society

(h/t CyberSolidaires)

Down with STERILE civil status rules!
Trans people demand their citizenship

Today in Québec, trans-identified, or trans, people do not enjoy the same civil status rights as other citizens. Trans people are subjected to long, complex, restrictive, and not universally accessible regulations. Their right to equality and physical integrity is not respected, since they must undergo compulsory sterilization in order to obtain the right to have their designation of sex legally changed in civil status documents.

Moreover, because of these situations, many trans people are forced to wait long periods of time with official identity papers (civil status documents) that do not reflect their actual identity. This can lead to endless discrimination when looking for work or housing, seeking health care, opening a bank account, etc.

Some examples of the consequences these regulations have:

• Trans people who want to change the designation of sex on their birth certificate are required to undergo “medical treatments and surgical operations involving a structural modification of sexual organs intended to change [their] sexual characteristics” – in other words, sterilization. Even though the Director of Civil Status does not explicitly require trans people to be sterile in order to change their designation of sex, these conditions necessarily involve forced sterilization of trans people.

Culture - nature revisited

NAHM VII
June 8-11, 2011

The 7th Conference in Nordic Anthropology of Health and Medicine will be held June 8-11, 2011 in Grenå, Denmark, under the auspices of the University of Copenhagen and University of Aarhus. The conference is organized by: Department of Anthropology and Ethnography, Aarhus University; Department of Anthropology, Copenhagen University and VIA University College.

The opposition or dichotomy between culture and nature has been central through much of the history of anthropology, especially in defining what anthropology is about and defining cultural versus natural phenomena in specific cultures, not to speak of the interaction between the two. With Latour in mind it is now, however difficult to maintain a distinction that may belong only to an outdated vision of modernity that we have never reached.

As with many other fields in anthropology, the culture-nature distinction has now entered a more complex state where it is worth a closer inspection. This is especially the case for medical anthropology where new research fields in medicine, biochemistry, biotechnology, genetics, etc. with the use of e.g. animal spare parts in human bodies or the invention of cyborg-technology, makes it obvious that the borderlines between nature and culture are apt to rethinking in anthropological terms. Another development going on is an expanding physiologization of processes until now thought of as primarily or exclusively social, cultural or psychological. These developments are very visible e.g. within the field of psychiatry where the brain and neuro-chemical processes are given priority to the psyche and psychological mal-adaptation. In these research fields, as well as in others, the distinction is constantly challenged, directly or indirectly, and the possible changes, socially and culturally, contain a huge potential for critical thinking and analysis by medical anthropology. Some rethinking already takes place – the concept of ‘local biology’ has for instance been suggested by Margaret Lock to encompass the biological body, social reality and cultural discourse to overcome both the arbitrariness of the material, biological body and the cultural body. But also concepts such as cyborgs, bio-sociality etc. point in new directions for the relationship between nature and culture.

This survey is intended for individuals who identify under the Trans umbrella who currently or once resided in the South. If this is not you, please exit and forward this on to a Southern friend.

Hi, my name is BT and I am a trans man of color who's a part of a Southern Regional LGBTQ organization called SONG [Southerners On New Ground] (www.southernersonnewground.org) and I am working to gather data that is reflective of the conditions and needs of trans people who currently reside (or lived for any period of time) in the South.

If you fit that criteria it would be greatly appreciated if you took a few minutes to answer the survey that asks 3 questions around conditions and ask for 3 solutions to address them. This information will be compiled in hopes of helping to amplify the voices of Southern trans people and coming up with either ONE main resonating issue or a few equal issues that could be presented in June to the USSF in Detroit (www.ussf2010.org) as a part of a People's Movement Assembly (PMA) where a larger discussion will take place across other social justice causes. This People's Movement Assembly works to let the forum know the concerns/needs/desires of trans people in the South and ask those in attendance and beyond to join US in the ongoing work towards the resolution(s) of the presented issue(s).

For purposes of this survey the Southeast states are: (Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida)

The deadline to submit this survey is: May 10th, 2010.

