Yay! Yay! Yay!

I AM SO EXCITED RIGHT NOW!!! Last night we made a huge step for our doc. We went to Ibiza last night (a gay club downtown) and three people agreed to an interview! These people are awesome! It was so much fun.

The Interviewees:

1.) Erica: She wants to have a sex change. She does drag at Ibiza and se said we could tape one of her shows!! Erica is so sweet and pretty and said she will answer ANY question. She is very open. She gave us her myspace page and the website of the photographer of Ibiza that will be a great source for us.
2.) Terra: She is more manly, lots and lots of makeup. She hosts the drag shows every week and also said we could tape one of her shows. She seems like a Diva! She agreed to an interview without talking to us much and only seemed really interested in us when we were talking to Erica.
3.) This all happened because of Jimmy, a bartender at Ibiza who was checking ids at the front. He introduced us to Erica and Terra and gave us like four other contacts! He is a part of the pride group and they are hosting two events that he said we coulod film. One is the white party for the opening night and the other is drag duets. He also knows some history of whats going on in Wilmington, and was very friendly and helped us a great deal and has seen a lot and he said we could interview him.

Like Chris mentioned last night, meeting these people makes me want to research more and more so we ask the right questions. Also, it is interesting that our film is taking its own form. So far, it is much less about the intersexed and much more about transgendered people and the consturct of gender, and I think thats okay, these people have stories to tell and I'm excited to hear them.

questions oy

Good news and bad news. Bad news is that a lot of the questions we intended for Dan about the intersexed he doesn't feel good about answering but he said he can talk about any of these issues, (a lot of them seem interesting) We are supposed to figure out what ones we are interested in and let him know...I think we need a group meeting ASAP b4 we go to Chapel Hill so we know what we want to ask, etc. Because I think he wants to know by tomorrow. Anyone free tonight?

Gender and the Brain

Behavioral Endocrinology
Evolutionary Psychology and Women.
The female brain.
Why are males so violent? Listen to the interview here (Pull the slider to about 14 min into the interview).
Selected reading from A Natural History of Rape: Biological Basis of Sexual Coercion
Excerpts from "Brain Sex".
Sex and the Corpus Callosum. Also, check this.
Stalking the Wild Taboo: Homosexuality, Birth Order and Evolution
"A sex difference in the brain and its relation to transsexuality" Read the Nature article. Find the Time review here. Listen to the National Public Radio Interview.
"A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men" Read Simon Levay's August 30 1991 Science paper. A review can be found here.
National Public Radio Interview with Deborah Blum (You'll need Real Audio for this)
Homosexuality topics: Read each of these to stimulate discussion (read here). All letters are in response to National Public Radio series on the biology of homosexuality.
A comparison of rearing male vs. female children.
Why Can't a Woman be More Like a Man? Find out here.
Men, Women, and Sex Differences: The Attitudes of Three Feminists.
Read a review of Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences between Men and Woman.
Are Men Smarter than Women? Read Gender Mender.
Various links to gender and sexuality issures. Some good, some odd.
Hormones affecting "Pillow Talk"
Sex Differrences in the Brain. Read the review.
Angry Adolescent Brains.
Sexual Selection and the Mind.
A father's imprint on his daughter's thinking. Download the article here (needs Adobe Acrobat. Get that here). More comments here.
A gender difference in social-cognitive function. Download the article here (needs Adobe Acrobat. Get that here).
Brain News.
Bio-Feminism Web Resources.
New York Times Interview: "Are some people born gay?"
A difference between heterosexual and homosexual/bisexual women.
Study questions gene influence on male homosexuality.
Why do we know so little about human sex?
The real truth about the female body.
Bio-feminism Web Resources.
Sex and Anger: Differences between males and females.
Male vs. Female Developmental Biology READ THIS
All about Eve: High-Math-High-Mechanical Females and Testosterone
Love: Hormones Converge for Couples in Love
Love: First Flush of Love Not Emotional
Love: Married Men Have Less Testosterone
Love: Cohabitating Boosts Men's Mental Health
Love: Divorce and DNA
Love: Genes and Fitness
Love: Romanic Love Abstracts
Gay Genetics
Gay Sheep
Genetics and Human Female Infidelity

A BIG reason that I didn't mention the 1st time..

Looking back on my last post I feel like I forgot the biggest reason that I need to make this film and it's that I need to some degree make an impact on society (however small it is) I feel like I do a lot of hating on and criticizing of today's American culture, but that means nothing if I don't actively do something to try to make a change, or in this case, open up a dialogue. There is a reason why not many people know about the intersexed, if it's a fear of the unknown or simply something that we feel we cannot indenify with...but the reason needs to be challenged! So to open up this conversation in our film , I hope will open up other private conversations that will lead to a perspective that would not have been gained without confrontation. My goal is social change, even if it's only a few people.

