommons. A reading summary will be posted soon, please check back for updates!
1. Nero, Charles. Why Are the Gay Ghettos White? Black Queer Studies, Duke University Press, 2005.. Nero’s essay illustrates how systemic racism and white hostility have denied people of color fair access to primarily gay male social networks and to the physical neighborhoods that have become an integral part of these social networks.
2. “There Goes the Neighborhood.” Time Out New York, November 2008. This article is an early profile of the queer dance party “That’s My Jam,” described by its founders as a “mixed-queer, all-inclusive” event and by others as Bed-Sty’s first “white” gay party.
3. “Where the Bois Are: bklyn boihood is the Future.” Autostraddle, March 2011. Profile of the ‘new’ gay neighborhood of Bed-Sty and the founders of bbh, which aims to provide visibility and empowerment to masculine-presenting queer and trans people of color.
4. Cohen, Cathy. “What Is This Movement Doing to My Politics?”
The QC Presents: The Right To Be ill: Queer Hedonism and Policing Health
READINGS NOW ONLINE!
Please note that you must be a member of the Queer Commons Google Group to be able to view the first two articles. Sign up for the group at groups.google.com/group/thequeercommons.
Robert Crawford. “Health as a Meaningful Social Practice”
Richard Klein, “What Is Health and How Do You Get It?” (pgs 21-31 of PDF)
Frank Spinelli, “Cruise Control”
Time: Wednesday, April 13 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, manhattan C203. This venue is wheelchair accessible.
“Stay healthy, stay fit.” “Live a long and happy life.” “Eat right.” We are told these things constantly, and people often assume that healthy is the best and only way to live. But is pleasure enough of a reason to ignore the health imperative? Or do you have a responsibility to the nation, your employer, partners, family, friends, and – most of all – yourself, to always be striving for health? In a society that is obsessed with risk, who is seen as riskiest? How do these pressure stack up for queers of color? Are healthy bodies raced and classed? Join the Queer Commons for a discussion of queers acting “badly” – from promiscuity to unsafe sex to gay cruises to eroticizing fat bodies, and the times we’ve all had a few too many – and whether this makes us free or stupid.
MORE ABOUT THIS SESSION:
What are the ways our body and desires are being regulated by the health imperative? Is the need to always be striving for health masking a new morality? Why is my health a cause of concern for anyone other than me? Who is the “public” in public health and why are we being told what to do via subway advertising? What are people doing for you – or to you – when they say they are “concerned about your health?” When we make a health decision, are we thinking about how our bodies feel or how we should act in others’ eyes? Can the bodies of “the unhealthy” – the fat, disabled, HIV+, ill, crazy, elderly – ever be fixed? Or what are the radical possibilities of accepting a (your!) body’s brokenness? What if desire and pleasure were a part of our understanding of what allows us to feel healthy? What if we understood health as something that is only knowable to the individual and is not legible on the body?
Come to the first Queer Commons community workgroup to discuss these questions and more in a personal and political conversation facilitated by Rebecca W, sex educator and fat activist, and Ali H, trans activist and queer media and design specialist.
ABOUT THE QC COMMUNITY WORKGROUP SERIES:
The Queer Commons Community Workgroups are peer-led workgroups that foster thoughtful reflection and community-building around queer issues through discussions that are both academic and personal. The Workgroups are a place for people who are interested in exploring queer theory and the range of experiences queer people–particularly people of color, trans and gender nonconforming folks, noncitizens, and all those who exist outside of the gay mainstream–encounter in their everyday lives.
For the facebook event go here. And while you’re there, be our friend.
Uncovered: ‘Good Hair,’ Flaming Lips and the Next Frontier of Civil Rights
Tracing the evolving demands made on queer people by a predominantly straight society, Kenji Yoshino argues that pressures to convert (to no longer be gay) or pass (to no longer read as gay) have given way to less obvious, but still extremely damaging pressures to cover – i.e. for gays to be gay, if they must, but not too loudly, too directly, or in any way that fundamentally challenges the standards of the heteronormative society in which they exist. Yoshino criticizes current civil rights law for protecting only those aspects of people’s identities that are viewed as inalterable, leaving unprotected the many choices that are fundamental to the development, expression and enjoyment of our identities and lives. Calling attention to the covering demands made on gays, people of color, women, and indeed anyone who falls outside mainstream norms, Yoshino challenges the law – and each of us – to consider the human costs of pressures to conform.
10/23 Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences
Join us for a reading and discussion of Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences. Author Rebecca Jordan-Young takes on the evidence that sex differences are hardwired into the brain, analyzing virtually all published research that supports the claims of “human brain organization theory.” Jordan-Young reveals a series of methodological weaknesses, questionable assumptions, and inconsistent definitions that demonstrate how often these studies fail the standards of science. Challenging the enormous gaps between the ambiguous findings and grand conclusions that have accumulated through the years, Jordan-Young urges us to reconsider whether gender “science” is scientific at all.
