TransGender, CisGender, GenderQueer, Trans: A Community Conversation

What common habits of assigning gender to people, bodies, and activities might we want to think twice about?  What resources  are particularly useful in creating and sustaining community? How can we make physical spaces welcoming and usable for all?  This conversation is intended for all members of our community: for people new to these issues and people long concerned with them.  Share what you know, discover what you don’t. Help make Portland more inclusive for people of all genders.

Moderated by Jules Purnell, Erica Rand, and Wendy Chapkis

Jules Purnell is a genderqueer/trans kinky, poly activist and current Women and Gender Studies/Sociology/Deaf Studies student at the University of Southern Maine. They have experience presenting on topics of trans identity and inclusion before medical professionals, students, and LGBT coalitions and communities. They plan to go on to make a full time gig of this sex ed stuff someday.

Erica Rand is a writer, activist, and teacher who is professor of Art and Visual Culture and of Women and Gender Studies at Bates College.  Her writings include Barbie’s Queer Accessories, The Ellis Island Snow Globe, and Red Nails, Black Skates: Gender, Cash, and Pleasure On and Off the Ice. She serves on the editorial boards of Radical Teacher and Salacious.

Wendy Chapkis is a Professor of Sociology and Women & Gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine.  Her publications include many articles on gender and sexuality and on drug policy issues.  She is also the author of three books: Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance (South End Press); Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor (Routledge); and Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine (New York University Press).