Click here to take survey!.

You can help promote this cause by filling out the survey (if you fit the criteria) and passing it to others who also fit the criteria.

Email (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TPC8PS) and add (Click here to take survey) friendly link to your FACEBOOK, web pages and other networks you might be a part of.

NOTE: This survey is totally anonymous, no names / email addresses are required. All demographic information is for the gathering of concrete data that gives us an idea to what our community looks like and is concerned about. You may provide your email address in any of the boxes below to obtain the decided action plan results from this survey. We assure you that we will not associate any names / email addresses with any comments & feedback shared on this survey unless we are given explicit permission to do so.

I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

BT

(via TransTalk)

(via The Scavenger)

The first International Sex and/or Gender Diversity Day has been declared 26 April and will be an awareness day and celebration of the existence or sex and/or gender diverse people, writes Tracie O’Keefe.

Sex and/or gender diverse people are encouraged to have picnics, tea parties, festivals or gatherings in their part of the world, inviting their family, friends and allies to join them.

We will be visible in all our sex and/or gender variations. It is for all intersex, transexed, transsexual, transgendered, androgynous, without sex and gender identity, cross-dressers, sex and gender fluid, transqueers, genderqueers, etc.

It is a day to have a picnic, tea party, gathering or festival wherever you are. In my 1999 book Sex Gender and Sexuality: 21^st Century Transformations my research calculated that at least 1% of the world’s population is sex and/or gender diverse.

OK – so many of us who are sex and/or gender diverse are scary to the masses because we are out there being visible, but the majority are stealth, invisible and often live with shame thrust upon them by ignorance or trying to evade an over-controlling medicalisation of their identities and prejudice.

When I was 15, Kevin B, the boy I grew up next door to, told me his mother expressly did not want him speaking to me because she was afraid I was dangerous.

I did have very high hair, one-foot high platforms and more make-up and fashion accessories than most department stores, plus a boyfriend on one arm, girlfriend on the other and was registered at school as a boy – admittedly in 1970 that was probably a bit frightening to the public. I was never one for half measures.

Nowadays I’m more likely to shop in K-Mart and be found peering through a microscope. I don’t stick out in crowd (apart from my red hennaed hair), so I’m just your plain old intersex, transexed sort of girl. But the law still prevents me from having all the same rights as someone who was registered as their lived sex at birth.

Arte Sana National Conference
November 1-2, 2010

Westin Dallas Fort Worth Airport Hotel
4545 W. John Carpenter Freeway
Irving, Texas

8th European conference on Computing And Philosophy — ECAP 2010
Technische Universität München
4–6 October 2010

Important dates:

* Submission (extended abstracts): 7 May 2010
* Notification: 9 May 2010
* ECAP Conference: 4–6 October 2010

Submission form

Theme

Historical analysis of a broad range of paradigm shifts in science, biology, history, technology, and in particular in computing technology, suggests an accelerating rate of evolution, however measured.

John von Neumann projected that the consequence of this trend may be an “essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs as we know them could not continue”.  This notion of singularity coincides in time and nature with Alan Turing (1950) and Stephen Hawking’s (1998) expectation of machines to exhibit intelligence on a par with to the average human no later than 2050.  Irving John Good (1965) and Vernor Vinge (1993) expect the singularity to take the form of an ‘intelligence explosion’, a process in which intelligent machines design ever more intelligent machines.  Transhumanists suggest a parallel or alternative, explosive process of improvements in human intelligence. And Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave (1980) forecasts “a collision point in human destiny” the scale of which, in the course of history, is on the par only with the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution.

