Transcript A HISTORICAL AND CROSS CULTURAL LOOK AT ALTERNATIVE

THE WARIA OF INDONESIA
• A transgendered group that
has existed throughout
Indonesia’s history.
• Indonesia is 90% Muslim,
and the majority of waria are
Muslims.
• Many are organized activists,
and waria consider
themselves to be important
contributors to the modern
Indonesian nation as diverse
and tolerant.
WARIA
ORGANIZING
COMMUNITY
SERVICES.
BOELLSTORFF
GAY MUSLIMS IN INDONESIA
• Religion, and in this era, Islam, is a source of unbridgeable difference.
• INCOMMENSURABILITY: A failure in translation. This concept
reaches its limit with gay Muslims in Indonesia.
• In Indonesia Islam is interstitial with the public sphere and the nation.
• A dominant view on homosexuality in Indonesian Islam is that it is not
just a sin involving desire, like fornication, but it is beyond the
parameters of sin – “unspeakable.”
• INTERPRETATION
– Some gay Muslims deal with incommensurability through
heteronormativity:
• They assert they are sinning, but can be forgiven.
• They marry women or say they will marry women.
– DUBBING CULTURE: Some gay Muslims inhabit
incommensurability without ever resolving it.
THE KATHOEY OF THAILAND
• A transgendered group in
Thailand that has existed
throughout their history.
• Thai Buddhism teaches
that all people are dealing
with issues from their past
lives in their journey to
Nirvana.
• Accordingly, Thai society
is less judgmental in
general, and Kathoeys are
accepted.
THE ALL KATHOEY
BAND “VENUS FLYTRAP”
NONG TUM (LEFT)
CHAMPION THAI KICK BOXER
NATIVE AMERICAN
BERDACHE OR “TWO SPIRIT”
• Over 113 North American Native
societies had a third gender, the Two
Spirits.
• Men and women assumed social roles
other than, or in addition to, what was
usually associated with their sex.
• Individuals became Two Spirits because
of personal choice, spiritual calling (such
as a dream), or parental selection.
• Some Two Spirits switched back and
forth between gender roles.
• Two Spirits were considered powerful
and some were shamans.
WEIWA, A FAMOUS ZUNI BERDACHE OF THE LATE 1800s
THE XANITH OF OMAN
• Oman is an Islamic nation that has a
history of separatism.
• Omani society’s long term belief has
been that male sexual orientation
cannot be suppressed.
• Men with alternative sexualities are
acknowledged as Xanith, and allowed
to live in peace.
• Xanith part their hair on the
“women’s” side and wear pink,
although they do not wear female
garments out of respect for women.
• Many Xaniths marry and have children
and often work as prostitutes.
THE HIJRAS OF INDIA
• An alternative gender
institutionalized in Hindu culture.
• Hijras comprise a Hindu religious
sect and live in ashrams.
• Marginalized to some degree, they
are feared and respected because
they perform religious rituals at
weddings and births to insure
fertility and good fortune. The
hosts believe misfortune will
occur in their family if they do not
reward the Hijras well with
money, gifts, and food.
ANCIET GREECE AND ROME
ANCIENT GRECIAN
MALE COURTING SCENE
• “Western” ideology asserts its
civilization is founded on
ancient Greco-Roman society
and culture.
• Homosexuality was an
important and accepted element
of ancient Greece and Rome.
• For long periods of time it was
the preferred practice among
ancient Grecians. Homosexual
relations were considered to be
spiritually enhancing, and men
generally only had sex with
women to procreate.
An ancient Grecian poetess
from the Isle of Lesbos.
 Only a small example of her
work exists, but historical
accounts praise her genius.
 She wrote love poems to
women and the term
“lesbian” is derived from the
fact that Sappho lived on
Lesbos.

MODERNITY AND IDENTITY
OSCAR WILDE
• Prior to modernity in the “West,” people’s
identities were not closely associated with their
sexual acts.
• With modernity came the social drive to
categorize, organize, and designate “types” of
people.
• A result was that individuals’ identities became
fused with their sexual acts.
• The categories of heterosexuality and
homosexuality took on meanings with social
ramifications.
• “Homosexuals” were categorized as
pathological and immoral, and it was not until
the 1970s that the American psychiatric
establishment ceased defining homosexuality
as a disorder.
1968: STONEWALL
• American GLBTQs have long had
public places--cafes, bars, clubs-where they socialize.
• These places were regularly raided by
police and the patrons were jailed,
prosecuted, and/or had their names
publicized in newspapers.
• On June 28, 1968, several days of
rioting between GLBTQs patronizing
the Stonewall bar and NYC police
occurred.
• GLBTQs had never organized to this
degree before, and Stonewall became
a watershed for the gay rights
movement.
STONEWALL INN
GREENWICH VILLAGE
GLBTQ ACTIVISM
• Since the 1960s, through
social force, GLBTQ
activists, and their
supporters, have made
important strides in
procuring rights for their
communities.
• Integral to this movement
are issues involving
religion and spirituality.
GLBTQs AND RELIGION
• Conservative and fundamentalist branches of the Abrahamic faiths do
not accept GLBTQs.
– Their stance is based on their literal interpretations of sacred texts.
• Some liberal groups and branches of the Abrahamic faiths accept
GLBTQs, including as religious leaders.
– Their stance is based on their liberalist interpretations of sacred
texts.
– However, these groups often maintain qualifications, such as not
acknowledging gay marriages.
• Many GLBTQ Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and some
Buddhists form their own groups, or turn to other religious beliefs and
practices, such as Wiccan.
• The Radical Faeries is a new religion formed in the 1970s by gay men.
They reject all hierarchies and fixed subjectivities and identities.
RADICAL FAERIES
THE GLBTQ DISTINCTION BETWEEN
RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY
• Elizabeth Sarah, a lesbian rabbi: ”When
people think of religion they think of
institutions, hierarchies, things that are
fixed and try to control them. The word
spirituality seems more autonomous,
about where people are coming from in
their own lives. It's about what it is to be
human, what it is to be alive, what it is
to be part of creation."
• Chris Ferguson, a gay man and
Buddhist: "Religion is trying to make
you what you're not. Spirituality is
trying to make you who you are."