Some of the reasons why I care

It’s really hard to articulate why I personally feel like I need to make this film but here are some of my scattered reasons.

Since like 6th grade I have always had a few gay friends who I love dearly and just cannot understand why they receive so much undeserved malice for something that they did not choose. Being gay is only one aspect of their being but still it’s seen as everything. It hurts me that they receive so much hatred from society. I wonder if people fear or question their own sexuality so much that they constantly have to defend the “right way to be.”

I absolutely love sociology because it teaches you that people can be any way if in the right context. I can’t help but apply this notion to everything I see. In soc there is an emphasis on gender, and it really opened to a lot of issues about discrimination and gave me a vocabulary for what I was seeing at school, in the public sphere, in my family.

I have two identical twin cousins that are around my age. My grandpa always judges me by my looks and not by intelligence or talent but my cousins represent everything I don’t- power, potential, strength. When we were like 8 we asked him what he thought we would be when we grew up. For Jaron it was a doctor, for Nick it was a lawyer and for me it was an artist, but not just an artist, a FAILED artist. I can’t help but laugh at how close his prediction was, Jaron a pre med major, Nick wants to be a sports journalist and I’m a film major, and I wonder if he is right that I’ll never really succeed. Even though I have been on the Deans list for 5 semesters, my grandpa still thinks my cousins are more successful in college because they are charismatic athletic young men. My grandma Fofo has always been considered with my weight. She used to criticize everything I put in my mouth, because in her eyes I was overweight, and that mattered more than anything else. It’s interesting to look at the generation gap- what they think a woman should be vs. what I think a being a woman is. My mom has always been the opposite of my grandparents; she’s a feminist who raised me basically by herself. She is very strong and independent. I am basically a less OCD version of her. I believe that my former Step dad is gay, but I know he will never ever come out because he knows it wouldn’t be accepted. So my family has been an interesting place to look at and examine gender roles/society.

I just feel like I have a lot invested in furthering my own personal knowledge and understanding of gender, and that I would be a good person to make a film about people who don’t fit in the mold because I am empathetic and very concerned with social equality and the reasons that equality is not achieved and the ways we can change that.

Updation

Things this week... Sat. Chris and I met started making some calls, I found the people he called them. Monday I seached for my gender studies book but couldn't find it and it made me sad. We had our meeting with Shannon on Wed. and she asked us if we could write a breif history of our subject and it got me thinking, well, sort of. I have studied this topic in a gender studies class at UNCG but I need to study it again so I can whip out facts if asked. So I looked in the internet and read. We were supposed to meet with the principle at the highschool but he broke his foot. I talked to this 50 or so man to see if he knew any old people who we could interview and he works at a golf course and said yes so thats good. I rented Southern Comfort and Middlesexes and am hoping to get a movie night together with my group. At some point I want to go to a bookstore and buy a gender studies book because it would help, and I could write notes in it. My camera just got in but I need to pick it up at ups, so I'm excited about that.

Articles

In everything that I have read there has been a pattern that there isn't any "health" related reason to have "corrective surgery, that it really has to do with cultural norms. If a child is born with both a vagina and a penis, it will not cause any harm to them, it really has to do with fitting in, making a choice, and playing that role.

1.) "The Medical Construction Of Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants" by Suzanne J. Kessler. I am going to print it out, it is 23 pages.
- I found it on JSTOR. It won't let me cut and pase anything.
It gives historical background about surgery/procedures but also says that gender assignment is more of a cultural issue, since the medical desicions are based on cultural standards. It talks about what has been done when there are infants who show signs of both male and female, and possible reasons.

2.) "Intersexed Identities: Locating new intersextions of Sex and Gender" by Stephanie S. Turner Also found on JSTOR. This article is written by a member of a group that wants to prevent unnecessary surgery for infants and then to provide options later on in life. It is about how gender and sex are equated and how that creats a lot of problems for gender politics. Again, the subject at hand is what to do with infants.

3.) "Managing Intersex: Most Vaginal surgery should be deffered" BMJ 2001;323:1264-1265 ( 1 December )This article is about how a lot of infants with both genitalia are raised as girls and have clitoral reduction and a vaginoplasty. The issue is very controversial.It talks about the different patterns of chromosomes. The article is again, about what to do with infants. The doctors feel that a choice HAS to be made.

4.)"One Percent On the Burn Chart: Gender, genitals, and hermaphrodites with attitude" By David Valentine (foiund on JSTOR) This is about the relationship between gender and sex, and medical procedures. I will print it out.

5.)"Mistaken Gender: 5-Alpha Reductase Hermaphroditism abd Biological Reductionism in sexual identity" found on JSTOR. This is about biomedical research on hermaphroditic condition among males in the Dominican Republic. It "refutes the unicausal biological model" and suggests that it is more of a cultural decision.