We invite submissions describing systematic attempts at understanding the likelihood and nature of these projections.  In particular, we welcome papers critically analyzing the following issues from a philosophical, computational, mathematical, scientific and ethical standpoints:

* Claims and evidence to acceleration
* Technological predictions (critical analysis of past and future)
* The nature of an intelligence explosion and its possible outcomes
* The nature of the Technological Singularity and its outcome
* Safe and unsafe artificial general intelligence and preventative measures
* Technological forecasts of computing phenomena and their projected impact
* Beyond the ‘event horizon’ of the Technological Singularity
* The prospects of transhuman breakthroughs and likely timeframes

Amnon H. Eden, School of Computer Science & Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, UK and Center For Inquiry, Amherst NY

Defending my irresponsible, abusive, gender-stereotypical coming-out story

Note: this post is a bit feminist-theoretical.

I try to think seriously about about all comments on my work, but I usually just brush off the snide ones. Every once in a while, though, one arrows through and hits me where I'm vulnerable and shakes my confidence, and if it's nastily phrased, then it hurts all the more. Seeps into me like poison.

Yep, this is another post about my S&M coming-out story, published in February by "Time Out Chicago". (I've received some questions about when I'm going to start officially blogging for "Time Out" -- the answer is that we're still negotiating the terms of my blogging contract and I'm not sure when we'll be done. I think we both really want this professional blogging gig to happen, so I'm confident that we'll work it out, but it might take a while.)

Here's a brief one-paragraph synopsis: my coming-out story talks about how I got drunk with a man named Richard at a party when I was 20; he started hurting me intensely; and I really got into it. I'd known a little bit about the existence of BDSM for a while -- had experimented with light BDSM before, in fact -- but this experience was much more intense, and in particular led me to the realization that I needed very dark and tearful masochistic encounters. As an independent, rational feminist, it was difficult for me to come to terms with my desires. It didn't help that Richard and I weren't well-suited romantically, although we were well-suited on an S&M level. Adjusting took a long time; but after seeing a Kink Aware therapist, coming out to my parents, exploring BDSM on my own terms, and having BDSM relationships with non-Richard men who suited me better romantically, I feel pretty much at peace with my BDSM identity.

I found Joy through Happy Bodies today.  Check out their blog, for sure.  I watched this video and think Joy is onto something here.  The first two-thirds of it are solid enough, with treatments of friends, families and strangers and the impact they have on our lives.  However, the last part of this video goes right to the heart of how we view ourselves and the impact we have on our future with the choices we make right now.

Check out her blog (now on our blogroll) and other site here:

http://fatrantblog.wordpress.com

http://www.fatrant.com

http://www.myspace.com/joynash

IEET Managing Director Mike Treder and CUNY Professor Massimo Pigliucci debate the pros and cons of the transhumanist agenda.

I found this on STRASS and think it bears repeating.

-arvan

Whore Feminism is :

1. Dictate terms to men in the sexual contract before talking, either about the length, practices, prevention and rules of consent.

2. To work with other women and queer people and thus reduce the risk of suffering sexist and homophobic jokes from colleagues.

3. Being economically independent of a father, a boss or a darling.

4. Occupy public and night spaces traditionally reserved for men.

5. Combat whore stigma that hinders freedoms of all women, by reclaiming the insult in pride in order to break the original meaning.

6. Knowing, loving, being comfortable with our body and our sexuality and take care of it.

7. Defending the free disposal of our body and not only for abortion rights.

8. Knowing that sexuality and gender are defined by power relationships and that identities are neither natural nor immutable but socially constructed and as such we perform them like actresses.

9. Educating men and to change their behaviour because we have access to their privacy.

10. The right to say yes as much as to say no. Fighting for the recognition of rape as a crime, including those committed against us and which our complaints are rarely recorded.

11. Awareness of the intersection between different forms of discrimination and being in solidarity with other minority women.

12. Respecting all women voices. Refusing paternalism that infantilises women and judge them unable to express their own will under the false pretext that we are manipulated, yesterday by the priests to deny us the right to vote, or now by pimps to ban soliciting.

13. Making visible as work all services rendered for free or extracted within the family and demanding financial compensation for this, unless to refuse them.

14. Fighting for the unionization of sex workers and change the sex industry, including being aware that gendered asymmetry between men as clients and women&queers as whores is the result of a long tradition of patriarchal sexual division of labour .

15. Refusing to be a victim.