The following is the final paper I wrote last semester for the Queer Studies class I took at the University of Iowa. While the original assignment was to choose a current event of interest and apply course readings to analyze it, my professor presented me with a specific challenge to consider instead: is it a form of cultural appropriation if a cisgender woman performs drag? Of course, I immediately chose this option and this is the result. I have plans for further refinement, to better join the academic conversation about drag and drag culture. I have a decent stack of further research to do, so please enjoy this as a work in progress.

Continue reading “Boys’ (who dress like girls) Club: whose femininity and whose stage?”

Here is another reaction essay I have written for my LGBTQ/Queer Studies class I am taking this semester (Fall 2018). It has been a good exercise to tackle a larger issue in a succinct four pages. I hope to revisit the issue of Queer Theory and race in a larger format after much more research (I am certain that I am not the originator of the idea that Queer Theory has significant limitations when it comes to issues of race!). 

Continue reading “Queer Studies and Race: Methodology Matters”

This semester (Fall 2018), I am taking an undergraduate queer studies class at my University. The professor was generous enough to allow me to join the class and tailor a separate syllabus to challenge me at a graduate level (I am pursuing a certificate in gender and women’s studies along with my MA and PhD). It’s been an excellent experience thus far, as he specifically avoids writing by white gay cisgender men and focuses on writing by women, people of color, and transgender folks. It’s also been fascinating and exciting to learn alongside students about a decade younger than myself. Reflection essays are assigned with the goal of uncovering a core problematic based on the week’s readings. We are asked to stake out a position and support it via course readings – all within four pages, which is, at times, a challenge for myself. I thought I would share my first reaction essay in which I identified how gender manifests itself within both queer communities and, in turn, queer studies. 

Continue reading “Gender in Queer Community, Gender in Queer Studies”