Feminism

I was having a chat with a friend last night about identity. We started our discussion because we are doing a collaboration, as the leaders of a new poetry group, with a CDA for their tea. We were trying to come up with poetry prompts that had to do with identity (I suggested that we do something with the “characters” we play at Bryn Mawr, and the intersection between the characteristics of those characters and the rest of our identity). Further along in the conversation she said that she does not know who she is without the context of other people.

I told my girlfriend about the prompt for this week's post (Making it Local) and mentioned the post you did, Anne, on "Signifying the South," and her comment was, "I feel like people won't think the trans topic is as relevant with the race stuff going on. Based on the conversation last night, people will feel like they have to pit those two things against each other."

Thanks for this, Rhett--clearly, I wasn't quite caught up with this movement towards giving "space," so explicitly using "trans" and "cis" as modifiers--and appreciate the update. I'd glad you're also using this occasion to open up a larger conversation about language use--let's all keep sharing what we know, what we hear, what troubles us, as words arise.

As you will all have heard by now (and I know that some of you have been involved in these conversations for the past week or so), Bryn Mawr's campus is offering us another "local" opportunity to work on identity matters, and questions of representation ("what's the sign? what's it signify?"). Two students in Radnor dorm have been displaying a confederate flag there -- first in the hallway, then, after efforts to seek its removal, from their window -- as well as a line of duct tape labeled "Mason-Dixon Line" leading to their room.

Reflect back on this week's discussion of Eli Clare's memoir, applying what you have learned to the current conversation on campus about the admission of trans women. Think about the role that environment plays in creation of the self: What might be the effect, on transwomen, of being welcomed by BMC? What is the effect, on transmen, of being welcomed here?

Saw this piece a while ago on mental disability in academia. Would love to hear further thoughts. 

https://chroniclevitae.com/news/635-shattering-the-madness-monolith-on-the-intersections-of-race-gender-and-psychiatric-disability

I agree with rosea – I think Clare would have picked a name reminding him of the stones, but feel he might chose "WarmingStones" as his username, rather than CollectedStones because of the symbolic sugnificance of the stones' warmth. Clare's process of collecting the stones seems to me secondary to holding and warming the stones in his pockets. The "stones in [his] heart" were significant because Clare felt he couldn't warm them – but he continued to try. 

I also agree that Clare would not call himself SuperCrip in this type of space. While people can attribute Supercripdom to him, meaning well, I doubt that Clare, in a space of self expression, would choose to use this sort of opportunity to focus on how other people view him, rather than how he sees himself.