living space

Once I really look at my living space its hard to take just one picture that defines everything. I decided to take it of my room. The bottom right shows the corner of my bed with my laptop open and on. My laptop is pretty much always on and open to various websites that I frequently check. My dresser drawers are open. It shows my indecisiveness when it comes to choosing what to wear, or indecisiveness in general. I left them open so my cat could play in them. On the left side is a painting my good friend Kat did for me for christmas. Its essential for me to have my walls covered, or I feel like my space is too sterile. There are colors popping everywhere. All five art pieces on the right are my own work spanning from highschool to just last year. The top of my dresser is covered in memories, things I hold onto. My room is also very cluttered. I am comfortable with this. There is a plaid bear my best friend gave to me years ago...an 8x10 photo of my nephew who I adore... a 4x6 image of my girlfriend... candles... a painted cork board with miscellaneous things stuck on it.

Documentation.

Thats the word that describes everything really. The reason why I am so cluttered and hold on to simple little objects that others would let go of. These are memories I want to hold onto.

Image Visualization

This was an interesting exercise. Think of a picture you can see in your head. I have several old envelopes of pictures from Girl Scout Camp. My dad randomly finds rolls of film or old throw away cameras. This picture sticks out in my head. I am a totally different person from when it was taken.

Im really interested in the pictures I took or had people take during these years. You can definately tell the time era by looking deeper into the picture. Tye dyed bandanas, tacky pants, etc.

I think I was really affected by my friend Jessica sitting to my right. We have the same type of shoes, short shorts, and our hair in the same style. I think I was very impressionable in middle school around 7th and 8th grade. I may of been thirteen in this picture. I went to Girl Scout camp every summer from first grade up until early years of highschool.

hmm

Stone Butch Blues

by leslie feinberg

“Are you a girl or a boy?” (SBB). Did you ever deal with such questions while growing up? Most people do not have to deal with this ridicule, but in Leslie Feinberg’s novel Stone Butch Blues, that is only where the trouble begins for a masculine looking girl, Jess Goldberg. When she was just a young girl, an Indian woman next door told her parents she would walk a different path in life. She leaves home early on after continuous ridicule in school, including rape and being brutally beaten. Feinberg tells a story of what life was like for pre-Stonewall, working class, transgendered, lesbian and gay people in the urban Northeast. Because of her androgeny, she found she was able to pass as a man inside of the factories. Several times, people close to her accidently exposed her gender and got her fired, or she quit. She just wanted to get ahead without being put down for her gender. She didn’t necessarily feel she was born into the wrong body though. She just knew that the stereotype of woman didn’t fit her and just wanted to be seen as normal. Normal could only mean passing as a man, since that was what she was close to and what enabled her to work.

Today a hot topic with equality is the glass ceiling and how men are paid more than women are. In many instances, employers take men more seriously. Many jobs are labeled by what sex “should” be doing it. The book Stone Butch Blues brings up that inequality between men and women. She feels it is easier to dress as a man to get jobs that pay well. Besides changing herself to be taken seriously, it was also a personal decision that meant a lot to her.

Besides equality in the workplace, this book brings up struggles that people have when they appear differently than their assigned sex. Feinberg’s novel is based from the 50s to the 70s but still applies to today in some aspects. I feel as if transgenderism is more acceptable today than it was in that period. But we still have a long ways to go for people to understand the transgendered and respect them as equal beings.

I am very into issues such as equality within the LGBTQ community. I like writings by Leslie Feinberg because she educates with her own life stories and also incorporates fiction. She writes about what has happened or what is happening and how it is a problem. I feel as if many people arent aware of how many hate crimes are going on. She is a good read.

Transgender Issues: Social

Transgendered people are very misunderstood outside of the LGBTQ community. The ignorance of the general public interferes with their ability to live a normal life.

After reading about different types of attitudes and the reasoning behind them, I feel as if my opinion of the Transgender Issue is both cognitive and affective. Equality is something I strive for at many different levels. I think it is wrong the way the transgendered are treated. My family always taught me to be accepting of others, no matter how different they are. Just because someone identifies as the opposite sex and you identify as your “assigned” one doesn’t mean they are wrong. Other influences that have informed this view include clubs like GSA (gay straight alliance), Queer Action, etc. I have many friends that are transgendered, whether they are transitioning now or have already transitioned. I have seen the awkwardness in public with restrooms, or service. I was born female and am pretty comfortable with that. I still get called sir from time to time because I have short hair and don’t dress as women “should”. I’ve experienced it at work when a ftm (female to male) comes in and asks to use the restroom. They are locked and I have to let them in. Do I unlock the women’s or the men’s restroom? I let them walk ahead and decide for me. I did a project last semester for one of my photography classes based on gender and how people can identify out of the norm. I spoke to as many people as I could about what they thought gender was and how it affected how they appeared. America's Next Top Model had a transgendered woman on their show. People were amazed at how beautiful she was because they knew that she actually still had male genitals. I don't understand why people can't just accept people as who they are and just leave it at that.

The issue is that people are ignorant. If they arent part of the LGBTQ community then they have whatever perceptions they learned about transgendered people. I Most people are not educated on the issue and refer to people who are transitioning or transitioned as Drag Queens/Kings or crossdressers. They are not putting on a show. They feel as if their biologically assigned gender is not one that fits and decide to appear as the one they feel more like. This does not mean they are freaks. I think its interesting that people construct stereotypes like metrosexual and tomboy but find it out of the question to appear as the opposite sex let alone have reassignment surgery.

Feinberg

Each person should have the right to choose between pink or blue tinted gender categories, as well as all the other hues of the palette. –Leslie Feinberg

Course Description

"Photographic imagery has played into our sense of self, our place in the world, and our reading of the world in which we live. In this course we will look at how the documentary tradition in photography has from its beginning drawn on issues of social, political, aesthetic, and technological relevance. In particular we will address how the documentary tradition opens up possibilities for addressing issues of gender and identity as both a personal and a political expression. Each student will create an originial documentary project, through image and text, on an issue of personal interest relative to gender and identity. This project will be supported by a critical framework including a bibliography, and personal inquiry."