A-MUSING ACTIVITIES: UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE GLAM SECTOR

 Muse News | Jaime Meier

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With December right around the corner (yes, I am sorry to hear it too!), deadlines are looming and it is important for your health and sanity to take time for yourself each day to do something you enjoy. As someone who struggles with procrastination and staying focused, I am all too familiar with the guilt that accompanies avoiding a necessary task or struggling to finish an assignment. A great way that I have learned to cope and self-justify pausing school work is through participating in free online arts and culture related events. 

Event Hosted by 519 | Source

TODAY, November 20th

Trans Day of Remembrance 2020
Host: 519 
Time: 6:00pm EST
Where: Zoom
Registration: Required

It is the 21st annual Trans Day of Remembrance (TDoR) is being hosted by 519 to commemorate and honour the memories of members of the trans community taken too soon. This event will include speakers, singers, and other artistic components. 

Tuesday, November 24th

Zine-Making Workshop + Wellness Discussion with Melina Mehr

Host: Museum Professionals of Colour (MPOC)
Time: 5:00pm EST
Where: Zoom
Registration: Not required

Join accomplished MMSt alum, Melina Mehr, for an evening of discussion and creation around wellness and self-care. Guaranteed to be a relaxed and fun evening centered around creativity and support.

Thursday, November 26th

MUSSA Trivia Night

Host: Museum Studies Student Association (MUSSA)

Time: 6:00pm EST
Where: MMSt Channel (Virtual Inforum)
Registration: Email mussa.ischool@gmail.com by November 25 at 11:59 pm (Include your team members - max. 4 - or request to join a team)

You don't want to miss teaming up with fellow MMSt and CDP colleagues for a spirited game of trivia! The winning team will receive a prize (and bragging rights). 

EMILIA-AMALIA | Source

Wednesday, December 2nd

How to Build a Ruin: Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney
Host: EMILIA-AMALIA
Time: 7:00pm EST
Where: Zoom
Registration: Required

An evening of lecture, workshop, and performance is a part of an ongoing program that explores feminist praxis through historical memory, exclusion, and refusal. Meyer and McKinney explore the idea of ruins in relation to sexuality throughout their journey from Vancouver to Disneyland.

Thursday, December 3rd

INTERFERENCE – A Virtual “Music in the Museum”
Host: American University Museum At The Katzen Arts Center

Time: 7:30pm EST
Location: Livestream
Registration: Required

Do you think museums are a little too quiet? Join the music collective INTERFERENCE for their concert that focuses on using instruments and computer technology to create a musical and visual performance within a museum environment. 

Thursday, December 3-11th

Human Rights Film Festival (HRFF+) 
Host: JAYU

Time: 6:30pm EST

Location: Online
Registration: Required

The 9th annual HRFF is a week long event focusing on sharing stories and experiences regarding international human rights through film and discussion. The keynote address by Syrus Marcus Ware on the last day of the festival will certainly be a highlight. 

What arts and culture events are you looking forward to? Leave a comment or drop us a line at musings.mmst@gmail.com!

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY WITHIN THE MUSEUM

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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When I started researching into transgender history, I was frequently tripping over the language used in the articles I would find. The term “transsexual” kept coming up. As a transgender woman that came of age in the mid to late 2010s, transsexual was out of vogue, frequently with negative connotations. It was not until I read Susan Stryker’s “Transgender History” that I discovered that this has not always been the case.

Transgender language evolved quickly. Even the terms used as recently as a decade ago have been abandoned by the community, and so many are unaware of this phenomenon. Phrases like “transgendered” are viewed with skepticism, representing an ignorance of transgender issues from those that use it nowadays. But if you walk over to Church St and Wellesley St, you will find a large mural that includes the phrase in the heart of Toronto’s Gay Village.

The mural at Church and Wellesley. Note the use of "transgendered" in the top left. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

This presents a problem for museums wishing to talk about transgender history. How do we grapple with this changing language in exhibitions in which even the community is frequently not aware of? Do we use the language viewers are familiar with and apply labels to those that did not choose them or do we keep the original language, fearing a negative response from the community we are hoping to serve?

As I am sure many of us are aware, when it comes to label writing, we need to be very precise with our wording. In order to keep the visitor’s attention, the labels need to be short and direct. Unfortunately, this does not lend itself to in depth discussions of complex topics, such as the evolution of language. As such, simply explaining the issue in a label may not be the best option.

Additionally, many queer historians consider it problematic to apply labels to those that did not choose them for themselves. Without definite proof, it often becomes inserting modern understandings upon a past that might not have shared them. Identity is so incredibly personal, and to say that we know better than someone else about their identity is arrogant and elitist. Altering how they identify goes against so much of what the transgender community and the LGBT as a whole has fought for.

This practice of not applying labels to people from previous generations has also long been the target of ridicule by members of the LGBT as well. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

But, the work should be made for the transgender community as it exists today. As I spoke about in my previous article, transgender people have long been overlooked in museums. Using language that the community deems to be offensive, even if it has a place within the historical context, presents the danger of angering that same community.

I wish I could say that there is an easy solution to this issue, but I do not believe there to be. Each position has its pros and cons. The difficulties that surround presenting an evolving language that is often overlooked cannot be solved so simply and must be significantly considered when writing about transgender history.

THE T IS NOT SILENT

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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The Friday before the Pride Parade, Church Street is packed. At around 8 PM, the crowd makes its way up to Bloor Street before turning down Yonge Street and continuing to Allan Gardens. This march evokes a very different atmosphere than the festivities that are scheduled for this Sunday. There is no need for the corporate sponsors, just thousands of people walking in solidarity. This is the Transgender March, my personal highlight of Pride every year.

