Back To the Main SiteGender Library Update
A Gender Agenda has been very busy over the last few months. Even though we’ve not been updating the website much, plenty has been happening. We’ve held a fundraiser, continued lobbying the ACT Government for legislative change, provided free training for a group of local volunteers, supported student politics, and generally been out in the world, trying our hands at new things.
I think one of the most exciting new idea’s that we’ve had, has been the AGA Gender Library. The rationale behind the project, is that here in Canberra we don’t have a queer focussed bookshop, and none of the local LGBT Organisations have any trans employees, or information for or by trans/genderqueer or intersex people. This means that there is a dearth of information for sex and gender diverse people, and for those people who wish to educate themselves, and become more knowledgeable supporters of the sex and gender diverse individuals in Canberra. We thought that if we could collect enough of that material, we could provide a social and informational hub where people can gather to learn and talk about the myriad of issues that face the sex and gender diverse community both locally, and further afield.
A few months ago we sent out requests for book donations, and titles of books that people thought we should purchase, and since then we’ve been accumulating a stock pile of literature, films, and resources for transgendered, intersex, genderqueer, and other sex and gender diverse people. I currently have two big boxes of books in my lounge room, that have been donated by people from all over the country. The Bookshop Darlinghurst was kind enough to give us a 10% discount on the books we purchased from them, and an organisation in the USA refunded us the cost of our shipping when they heard what the books were for.
The public support of this project has been absolutely phenomenal. We’re currently looking for some kind of physical space where we can set up our library, and we’re hoping to have everything good to go so that our grand opening can coincide with Gender Diversity Day 2010.
A Gender Library Request
A Gender Agenda is opening a Gender Library at some point in the next few months. We have a grant to purchase books for the library, and do have a preliminary list of books we want, which is about 140 books long! Obviously, we can’t buy all of those. We can probably buy between 30-50 books, depending on the price of the books.
So we have two requests:
1. If you have a book (or multiple books) that you would like to donate to the library, what is it? (So we don’t buy it, and double up)
2. If there is a book (or multiple books) that you think that no self-respecting trans-positive book collection should be without, what is it?
These are the sorts of things that we are looking for:
- Non-fiction: Biographies, anthologies, self help, post-modern gender analysis, trans-positive medical information (medical stuff needs to be no older than 5-10 years), feminist classics, histories, political and activist writings, sociology, information for friends, partners, parents and children.
- Photography: Loren Cameron, Del La Grace Volcano, and other books of photographs of trans people, or by trans people
- Films: Documentaries, and movies starring trans people or transy characters. Can be either motion picture, or animations. (Including *trans-positive only* erotica) We are also looking for movies for children.
- Fiction: Stories that star trans people, stories by trans people, stories that have minor trans characters that are positively represented, (Including *trans-positive only* erotica). Also fantasy and science fiction books where an alternative gender system is represented.
- Childrens picture books: Everything from picture books about trans kids, or trans parents, to picture books with transy themes.
- Novels for kids and teens: Anything that has gender crossing as a major theme, regardless of whether an adult might think the character is ‘trans enough’. Only positive representations though – nothing where the transy character gets killed/raped/beaten/publicly humiliated for being transy.
If you can think of any authors or producers of trans media that might be willing to donate something to the library, please let me know so that I can contact them. :) We will be marking any media that is donated which is good advertising for writers and indie film makers.
If you wish to make a donation of a book or some cash to help us buy a book, keep in mind that A Gender Agenda is a Health Promotion Charity, so donations are tax deductable. We will value book donations at 50% of the RRP of a book in reasonable condition.
So if you wish to make a donation we need to know:
1. Whether and how you would like to be acknowledged in the book you donated
2. Whether and in what name you would like your tax deduction receipt to be provided.
Contact me on the email address webmaster@agenderagenda.org.au if you would like details as to where to send the donation, or would like to arrange a meeting to give it to me in person.
NOTE: Blatantly transphobic media of any kind will not be accepted, including but not limited to ‘The Transsexual Empire’ and other writing by Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, etc, medical/psychiatric information by Zucker, Bailey, Blanchard or John Money, films such as ‘Psycho’ or ‘Silence of the Lambs’ etc.
