More circles
Well then let’s look at the Aims page; maybe they get more informative there.
The Space, Sexualities and Queer Research Group (SSQRG), was established in 2006 and aims to:
▼ Encourage geographic research and scholarship on topics related to sexualities and queer studies
▼ Promote educational ways for communicating geographic perspectives on sexualities and queer theories that will inform both curriculum and pedagogical needs
▼ Promote interest in geographies on issues related to sexualities and queer studies and promote the exchange of ideas and information about geographical intersections between sexualities and queer studies, where involvement of early-career researchers is maximised
Erm. No help. It’s just more repetition of labels without saying what’s behind them. What the flaming hell are “geographies on issues related to sexualities and queer studies”?
Last bullet point:
Offer a supportive environment for the exchange of ideas and the development of social and activist networks to fight forms of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and/or practices, sexual and gender identity and expression, and other forms of sexual and gender prejudice
You mean like the “gender prejudice” that knows men are not women?
Do you have a map handy?
Well, trans geography could figure out which countries treat the transgender issue in which of a number of various ways. For instance, I’ve sometimes heard that Islamic countries are so fanatically anti-gay that they force gay men to be “stranded” into women. It’s support for transgenderism of a kind, but I doubt that the status of the gay men was enhanced very much by “transition.” Now they are “women,” and presumably treated like other women under Shari’a. That is, allowed to live, but in virtual imprisonment. I’d bet trans activists would study geographically which countries did that, and put them on a list of places to avoid.
I could also see totting up which countries have completely swallowed the trans Kool aid, to see where they can most easily exercise power over the arms of government and the media, to entrench their hegemony and enact more women-erasing legislation. Or noting which countries have started to backslide from trans dominance, and make plans for activist campaigns to punish people in those places for their disloyalty/blasphemy. Making activist networks: that seems like something they could do.
maddog, I suppose they could do any part or all of that, but it sounds almost coherent, and that’s apparently not acceptable. I suppose coherence is an imposition of colonialist, imperialistic, cis-hetero-normative racist western powers. That’s why trans activists avoid coherence at all costs!
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re sitting around making shit up about intersections of trans with geography in a cultural, structural, post-colonialist world where words mean whatever anyone wants them to mean, no more and no less. They don’t actually do anything or study anything, but they get in a lot of lovely hours contemplating their own navel.
I don’t think geography is what I thought it was. My son took geography at university last year, and I was imagining the study of countries, their resources, natural features and so on. Instead, his major project for the course was on inclusive playgrounds for children with disabilities. I’m still confused as to how this constituted geography.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Yeah, geography is an extremely broad “discipline” – which isn’t inherently bad, of course, but it’s not great when a research group can’t explain what the heck it’s about.