The banner carried at the front of the Trans March. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

This is the tenth year that Toronto had a Trans March to kick off Pride weekend. Starting as an unofficial event, the March has grown in size every year, with this year’s estimates sitting around 8,000 people. The energy was palpable and a farcry from the Pride Parade on Sunday. There were no banks with larger than life floats, no corporations trying to hock their wares on a public. Instead, there were thousands of people, all united in the same cause. They carried signs that conveyed a shared trans cultural production. They used memes and made references to things recognizable within online trans spaces, such as the now legendary 57 hour livestream of the 1999 game Donkey Kong 64 by Youtuber Hbomberguy that raised $340,000 for a trans charity earlier this year. Examples can be seen below.

VERY GOOD signs from the Trans March on Friday night!!!! Absolutely thrilled to see so many friends and people come out to march!!! LOVE YOU 💙💖⚪️💖💙 pic.twitter.com/Ngbpez2Tzq

— 💖 Gremlin Sherry 💖 (@rancidyogurt) June 23, 2019

Events such as the Trans March are incredibly important, both for individuals and for understanding Pride. Growing up transgender, no one ever spoke about trans people, and even more infrequently was actually seeing someone who was trans. It felt isolating. This contrasts to the Trans March, where I am surrounded by people being visible. These people are not just speaking about trans people but advocating for trans rights, which is incredibly powerful. Events like these signal to other closeted individuals that they are not alone.


Equally important is how it is viewed within Pride itself, for Pride and the Gay Rights Movement has a long history of transphobia. It is often said that the first Pride was a riot, but rarely is it mentioned that the second Pride in San Francisco excluded drag queens from attending. Even here in Toronto, Pride organizers tried to sabotage the Trans March for many years by restricting it to a much shorter route than those offered to the Dyke March or the Parade. By having the Trans March each and every year, it represents a resilience amongst the community and, with the March swelling in size every year, a stark reminder that trans issues are no longer on the periphery but now in the mainstream. The Trans March serves as encouragement for the future.

AFTER THE SECOND MOLOTOV: UNRAVELING STONEWALL'S HERITAGE

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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“A transgender woman of colour threw the first brick at Stonewall.” This is a phrase that frequently gets used to place trans people within the LGBT. Often, it is referring to Sylvia Rivera, a trans Latinx sex worker. While she was alive, Rivera rejected the claims, instead stating that she threw “the second Molotov.” Nevertheless, the claim she threw the first brick has had a monumental effect on how Stonewall is remembered and beyond.

For those that might not be aware, the Stonewall Inn was a meeting place for the LGBT community in New York during the 1960s. Because of this, it was often the target of police raids. The constant police harassment would culminate in the early hours on June 28, 1969. The patrons of the Stonewall Inn responded violently, kicking off a riot that would go down in history as starting the Gay Liberation Movement and the modern LGBT.

The legendary Stonewall Inn. Source

Soon after the riots on New York’s Christopher Street, gay rights activist groups began sprouting all over the world. Stonewall had been the spark that ignited a revolution, one based in the methods of the preceding Civil Rights Movement. The following years would see significant gains made by gay activists. But, this is where transgender history and gay history deviate.

Sylvia Rivera was in the Gay Liberation Movement from the start, having even been at Stonewall on the first day of the riots. But she would not stay long. The gay communities were changing, and changing in such a way that left very little room for trans people. The gay male culture was becoming hypermasculine, finding itself in gay clubs and through hard drugs. Meanwhile, the lesbian sphere was getting involved with Second Wave Feminism, typified by its exclusion of transgender individuals.

Gay communities were becoming hostile to trans people, and this shows in the 1971 Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York. Through backroom dealings, the language of the act was changed so as to remove all reference to gender expression in an effort to make it more palatable at the expense of trans individuals. This angered many trans activists, including Rivera, as it seemed like they had been betrayed.

Rivera would leave gay activism a couple years later. The rise of trans exclusionary rhetoric reached a peak at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, when feminists in the crowd described the trans women present as mocking womanhood. In response, Rivera got on stage, amid boos from the crowd, to decry the inactivity of the gay activists. Her role in the movement would soon be forgotten, only to be rediscovered in the 1990s.



So, what does all this mean, then? To understand that, we need to delve into some theory, specifically Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and Tony Bennett on narratives. In his essay “Museums and Progress,” Bennett describes narratives as only existing in retrospect, only having value once we give it value. In this way, narratives are entirely constructed and not inherent. This fits in well with Anderson’s Imagined Communities theory in which large groups that will never meet each other imagine a shared comradery.

These theories reflect how Stonewall is viewed in the LGBT. Much like Anderson’s examples of South East Asian monuments, Stonewall became an image that represented LGBT activism. The LGBT has taken the image of Stonewall and mythologized it. No longer does it just represent a place but a whole group and a mentality that can be seen and felt around the world. With the rediscovered involvement of trans activists like Rivera, the narrative that surrounds Stonewall and the LGBT has slowly shifted. No longer was it the start of just Gay Rights, but a larger LGBT community. It brought about more inclusion for trans individuals.

But this inclusion in the narrative problematizes transgender history. It creates an assumption that, since we were present at the start of the movement, gay and trans histories are one and the same. This results in a further erasure of trans history as it gets subsumed by the much larger and more vocal gay history.