Gender Across Borders

New Project! We need your help!

Emily Heroy — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 10:00:39 +0000

Greetings, fellow feminists! It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us–since GAB officially closed up shop back in April–but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been thinking of new ways to advance the feminist movement. For our upcoming project, we’ve decided to take a more focused look at feminism around the world, that is, finding out directly from you what your experiences with feminism have been like and how the hardships affecting women around the world that we hear about [...]

Start Improving the World: Goodbye, Gender Across Borders

GAB Team — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:00:23 +0000

It gives me great sadness to tell you that Gender Across Borders will stop publishing after today, April 30, 2012. Not only have we posted the latest global feminist news and issues, but we've also provided a space for people to discuss global feminism for the past three years.

Global Feminist Link Love: April 21 – 27

Atifa Hasham — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:00:08 +0000

Hello all you Global Feminists! Below are a list of links to blog posts and news stories about what other global feminists have been up to this past week. But we also want to know: what have you been reading/writing this week? Share your own link love in the comments! For more gender justice news, check out GAB's Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr.

Male, female, hetero, homo: does the binarism really exist or are we making it up?

Guest GAB Contributor — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:00:17 +0000

Each time we want to discuss sexual orientation, we turn to people who identify themselves as LGBT. By doing so we are in a way accepting that heterosexuality is the norm (hence, the “normality”) and homo/bisexuality the exception. That is, there is something ab-normal that we need to explain/control. Scientists have never wondered if heterosexuality is chosen or if it is a product of our genes: it has been taken for granted as “natural”. And this is the power of questions: no matter how innocent or well-intentioned, they re-produce ideology.

Essentialism, constructionism, and why I like plaid

Guest GAB Contributor — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:00:44 +0000

I have no idea why I’m queer. Like most people who identify as straight, gay or anything in between, I experienced a range of sexual desires in my teenage years. I was often nervous and scared about sexuality, which seemed much more complicated to me than it was “supposed” to be. I was attracted to women, dated girls and imagined marrying a woman. All the while, I was extremely curious about men’s bodies, hated my own and was intrigued by the possibilities of gay life and culture. As I grew more comfortable in my own skin, I guess I became more open to the idea of being with a man. It was hardly a calculated plan, but I wound up sleeping with a man in the summer between college and graduate school. I was drunk and he was hot. I didn’t particularly like the guy, but I liked hooking up with him. It felt right. I came out, and I’ve been having sex with men since then.

Understanding my sexuality through queer theory

Guest GAB Contributor — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:00:04 +0000

My junior year of college, I read Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence.” In it, Rich talks about a “lesbian continuum” and the idea that intimate activities between women, even when non-romantic or non-sexual, challenge the norm of heterosexism. When I look back and try to pinpoint the moment when I started coming out to myself as queer...

Dangers of identity politics: does science hold all the answers?

Guest GAB Contributor — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:00:43 +0000

“I don’t care that you’re a faggot, just stay away from me.” It remains painful that these were the most memorable words said to me on my high school Austrian exchange trip my senior year. I was in the gymnasium locker room with the other boys of our program and I had just made an offhanded compliment about one of boys on the trip. At his remark I became intensely defensive, I mentioned that I had a girlfriend and wasn’t gay, he blew it off as a case of me being closeted and told me to leave him alone. I found myself pleading for him to believe me, that I was straight, just like him. Looking back almost ten years later, I realize that getting into a debate about my sexuality was just as fraught with difficulty as any larger discussion about gender or sexuality. Of course, any discussion that starts with a slur is bound to go downhill.

Profile of a “Gaysian”

Guest GAB Contributor — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:00:38 +0000

“I have always been gay,” says Johnson Ngo. “But, I did not realize I was gay until I was a teenager.” Ngo, 24, is a artist in Toronto, Ontario. With richly saturated and gloriously shiny black hair, reaching past his shoulders, Ngo regularly gets mistaken for a girl. He wears large frame glasses, slim-fitting trench or bomber-style coats, skinny pants and thrifted bow ties. He is beyond fashion trends. He has his own style. Ngo is one of my closest friends.

“Yes I am too, but am I really?” On queerness and socialization.

Guest GAB Contributor — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:00:27 +0000

Sexual orientation can be regarded as a latent disposition that is present in an individual all along. It depends, however, on the ability of ‘escaping’ cultural inclinations of gender norms and value systems whether or not a person will actually go on to identify as LGBT. On the other hand, other shapes of socialization such as peer groups can help this process, with language as an important tool to put feelings into words. Culture, therefore, can act as a inhibiting as well as an enabling factor to what has been biologically determined.

Welcome to the series “Born this way? The role of the nature vs nurture debate in sexual identity formation and acceptance”!

Charlotte Jalvingh — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:00:08 +0000

The question of what ‘causes’ homosexuality has been preoccupying widely ranging scientific fields and scientists: from medicine and neuroscience to cultural and behavioral studies. Is sexual orientation a simple variable that is determined before birth, or is it influenced by environmental and surrounding factors over the course of someone’s life? In other words: do individuals who identify as LGBT choose to do so or were they born this way? By hosting this series, Gender Across Borders hands over the mic to individuals who have touched upon this topic in their personal lives (either from personal or ‘bystander’ perspective) and create the opportunity to express their opinion. We aim to figure out how they position themselves in this debate, if and how this debate has influenced the process of accepting your sexual orientation, the role that surrounding cultural belief systems have played, etc. This resulted in many contributions with diverse point of views and from diverse perspectives.