Get experience with all types of learners and their families - part b

I recently finished reading Jennifer Baumgardner's book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics." I had read another book by Baumgardner during my first year of college and decided to try another. Bisexuality was a topic that was briefly mentioned in my Human Sexuality class last semester, but I thought there was certainly a lot more I could learn about the topic. Though some of her experiences were a bit too far from my own, there certainly were ideas that I was able to identify with. For the some of the same reasons that I enjoyed Anne Marie's presence at the GWSA retreat (see part a), I enjoyed Baumgardner's personal experience with the topic as well as her more academic treatises on the subject.

One interesting issue that goes alongside of bisexuality is their inclusion (or exclusion) in the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) community. While they are included officially in title, Baumgardner suggests that bisexuals struggle to know their place. They typically experience alienation from the heterosexual community when they have a same-sex partner, but are treated as hypocrites from the same-sex community when they enter a heterosexual relationship. As Baumgardner points out, "Anyone who can access heterosexuality at some point is living a more socially privileged life than a lesbian is" (195).

I appreciated what Baumgardner had to offer on the subject of the relationship between bisexuality and feminism. Baumgardner describes this movement of second-wave feminism:

"Another radical argument for looking to women in the 1970s underscored the political purity and courage of women who gave up the sexist privileges garnered by their association with men. Those women were known as "political lesbians." They might not have ever slept with a woman - indeed, they might have been straight - but they disavowed heterosexual identity and men." (75)

This phenomenon of second-wave feminism helped me to understand why feminists are stereotypically portrayed as emasculating lesbians.

Through reading this book, I have a greater acceptance of those who have chosen to live life as a bisexual. Rather than being considered to be simply sitting on the fence, I think I’m beginning to understand that some individuals are sexually attracted to individuals of both sexes. My understanding of feminism also helps me to make sense of all this.

Get experience with all types of learners and their families - part a

On the first weekend of this semester, GSWA (Goshen Student Women's Association) and Advocates offered a short retreat at the College Cabin. Though it was just for a few hours, this "retreat" offered attendees the opportunity to learn more about transgender issues in a relaxed, informal environment. Our time there was moderated by a variety of college students from the hosting clubs and Anne Marie, a transgender individual, provided the topical input. We began by discussing two questions with those who we were sitting with. These questions dealt with the nature of gender: essentially, how much of gender is a social construction and how much is biological? I was sitting with a friend who has studied a great deal of psychology and so it was interesting to hear her perspective on the issue in addition to those of the others around us.

We then discussed several articles related to how transgenderism is presented in the media. One article that we focused in on was an article from ESPN that was about a transgender individual who had a sex reassignment surgery and had just won a long drive championship for golf. Anne Marie called the article out for not even being about the athlete's success; the article is only about the controversy surrounding her win and even the title suggests their bias: "Former male Lawless wins women's title." There were several issues that arose through the discussion of this article. The first was a disbelief of the biased perspective presented by the author of the article through quotes such as this: "However, if a woman has the knees, hands and feet of a man, she has genetic real estate that is more gifted." Secondly, the article seemed to disregard Lawless's transgender identity as not being real and simply to achieve success in golf competitions.

After sharing in a lunch of bread and soup, Anne Marie shared about her own experience of coming to terms with her transgender identity. She shared about her reasons for choosing not to have sex reassignment surgery. Anne Marie is a pastor of a church in Chicago and so her experiences as a transgender pastor and her experiences with the church as a larger entity were also interesting to hear about. Finally, she shared with us some of her work outside of the realm of sexuality. One item that I found to be fascinating was her evaluation of Christian language with the objective of examining how racism and violence have been institutionalized. She discussed the ever present dichotomy of light as good and dark as bad along with violent language that is common in Christian liturgy. I don't agree with all she said, particularly since I know very little about traditional liturgy, but I found her opinions to be quite interesting.

The day ended up being quite informative and enjoyable. Not only did I learn more about transgender issues, I was able to converse with my peers about a variety of issues that don't typically come up in daily conversation. Anne Marie's presence at this event was very influential, not only did she help to us to understand the issue; she helped put a face to it.