Books and papers critiquing the work of famous transphobes are welcome.
So then! What books and films do YOU think we should purchase?
Language Wars: Whats in a name?
I have a great love of movies, books and other media that is aimed at children. Not long ago I went and saw The Tale of Despereaux at the cinema. I quite enjoyed it, although it had a heavy dose of body fascism, and sexism, I felt that its attempt to discuss quite serious political themes in language that a 5 year old can understand was quite impressive. Towards the end of the film the narrator talks about how names can become swear words. She asks us how we would feel if our name was a terrible insult, if our name was a very bad word.
Unfortunately most people who are part of the sex and gender diverse community know only too well what it feels like to have our names and identities be a very bad word, to have our identity thrown at us as if its a grave insult. I’ve had emails get caught up in my spam filter, I’ve had Google Mail step in and refuse to send an email because it was suspected of being offensive. Just because my identity is also a dirty, filthy, spam-trap-triggering keyword.
I think that this is one of the key reasons that identity labels are so hotly contested in the sex and gender diverse community.
The Gender Centre defines Transgender as:
Transgender means anyone who lives, has lived, or wants to live as a member of the opposite gender (sex) to their birth gender.
In the past, the common term for transgender has been transsexual. However, in general, people who are transgender prefer to use the term transgender as this is a more accurate reflection of their identity or behaviour – that is, that they want to live and behave as a member of the opposite gender to their birth gender, not the opposite sexuality, sexual preference or sexual orientation. A transgender, just like anyone else, may be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.
However, under the Discrimination Act 1991, a “transsexual” is defined as meaning:
a person of one sex who—
(a) assumes the bodily characteristics of the other sex, whether by means of medical intervention or otherwise; or
(b) identifies himself or herself as a member of the other sex or lives, or seeks to live, as a member of that other sex.
That to me sounds like a very similar definition. Sometimes even when someone is asked what the difference is, its still not clear. FTM Australia says that the difference is quite easy to understand:
“A transgender individual takes hormones to appear as one gender or another; a transsexual person takes hormones and undergoes surgery as rehabilitation for a physical condition.”
I still don’t get it though.
Even the psychiatrists can’t decide who is transsexual, who is transgender, who is a transvestite, and who is just a filthy pervert with a fetish for ladies lingerie. The medical industry also draws lines between ‘primary’ transsexuals and ’secondary’ transsexuals. Harry Benjamin himself had a scale of transsexuals, TRUE transsexuals, and everyone else.
I find the idea of categorising someone elses identity extremely problematic, and it is often used as a way of privileging one identity over another. Doctors like to withhold treatment from those people they suspect aren’t ‘trans*whatever enough’ and because its thrown as us constantly by everyone else, sometimes we end up turning on each other and saying “So and so had surgery, but she’s really a ‘post-operative transvestite’ not a TRUE transsexual/real woman/whatever”. Its just not cool.
You wont see the words transsexual and transgender used as much as would probably be expected by A Gender Agenda. We prefer to cut off the end, and refer to people being ‘trans’ or someone being a ‘trans person’. It helps us stay clear of the debate, and be inclusive, without having to define terms that no one can agree on anyway.
What is most important, is how you define yourself. If you define as a woman, or woman of transsexual history, then you are a woman to us. If you define as third gendered, intersex, or genderqueer? No worries. We’ll respect that too. If you define as a ‘trans identified FTM’, we can respect that. Respect is important, and there is no place for being judgemental about other peoples identities within A Gender Agenda, or at any of our events. We want to be warm and welcoming, you need not worry about not passing, or not being ‘trans enough’ to join. We even welcome woman-identified women, and man-identified men, if they respect our cause, and want to work for change along side us. Its not only people that transgress gender boundaries as radically as those who transition that experience discrimination for expressing their gender differently.
Names are important, they help us communicate. In the end though, its the communication thats important, not the name itself. Labels are only useful when we are free to apply them without judgement, and express ourselves freely no matter what label we have claimed for ourselves.
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