Human Rights Campaign day 3: good gays, radical queers, and the politics of marriage equality

It is the end of day 3 here at the HRC Summer Institute for LGBTQ Scholars in Religious and Theological study.  Today was a very insightful day, perhaps even inspiring.  The day began with great conversation over breakfast which then moved into our large group session.  We processed the evening with Janet Jakobsen and Kathleen Sands and the ways in which their scholarship problematizes and encourages our own scholarship.  Intersectionality, Marxism, Politics, and everything else!  We also ventured into the marriage equality debate…

More about that now!

Let me start with saying that I really wondered how this time would go, considering that HRC signed on for marriage equality as a LGBTQ right.  I was not sure how I would fit in with this group when I think that I want a completely different pie than the patriarchal, heternormative, masculine power structure that has historically oppressed women which we call “marriage.”  I call this pie the apple pie.  I much prefer a mixed berry pie that is completely different than the traditional apple pie.  That said, I had some reservations and concerns…I can heartily say that I no longer have these concerns, and especially don’t have them after this conversation this morning!

Our large group session really sought to create space for multiple voices, perhaps even voices that are descenting.  We talked about what the queer community is, and if there is even a queer community?!  This was one of the best conversations we’ve had as a large group.  It was nice to hear one of my fellow colleagues say that he doesn’t know if he fits in the queer community, or if he has a place in the queer community.  As a Latina/QueerMestizo, I echo this sentiment.  If there is a queer community, do I fit?!  Great conversation full of respect and love.  I only wish the academy was this kind!

Our evening session was with Jay Michaelson.  This was an important lecture because it provided a platform to unite scholarship and activism (something that I have always not known how to unite and nervous about such things.  I have been honest about this, too.  The good pastors knows!).  I thought Jay did a remarkable job, and combined textual studies, cultural studies, along with Jewish Thought and Politics to consider the task of negotiating the “good gays” and the “radical queers.”  My question is:  what if this dichotomy within the gay/queer movement is a false dichotomy?  And, what if we want different choices than the “good gays” and “radical queer” groups?  How do we find a way to unmask these other options?  Is it in space like the Summer Institute?  Is it in our writing?  Our potential blogs or podcasting?  Is it a combination of these?  I don’t know?!  But, I am interested in finding ways to combine scholarship and activism…I have 2 people in mind who would be (and are) great conversation partners…

Day 3 has come to a close and day 4 will be jammed pack with media training and lunch with the Religion Council of the HRC.  It promises to be a 15 hour day…buenas noches amig@s!

Tags: phd, Queer

Human Rights Campaign day 2: gender, pronouns, scholarship, conversations, life

Day 2 felt incredibly long!  Yet, it was incredibly amazing!  Meeting new people, new scholars, and finding ways to be connected despite our differences.  Challenging, but very heartwarming!  We had breakfast together, talked about the Emilie Townes lecture, and then went into our large group to discuss the Townes lecture further.  We then transitioned into discussing writing and the writing process.  Being here, I have found someone who has some anxiety around the gravity of the dissertation process.  And, I have found some other friendly folks who get feminist and queer writing, and are also troubled by their male colleagues’ responses to this writing.  In short, I found myself to be really thankful.  I am also really thankful to Sharon Groves who is convening this Summer Institute.  She has continued to make insightful remarks in our large group settings or during breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

I met Sharon at AAR this past year in Montréal (2009).  She encouraged me to apply for the Summer Institute, and so I did.  She knows my advisor, along with so many other folks, and I find this to be a really valuable connection.  She also has a Ph.D. in English Literature…in short, she is ultra rad!  I am looking forward to getting to know her better and enjoying our newly formed writing partnership!  Nothing like being engaged in writing w/ an English Lit. scholar who is creative, critical, and attentive to issues of difference!

