Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged gender identity

Passage to Manhood: Youth Migration, Heroin, and AIDS in Southwest China

Heroin. AIDS. Migration. Development programs. Gender roles. In Passage to Manhood: Youth Migration, Heroin, and AIDS in Southwest China, Shao-hua Liu examines each of these issues and how they relate to Nuoso youth. An anthropological researcher, the author delves into how China’s evolution from the traditional to the modern intersects with drug use, disease, and development.

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States

In their near-exhaustive catalogue of violence, discrimination, and systematic abuse of LGBT people in the United States, Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock outline the specific ways that the criminalization of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered people has perpetuated inequalities not only based on sexual identity but also within the complex interplay of race, class, and gender.

The Last Pretence

In the South Indian town of Machilipatnam, Mallika gives birth to twins, Tara and Siva. Emotionally and psychologically damaged when her daughter dies during childbirth, Mallika finds herself unable to love Siva who is a constant reminder of Tara’s death. Pretending that Siva is Tara, both Mallika and Siva embark on a downward spiral of self-destruction that ends in tragedy.

Aarekti Premer Galpo (Just Another Love Story)

Rituparno Ghosh completely reinvents himself from director to actor and delivers a gripping performance in this very lyrical film by Kaushik Ganguly. Just Another Love Story (original Bengali title: Aarekti Premer Galpo) is about a filmmaker Abhiroop Sen (played by Ghosh) who makes a documentary about Chapal Bhaduri, the legendary jatra (Bengali folk theatre) actor who spent his entire career playing female roles on stage, primarily as Goddess Shitala.

Misframing Men: The Politics of Contemporary Masculinities

The media’s obsession with the “crisis” of masculinity has long reached a feverish, cliché-filled pitch. “We’re losing our boys,” one article proclaims. “We must save the males,” says another. It’s unnerving, particularly since that identity crisis is pinned on the advancement of women in formerly male-dominated spheres. There is a masculinity crisis, according to Michael Kimmel’s latest book Misframing Men.

Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World

In the eternal question of nature versus nurture, author and developmental psychologist Birute Regine leans comfortably towards nature. She embraces “feminine” qualities and calls for women the world over to do the same.

Diagnosing Difference

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is referred to as “the Bible” by the psychologists and psychiatrists who utilize it to diagnosis and treat patients. A project of the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM was first published in 1952 and subsequently revised in 1968, 1980, 1987, 1994, and 2000; the forthcoming 2012 edition is currently in formation.

Doing Gender Diversity: Readings in Theory and Real-World Experience

What does it mean to be female or male in modern American society? How does this limit the endless ways in which human beings are capable of expressing themselves? More importantly, how do we promote open-mindedness in a world that grooms people from birth to fit in one of two check-yes boxes? I cautiously pose an attitude change as necessary, with all due respect given to gender’s role in society.

You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity

Each essay in Laurie J. Shrage’s collection, You've Changed, takes on the challenge of analyzing the philosophical, cultural, and psychological dimensions of the—for lack of a better or more acute concept—umbrella category of “trans” identity. This same challenge, which underlines the collection’s creation, is the same challenge that often times handicaps its clarity and ultimate success.

The Passing Game: Queering Jewish American Culture

Once homosexuality has been fully incorporated and accepted into “mainstream” society, I wonder what group will be placed at the bottom of the totem pole. I use the word incorporated because it symbolizes a capitalistic tolerance without a desire or need to understand a person's totality.

Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History

Feeling Backward is a brilliant book that attempts the “impossible” and succeeds. Using Michel Foucault and Eve Sedgwick as theoretical touchstones, and incorporating Raymond Williams’s “structures of feeling,” Heather Love “feels backward” to reimagine and connect with aspects of a queer past that had been rendered invisible.

Learning to Behave Naturally

Learning to Behave Naturally is a seventy-six-minute documentary based on a series of interviews in a language class at the University of Western Japan. A cross-section of students and faculty of diverse ages, gender, race, and social classes talk freely about childhood experiences regarding their gendered roles, interests, and behaviors.

Forgiveness from a Feminist Perspective

Forgiveness is everywhere. Oprah is extolling its necessity when not engaged directly in seeking it for herself. Female celebrities seem to be forever forgiving (or not) someone, though among the most talked about are unresolved differences between mothers and daughters (a la Jennifer Aniston and Tori Spelling).

Feminist and Queer Performance: Critical Strategies

Feminist and Queer Performance is a collection of eleven previously published essays by Sue-Ellen Case, a Professor of Theatre and Critical Studies at UCLA. Exploring topics as diverse as butch-femme aesthetics, cyber-minstrelsy, W.O.W.

He Likes Guys

As a member of my college cinema club, I would show a film a couple of nights every month. Usually, the featured movie would be preceded by a surprise short film—nothing too long, but always something entertaining. Recently, I showed "Laundromat" by Edward Gunawan from a collection of acclaimed gay short films, He Likes Guys, to my unsuspecting audience.

Queer Youth Cultures

Queer youth are often absent from discussions about adolescents, popular culture, and even the queer community. Susan Driver, an advocate and expert on LGBTQ youth, puts together a thoughtful and diverse collection of work that gives voice to queer youth without pathologizing them.

Drifting Flowers

In the film Drifting Flowers, director Zero Chou brings together three stories of lesbian love and camaraderie. In the first, the audience is presented with May, a young girl who is confronted with the need to guide her blind older sister, Jing, while envying her sister's relationship with Diego. The second story is a sharp turn from the youthful innocence of May to the addled mind of Lily.

Against a Trans Narrative

I did not know what exactly to expect when I inserted Against a Trans Narrative into my DVD player. Anticipating its arrival, I ran a brief Google search on the film and found myself at the official website, which seemed intentionally ambiguous.  About an hour later, I realized that Against a Trans Narrative was arguably the best movie about gender I’ve ever viewed. It’s remarkably intelligent, sensitive and powerful.

AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities

Aside from a women’s studies class I took as an undergraduate, of which I remember very little, thoughts on gender and sexuality typically have not taken up much of my time. AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities totally changed my perception on these subjects. As a self-proclaimed tomboy, who happens not to be a lesbian, society is much more accepting of my “ways” than they would be if I were an effeminate man.
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