SOCIAL DISTANCING

coming this spring

Amherst College January 30th at 4:30pm the Science Center, Lipton Lecture Hall

The Feminist Thought group of the Center for Humanistic Inquiry welcomes all to attend a public lecture by Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emerita of Biology & Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology & Biochemistry at Brown University & founder of the Science & Technology Studies Program at Brown University. The author of three books & over 60 scholarly articles, she is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Popular articles:

The Five Sexes, Revisited

Click to access 4d10b40354a974c8d1d3a9a0e66fef731e75.pdf

Click to access The-Queer-Conn-Report.pdf

Many years ago, we started a Center and transformed the campus culture. A group of students, faculty, and staff contributed to this report. I just stumbled across it online and am so happy to see it has been digitized and preserved — it is a very recent queer history of student activism and organizational change!

“What Greta Thunberg Means to Me,” Sunday Nov. 10th Noon at Johnson Chapel. A gathering for Amherst College students, faculty and staff hosted by Prof. Jen Manion and Prof. Michael Kunichika and choir director, Prof. Martha Umphrey. There will be a light reception.

For inspiration, here is Greta’s speech at the UN Climate Action Summit and her #FridaysforFutureCampaign. Some varied reporting on can be found here by Robinson Meyer “Why Greta Makes Adults Uncomfortable,” from the Atlantic and “The Problem with Greta Thunberg’s Climate Activism,” by Christopher Caldwell in the New York Times.

Songs under consideration for this week…

Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrxX9TBj2zY&feature=youtu.be
Eye of the Tiger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4
What’s Going on? Marvin Gaye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to&feature=youtu.be
If I could turn back time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of7r1Jho1HE
Cat Stevens, where do the children play
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXxcMw5PTDg
Louis Armstrong, What a wonderful world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzrABouyeE
Marvin Gaye, Mercy mercy me the ecology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxMRgponxD0&list=RDuxMRgponxD0&index=1

Jennifer Levi, Director of the Transgender Rights Project at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders and Professor of Law at Western New England University will join us at Amherst College on Tues. Oct 29th at 4:30pm in Paino Lecture Hall, Beneski Museum.

For an important essay from which I learned a great deal, see Jennifer L. Levi & Daniel Redman, The Cross-Dressing Case for Bathroom Equality, 34 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 133 (2010).

For an important essay on bullying, see Jennifer Levi, Bullying and the Laws Pertaining to It, GPSOLO, Jan./Feb. 2017, at 30

And another important essay addressing equal protection for transgender people, see Kevin M. Barry, Brian Farrell, Jennifer L. Levi, & Neelima Vanguri, A Bare Desire to Harm: Transgender People and the Equal Protection Clause, 57 B.C. L. REV. 507 (2016)

For more information about Jennifer’s work with GLAD, click here.

For more information about Jennifer’s many publications, click here.

Other Resources

Some other great resources curated by Jennifer L. Nye, J.D. Lecturer in Law and Social Justice, History Department, Co-Chair, Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Certificate at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Supreme Court Considers Whether Civil Rights Act Protects L.G.B.T. Workers (NY Times, Oct. 8, 2019) Podcast: ACLU Podcast: THE HISTORIC TRANS RIGHTS CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT, interview with Chase Strangio, deputy director of the ACLU’s LGBT and HIV Project and one of the lawyers representing the trans plaintiff, Aimee Stephens. Podcast:  Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan, who represented the two gay male plaintiffs, on Amicus with Dalia Lithwick. And the GLAD Amicus Brief filed in the Bostock/Altitude Express and Harris Funeral Homes cases

Some thoughts while reading the transcript:

1. Can I object to Justice Robert’s question that literally makes no sense? “In other words, if the objection of a transgender man transitioning to woman is that he should be allowed to use, he or she, should be allowed to use the women’s bathroom, now, how do you analyze that?”
2. Roberts pushed hard for “transgender status” as the key issue at hand rather than sex-based discrimination. “Because if it’s just biological sex, there’s no problem b/c there is no disadvantage. But if you’re looking at transgender status, there is a huge problem…”
3. Bursch for petitioner (funeral home) states “What Title VII says is that sex-based differentiation is not the same as sex discrimination.” hmmmm….
4. The basis of the Bursh/funeral home/anti-trans argument is to fundamentally deny the existence & legitimacy of trans people. It may work before #SCOTUS but young people will not stand for it. #future#LGBTQ#RiseUpOctober8
5. EEOC/anti-trans side argued, “If you treat an aggressive woman worse than an aggressive man, you are violating Title VII because you’re treating similarly situated people differently.” Is someone going to clue him in? #AG#stud#pride
6. SOTOMAYOR: “We can’t deny that homosexuals are being fired merely for being who they are & not because of religious reasons. . .They may have power in some regions, but they are still being beaten, they are still being ostracized from certain things.” #scotus#thanks#RiseUpOct8
7. History shows this not to be true at all: EEOC “Everybody here agrees that Congress never thought that by prohibiting discrimination based on sex, they would also be prohibiting discrimination based on two very different traits, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“What RBG Means to Me,” Sunday Sept. 29, Noon at Johnson Chapel. A gathering for Amherst College students, faculty and staff hosted by Associate Professors Jen Manion and Michael Kunichika. There will be a light reception.

For inspiration, read “Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Unlikely Path to the Supreme Court,” by Jill Lepore and “The Irony of Modern Feminism’s Obsession with Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” by Dahlia Lithwick and watch the documentary “RBG” and the drama “On the Basis of Sex.”

Tuesday Sept. 17th 5:30-7:30pm @ the Powerhouse, Amherst College

Join faculty, staff and students from Amherst, UMass, Smith, Mount Holyoke and Hampshire to kick off the school year and learn more about the Five College Queer/Trans/Sexuality Studies Certificate. An informal reception will be followed by a panel discussion on “Queer/Trans/Sexuality Studies Now!” featuring faculty from each college.

Panelists include: Khary Polk, Amherst College (facilitator); Ren-Yo Hwang, Mt. Holyoke College; Kelly Anderson, Smith College; Sony Bolton, Amherst College; Patricia Montoya, Hampshire College; and Cameron Awkward-Rich, UMASS

Click here for more information about the certificate and eligible courses

New to the subject? As a historian, some of my favorite books are:

“What Serena Williams Means to Me,” Sunday Sept. 8, 2019 11am-12noon at Johnson Chapel. A gathering for Amherst College students, faculty, and staff hosted by Associate Professors Jen Manion and Michael Kunichika.

For inspiration, see “The Meaning of Serena Williams,” by Claudia Rankine and/or the documentary “Being Serena,” on HBO; and on tennis generally, see “The String Theory,” by David Foster-Wallace ’85