Lunch was a highlight of my day.  My table got to talking about gender and gender pronouns.  You might have read my earlier post on being assigned a gender pronoun.  If not, you can read it here.  It is short, and will contextualize my following comments.  So, we began talking about how I felt about being assigned the gender pronoun: Ze.  How did that feel to me, am I ok with it, etc.  We spent a fair amount of time talking about this and talking about how I intentionally use the terms Latina and Mestizo in referencing myself.  I don’t necessarily feel “in-between” genders, though that space of intersection, liminality, or on the “borderlands” is really appealing to me.  It is more of an issue of transcending the binaries and finding new ways to be.  And, one way of doing this is to use both he and she.  Though, I am pretty clear with my Latino/a scholars that I am a Latina Scholar, not a Latino Scholar.  Confusing, I am certain!

So, I simply use my name as a way to consider myself, especially in writing.  This largely means that I write about myself in the 3rd person instead of using she or he.  I am also keen to the practice of using “I” to reference myself.  At any rate, this conversation around gender and gender pronouns was fascinating, and I am seeking to find a way (in myself) to consider this “being assigned” a gender.  On some level, and I said this yesterday at the lunch table, I find it endearing.  On another level, I find it troublesome.  Is this just one way to exist within the queer collective?  And if so, what does that mean?

Scholarship is another important aspect of the Summer Institute.  I had to submit an abstract of a publishable piece.  I am working on “Equal But Different:  The Effect of Equality Discourse on the QueerMestizo Body.”  I presented this work in my writing group.  I received some very helpful feedback from everyone, including having to answer the question “who is my audience?”  I had 45 minutes to workshop my piece, listen to responses and reactions, and respond to questions.  This is one of the best pieces to the Summer Institute:  the time and space to think critically about one’s work.

I was growing tired by the close of the afternoon.  Nikki and I sat in the little living room, flipped the TV on, and chatted.  The time that I have spend with Nikki has been an incredible gift.  She won the dissertation scholarship this year, and her work on Black Queer Ethics is groundbreaking!  I am really looking forward to being in conversation with Nikki.  We are already planning an outing w/ our families during AAR this year.  I’m thinking it’ll be good times.

By the time Nikki and I made it to dinner, everyone was already seated at their tables.  Students at several tables, and the faculty mentors and speakers at their own table.  Where were Nikki and I to sit?  Patrick Cheng, my faculty mentor, invited us to sit at their table.  Nikki took her seat, and she then gestured to the other empty seat.  It just happened to be right next to Janet Jakobsen!  I make myself comfortable and we introduce ourselves to one another.  The conversation flowed just like it always does in academic circles:  where are you from?, what do you study?, and what is your focus?  This was one of the best conversations I have had with a speaker.  We had the opportunity to talk about epistemology and its intersection with ethics, the politics of marriage, and the limits of intersectionality.  All of those topics didn’t happen all at dinner, but the time and space to have these conversations created a deep desire in me to stick with my idea of epistemology and ethics!  Janet is going to make an introduction of me to Mary Pat Brady (Cornell).  Brady’s work is on Chicana Literatures, Cultures, and Space.  She might very well be a helpful conversation partner!

Jakobsen’s and Kathleen Sands lectures were great.  The Marriage Equality talk made its way into the Institute (I was waiting for it to show up), and I really feel as though my own thinking concerning this issue has deepened as a result of this lecture.  Later, I had the chance to talk with Janet about the politics of marriage and why there is a need to pursue marriage equality.  She and I both seem to be right-on in terms of how we understand the politics of marriage and the marriage equality debates.  It was nice to find an academic who agrees with me on these issues (though I am sure there are more, and perhaps even here).

I am growing to really enjoy my time here at Vanderbilt, and I am especially grateful to have had the opportunities to visit with people like Ellen Armour.  We spoke last night at the reception.  Though she has been here each night of the Institute, I finally had an opportunity to visit with her.  She is an outstanding scholar, and I appreciate her well thought-out philosophy.

