Back To the Main SiteDesiring Gendered Bodies
Pleasure Activism Australia was kind enough to republish an article on gender and sexuality that I wrote. They are a great website, and a group working for a very important cause. After all, who couldn’t use a little extra guilt free pleasure once in a while? Anyway, go check them out, and here is my article reposted for your enjoyment.
Gender 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.
Volunteers Training at the AIDS Action Council
A particularly transphobic debate took place on ACTQueer, the local queer email list. In the aftermath of that the AIDS Action Council of Canberra requested that A Gender Agenda and New CTN provide some basic trans101 style training for their volunteer base. We agreed, as a favour to them, and worked hard and pulled together our first basic training program, and presented an hour long workshop to a group of about 15 people.
The evening was excellent practice, and gave us plenty of new ideas on how to improve our training strategies, and ways of explaining things. In particular, it helped build our ongoing relationship with NewCTN. AbbeyJane helped us write the package, and present it, and one of the other CTN Regulars was in the audience and provided us with invaluable feedback at the end of the evening.
We also had the unique and pleasurable experience of being trans people sitting by while a non-trans person goes into bat for our rights. One of our non-trans members spoke eloquently about what being a trans ally meant to her, and where she sees the LGBT Communities shortcomings in being inclusive of transgendered people.
So thankyou to all the attendees of the training session, and Abbey, Peter, and Gab for being excellent presenters!
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