More Pitching

I don’t think we have agreed about how to shoot this film yet, not that we disagree we just haven’t talked about it much. I just bought a Canon XH- A1 so we can shoot with that, and bring a tripod and lighting kit to our interviews. We want to have the Intersexed and Transgendered people as the experts. We can use more flattering lighting for them, but then what about the other experts like doctors? I’m not sure… but we also want to see the Transgendered and Intersexed people as fun loving human beings, and want to show them do things they do on a daily basis not just in a formal interview setting. We were also interested in being a little experimental. If we can tape a drag show, it would be cool to have fast and fun camera work. Also, we can paint on film, and kind of animate the female sign and make it into the male sign, to show it’s a spectrum. Making our film style a little abstract would parallel our message of not blindly following conventions without questioning them.

For the middle school kids, we want to do vox pops with all of them, then have 4 or so do more serious interviews (my mom thinks she has a good idea who these kids should be) and then have 2 or 3 groups of 3 (friends) who may push each other to answer more honestly, or may want to show off (like in the 7 up series). We will probably conduct these in a school setting, an empty classroom, the hall, outside at recess or in the lunchroom. We shouldn’t bring a lot of lights for them.

I’m like Chris in that I like getting my message across with satire or sarcasm but I’m not sure that would be appropriate for this film. If we did that it would seem like we should be interviewing people who we know would be totally against our message, and then we would showcase their opinions so we could make them seem ridicules. Instead, I think we have decided that we would like to try to get a positive and intelligent perspective, one that hasn’t really been heard. So…for the tone… it seems like we won’t really know until we hear the stories.

Pitch

For our documentary we are going to examine social dynamics of gender roles in society. The aim is not to define right or wrong, but rather enlighten ourselves and the viewer about how these dynamics are formed and see where they fall on the line between instincts and social norms. We hope to focus on the youth around us and question their ideas about gender definitions. Of course, people who are struggling with social norms are imperative in order to understand how society affects the individual’s identity and how it influences them to make certain choices. We are interested in gender assignment, as it applies to the direction of our lives. What does it mean to be “male” or “female”? This question may seem easy, but what if you ask it to someone who was born with both genetalia? What if we ask a person whose parents chose for them at birth, were given the corrective surgery, but they still feel like they don’t fit into their gender? Also, since we are all different, we want to discredit the extremes of gender definition such as the recent Snickers commercial that focuses on “doing something manly.” We hope that the heart of our film will be the stories of transgendered people and hermaphrodites themselves; learning of their struggles/successes will be crucial. It is also important to look at members of society who embrace the diversions of social norms or who are disgusted by them, and ask, why? We would like to interview doctors, therapists, sociologists, and people of all ages and gain a very broad range of perspectives. It may be interesting to start with children, a time of “innocents” then move to adolescents, a stage of figuring out their identity, and then adults, who are supposed to know who they are. Our topic may seem hard to relate to, but we are hoping that everyone can relate to the need to be understood, loved, and accepted.

"Boys Beware"

Audience

Not a lot of people can relate to being transgendered, but I think that everyone can relate to wanting to feel accepted, loved, and understood. This is what we hope will come out of our film, and what will make our audience feel connected. But who will they be anyway? Well, our wish is for our audience to be the youth, we don't want to just "preach to the choir" and we also have to concider how there are a lot of people who will come in with strong judgments before they even see the film. It also is interesting being in the South (I grew up in the North) and I have noticed the audience is quite different... We would like to try to offer a bit of insight and maybe get people thinking about different froms of being in a positve way instead of it being a despicable thing that is not talked about. Besides festivals, we can do podcasts, put it on Youtube, and stream it elsewhere. We could make a website, and create a forum for people to talk about it. We could go to local art house places (in Wilmington Jengo's house) and send it to places that may want to screen it. We could talk to women's studies dept and see if they would host a screening for our film andother gender related films. What would be really cool, (but would take some $ and time) is to go around town and leave the DVDs places, maybe have a really intriguing label on them, or even pass them out on campus.

Definitions!

Transgendered: 1.)is an overarching term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society. 2.) appearing or attempting to be a member of the opposite sex, as a transsexual or habitual cross-dresser.

Transexuaism:s a condition in which a transsexual person self-identifies as a member of the gender opposite to the one assigned to them at birth. Transsexualism is considered a taboo subject in many parts of the world. The justifications for negative beliefs about transsexualism may be perceived as being supported by religious beliefs or cultural norms. 2.) a person who has undergone a sex change operation or a person whose sexual identification is entirely with the opposite sex

Hermaphrodite: an individual in which reproductive organs of both sexes are present.

This is great so be patient!

I have watched/ listened to a bunch of blog entries by this blogger, I really enjoy it. Pay attention around 8 and a half min, I think this is important to our film!