Life seems to be not only busy here but also constructive.  This has been a constructive and instructive time for me.  When I was told that I don’t do LGBT(Q) stuff, I actually stopped and considered whether this is right.  Being here and with other Queer folks (like Nikki and Sofia), I am reminded that all of the work I do has a queer edge, focus, methodology to it.  I am also learning how important this space is in my development as a scholar.

Tags: phd, Queer

Human Rights Campaign, day 1: kairos moment & the queer collective

It is my 1st full day here at the Human Rights Campaign LGBTQ Summer Institute for Theological and Religious Study.  There perhaps have been many kairos moments here today.  I am very much enjoying meeting everyone and getting to know the scholarship that we are pursuing.  The faculty mentors are amazing, in my opinion, and the scholars are brilliantly amazing!  It is a tight schedule, but we do have opportunities to rest and socialize.

I have been particularly interested in the use of the phrase “queer collective” by a scholar from Brite Divinity School/TCU.  Because the language of community is problematic, the better phrase, perhaps, is “queer collective.”  This phrase does not ignore the complexities of community, and it seeks to trouble the notion of the monolithic nature of community, especially communities of color and queer communities.

Today we broke into our small groups.  I am in Patrick Cheng’s group, which is actually very exciting.  There are 4 scholars in my group:  2 master’s students and 2 doctoral students.  Today was our first day to meet together in our small group, and it was a time to share our story and reflect on our passions.  I am reminded in my own story that there has been the struggle to belong:  racially, gender wise, religiously, and so on, but that there has been incredible privileges.  I am reminded of my religious heritage/narrative, and thankful that I can sit at the table with other believing folks as an Agnostic.  I have great hope that this group will help both challenge and encourage me to consider ways of belonging within the theological and ethical discipline(s) and help me to continue to think about the Jesus community.  It is a very fine group, and one that I am looking forward to working with all week!

Tonight we had a very stimulating talk at dinner.  National Security, food politics, bodies, conferences, and coalitional forces.  This table had some very interesting people present.  Yale, Emory, DU/Iliff, Brite, Chicago Theological Seminary, and Vanderbilt were all represented.  It was quite the mix of people and politics, but it was great space to explore our thoughts and imagine possible connections.  The food is also quite good!  I had blackened tilapia!

Our lecture tonight was the Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes.  To attempt to say anything about Dr. Townes would be to miss something I am sure, because she is incredibly amazing.  She has a command of literature and the fields of theology and ethics that make her incredibly compelling and simply a passionate person.  After hearing tonight’s lecture, I am more convinced of my need to read both fiction and nonfiction works.  Her talk and the opportunity to visit with her during the reception was amazing.  I have heard her at AAR in years past, but hearing her in this context as a black lesbian, womanist, ethicist was absolutely amazing!  In fact, I have gotten to know one of her students who is equally amazing and compelling!  I finally had the nerve and courage to talk w/ Dr. Townes.  I told her that she is a “big wig” in the academy, but that her work is such a helpful companion to me.  It is true–her work has helped further my imagination in the field of Ethics and my thinking on the body.  It is nice to have icons such as Dr. Townes.

Today has been full of kairos moments.  I am not sure what to do with that.  So, I am in early (it is 10:36 p.m.), and I will soon head to bed.  I am sitting with all of this stuff:  the need for communities of color to engage in issues concerning sexuality, the need for Ethics to deal with queer ways of being, and the reality that we likely will all fall short of the tasks before us.  One thing I heard tonight from Dr. Townes is that we should seek to tell the truth in our scholarship.  That, for sure, was a kairos moment.  So, I am going to seek to be honest in scholarly endeavors, even when the courage seems to be lacking.  That, my friend, seems to be the mark of a well-intentioned soul.

Tomorrow is a full day.  I must turn my attention to resting and quieting myself…perhaps, in the midst of kairos, I am welcomed into this queer collective as a QueerMestizo.  Thanks Cody for that phrase!

