Showing papers on "Transgender published in 1996"

Queer studies : a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender anthology

Abstract: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people are becoming more and more visible in all aspects of American culture, from party politics to MTV videos. Despite the recent queer publishing explosion, few texts cover a broad range of topics around sexual and gender identities. Most existing works are high-level theory books, texts focused upon specific disciplines or topics, or practical guides aimed primarily at a heterosexual audience or people just beginning to come out. There has been to date no general, accessible, and inclusive work suitable for use as an introduction to Queer Studies. In this collection, contributors assess the conflict between postmodernism and identity, the concept which typically serves as a linchpin for social and political organizing. Others address queer theory, looking specifically at how we define it, how it informs political activism, and how we can theorize such aspects of sexual performance/behaviors as s/m or butch-femme relationships. The volume contains contributions from both established and newly emerging Queer Studies scholars, including Amber Ault, M. V. Lee Badgett, Warren J. Blumenfeld, Gregory Conerly, Patricia L. Duncan, Ruth Goldman, Lynda Goldstein, Sherrie A. Inness, Christopher James, Amanda Udis-Kessler, JeeYeun Lee, Michele E. Lloyd, Tracy D. Morgan, Ki Namaste, Vernon Rosario II, Paula Rust, and Siobhan Somerville.

Male Femaling: A grounded theory approach to cross-dressing and sex-changing

Abstract: The glamour of transvestite fashion is the epitome of 90s style, but the significance of cross-dressing and sex-changing goes much deeper than the annals of fashion. Ekins vividly details the innermost desires and the varied practices of males who wear the clothes of women for the pleasure it gives them (cross-dressers), or who wish to change sex and are actively going about it (sex-changers). This unique and fascinating book transforms an area of study previously dominated by clinical models to look instead at cross-dressing and sex-changing as a highly variable social process. Giving precedence to the processual and ermergent nature of much cross-dressing and sex-changing phenomena, the book traces the phased femaling career path of the 'male femaler' from 'beginning femaling' through to 'consolidating femaling'. Based upon seventeen years of fieldwork, life history work, qualitative analysis, archival work and contact with several thousand cross-dressers and sex-changers, the book meticulously and systematically develops a theory of 'male femaling' which has major ramifications for both the field of 'transvestism' and 'transsexualism', and for the analysis of sex and gender more generally. Male-Femaling provides social and cultural theorists with a lively case study for the generation of new theory. Social psychologists and sociologists interested in seeing grounded theory applied to a particular case study will be well rewarded. It will be essential reading for students of gender studies who seek to explore the interrelations between sex, sexuality and gender from the informants' point of view.

Stages of adjustment in family members of transgender individuals

Abstract: While the clinical literature contains descriptions of the families and partners of transgender individuals, a description of the family members' processes of adjustment to a relative's transgender identity has not previously appeared in the family therapy literature. Family members experience different processes from the transgender individual. This article discusses stages that family members may experience and is directed toward therapists who work with any member of the family, as well as toward transgender individuals who may need to understand their families' experience.

The Impact of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Workplace Issues on Productivity

Abstract: People in organizations lack the skills, knowledge, tools, and resources to effectively address gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workplace issues. Consequently, most organizations fail to attain optimum performance from the approximately ten percent of their population who are sexual minorities. Two examples of what occurs when these issues are not addressed are: (1) gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered employees do not feel included in the organization. When people, any people, are excluded rather than included it is almost impossible to expect optimal performance; and, (2) organizations send messages to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees that encourage them to hide their sexual orientation at work. When employees devote energy to hiding-as gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered employees often do to protect themselves and their livelihood-performance suffers. In this article, these workplace issues are brought out of the corporate closet and into the mainstream of busin...

Situated Knowledges of Personal Embodiment Transgender Activists' and Psychological Theorists' Perspectives on `Sex' and `Gender'

Abstract: Academic psychologists' treatment of `sex' as an ahistorical, pretheoretical notion in theories of `gender' is compared and contrasted with knowledge produced by persons whose own gendered embodiment is outside binary gender/sex categories and whose moral agency is erased by theories depicting them as exceptions to a binary-based scheme. This latter knowledge, emerging from an activist community's reflections on its own personal/political praxis in relation to dominant social institutions and ideologies, has selectively incorporated, challenged and transformed gender/sex discourses in significant segments of medicine and academic disciplines other than psychology. Psychological theories continue to reproduce binary categories (and practices organized around them), in part because they incorporate only some of the implications of a social constructivist perspective, and in part because psychologists seem to theorize gender/sex in isolation from other knowledge-producing communities.

Sexual Identity Issues in the Workplace: Past and Present

Abstract: The rapidly developing research looking at gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues in the workplace is reviewed. Research addressing these issues first appeared in the early 1970s and was relatively dormant for several years as researchers focused their attention on the more immediate and compelling concerns of AIDS. In the past few years, hoever, the number of articles and studies on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workplace issues has increased greatly as researchers and social service providers have ackwnowledged this critical aspect of live-employment-and associated issues. The purpose of this article is to chronicle the development of research in this area, the specific concerns that have been adressed, where the research leaves us as we prepare to increase our understanding of these issues, and how they affect the emotional and psychological well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

Stone Butch Celebration: A Transgender-Inspired Revolution in Academia

Abstract: Wendy Ormiston and her senior classmates at a small liberal arts college asked the school's president to invite transgender author Leslie Feinberg to deliver their commencement address. They were shocked and angry when that request was denied because the administration considered Feinberg's message in appropriate for a commencement speech. In this article, Ormiston relates how she joined with other classmates to protest the president's decision and take action to bring Feinberg to campus to speak at their commencement. Ormiston weaves her story of activism and coalition-building around the particular issues of gender theory and transgender activism that she learned from Feinberg's book Stone Butch Blues, which had been assigned in one of her courses. In this way she connects her own struggle with the larger themes of gender bias and equity.