Tags: phd, Queer

I am Ze

Are you ready for this one?  I want to talk about gender.  No, I don’t want to talk about the theological constructions of gender, the body as constructed in late antiquity, the modern notion of gender, or the social construction of gender.  I want to talk about how I was assigned a gender…I read it first in text.  My gender performance first became known in text, not in any actual performing a gender.  Let me explain.

I am known to never list a gender when referring to myself.  I hardly ever check a box.  I do this on purpose.  And, as I was reading through the Human Rights Campaigns booklet of the Institute Fellows and presenters, I suddenly realize that I have been assigned a gender.  A gender?  Really?  It was neither he nor she.  My assigned gender exists outside of the gender binary.  I am Ze in the booklet.  Robyn = Ze.  Where is THAT box on the census?

Purposefully, when I wrote out my biographical sketch, I used my name whenever I mentioned myself instead of inserting a “she” or “he.”  I tend to speak of myself in the 3rd person when writing out auto/biographical statements.  I always self identify as a QueerMestizo, and that is listed in the HRC booklet.  And, alongside, my self-identification is what is commonly referred to as a transgender pronoun, or for someone existing outside the gender binary:  Ze.

So, if you’re wondering what Ze is, here’s a link for you!  Click here.  Or, if you’re a fan of the Urban Dictionary, you can click here.

It is good to be in this space with other queer folks.  There is only one other Latino (Peter), but there are several other people of color: Black, Asian, and others.  I look forward to learning more about the social construction of gender in this Institute and likewise, talking public theology with the fellows.

Heartily signed, Ze.

p.s. Andrea Gibson sometimes says it best:

It’s not that I thought I’d grow up to be a man
I just never thought I’d grow up to be a woman either
From what I could tell neither of those categories
Seemed to fit me.
But believe me, I knew from a very young age never to say
“Hey dad, this adam and eve thing isn’t really working for me.”
I mean, what about all the people in between?

Tags: phd, Queer

Bound for Nashville, TN: HRC Summer Institute for LGBT(Q) Studies

I am boarding a plane headed for Nashville.  I will make a quick stop in Chicago where a good friend is meeting me at O’hare.  I am extremely excited to see my friend, and I am also excited about the HRC Summer Institute!  The Summer Institute will be held at Vanderbilt University.  There are several fellows named to be a part of this program, and I am honored to have been chosen from the applicant pool.  Life sometimes is super good, and that has been my experience since living in Denver.  I am aware, though, that my scholarship is situated within community.  And, though I go alone to this program with other doctoral students, I am aware of the community of scholars, activists and lay persons who both support, challenge, and encourage me in my scholarship.  You are a great cloud of witnesses helping me along this Academic path!  Thank you!

Taken from their website:

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation LGBT Scholarship and Mentorship program for Religious and Theological Study seeks to encourage and promote the dialogue on LGBT issues and religion in seminaries and, by extension, in our congregations and communities by investing in the next generation of LGBTQ and allied scholars.

Beginning in 2010, HRC will launch an annual seminary scholarship and mentorship program to nurture and promote promising religious scholars and theologians interested in LGBT studies. Working in partnership with participating seminaries, schools of divinity and universities we will help build welcoming learning environments where intellectually and spiritually groundbreaking work at the intersections of religious studies, sexuality, gender identity and justice work can flourish.

By bringing financial resources, scholarly networks and mentorship opportunities to the next generation of LGBTQ and allied scholars, this project will help a new generation of scholars of religion and theologians promote and develop how LGBT issues and religion are discussed in seminaries and schools of religion. And, by extension, they will help recast the conversation about LGBT and religion in our congregations and communities.

The week-long Summer Institute promises to be great!  I hope to have time to blog about each day of the program.  If you are interested…people like Bishop Gene Robinson, Emilie Townes, Melissa Wilcox, among others, will be there!  I have submitted my abstract for my publishable paper project, and I look forward to growing and learning how this project will shape up!

To learn more about the Institute Fellows, please click here.

Tags: phd, Queer