The Changeling Legend and Queer Kinship in Caitriona Lally’s Eggshells

In Caitriona Lally's debut novel Eggshells (2015), the narrator Vivian Lawlor is an adult woman with a quirky personality living in North Dublin, who believes herself to be a changeling. Throughout the novel, Vivian travels various paths in Dublin looking for specific ‘thin places,’ creating ‘an alternative map of Dublin’, as Claire Kilroy's review puts it. Folklore is often used as a code for hiding aspects of Irish life that are unspeakable, and in Eggshells the changeling story is a coded testimony of family violence in which the changeling figure is labelled as nonhuman. Rejected by family, she looks to queer models of kinship as outlined by Judith Butler, through transformative portals and a companion who is a fellow trauma survivor. This essay argues that, while her experience of traumatic family violence is silently coded within the changeling story, Vivian strategically deploys changeling legend to embody a nonconforming gender presentation.

Governing Nonconformity: Gender Presentation, Public Space, and the City in New Order Indonesia

The regulation of public space is generative of new approaches to gender nonconformity. In 1968 in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, a group of people who identified as wadam—a new term made by combining parts of Indonesian words denoting “femininity” and “masculinity”—made a claim to the city's governor that they had the right to appear in public space. This article illustrates the paradoxical achievement of obtaining recognition on terms constituted through public nuisance regulations governing access to and movement through space. The origins and diffuse effects of recognition achieved by those who identified as wadam and, a decade later, waria facilitated the partial recognition of a status that was legal but nonconforming. This possibility emerged out of city-level innovations and historical conceptualizations of the body in Indonesia. Attending to the way that gender nonconformity was folded into existing methods of codifying space at the scale of the city reflects a broader anxiety over who can enter public space and on what basis. Considering a concern for struggles to contend with nonconformity on spatial grounds at the level of the city encourages an alternative perspective on the emergence of gender and sexual morality as a definitive feature of national belonging in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Listening to Gender-Diverse People of Color: Barriers to Accessing Voice and Communication Care

Purpose The purposes of this study are to gather and analyze perspectives of people from racial and gender minority groups in order to identify barriers to voice and communication services for these populations. Method In focus groups facilitated by community members, 11 people in racial and gender minority groups discussed their gender-related goals and accessibility of voice and communication services. Salient themes were derived using a grounded theory approach and analyzed using an access to care framework. Results During discussion of voice and communication as it relates to gender presentation, most utterances were speculations on the processes and potential outcomes of interventions for voice and communication; the majority of these were characterized as uninformed or misinformed. Conclusions Future studies will need to overcome barriers related to health literacy and beliefs in order to thoroughly assess potential interest or intentions regarding voice and communication services. Additional study is expected to provide valuable information that can be interpreted using the Levesque et al. (2013) framework of access to care and eventually eliminate barriers to voice and communication services for all.

Fishnets & desire: performing the neoburlesque

Fishnets & Desire: Performing the Neoburlesque is a reflection upon the art installation and performance piece of the same name, and reflects upon neoburlesque performance genre, through the lens of the author's primary research of creating these works. Written as a piece of per formative scholarship, this paper outlines the creative process of the author's project, and the theatrical history, theory, and methodology behind it. Fishnets & Desire is a reflection of performance and queer theories, meditating upon the specific art forms of burlesque striptease and drag, and how they enact gender performativity. Neoburlesque is a tongue-in-cheek and satirical form of expression, which lampoons gender stereotypes, and societal expectations. The current art form draws upon cultural nostalgia for the kitsch of burlesque striptease that was performed in theatres, and gentleman's clubs from the 1920s-60s. Through the use of comedic exaggeration and hyperbolic gender presentation, burlesque seeks to undermine conventional notions of femininity, and deconstruct them. The author's performance piece also sought to engage with the energetic relationship between the audience and the burlesque performer's reciprocal gaze; and neoburlesque as a genre of carnivalesque spectacle. As an integration of live performance, projected video, and photography, Fishnets & Desire created a space in which the audience simultaneously experienced the feeling of being on stage, as well as actively watched (and thus, participating in) a burlesque striptease.

Fishnets & desire: performing the neoburlesque

Fishnets & Desire: Performing the Neoburlesque is a reflection upon the art installation and performance piece of the same name, and reflects upon neoburlesque performance genre, through the lens of the author's primary research of creating these works. Written as a piece of per formative scholarship, this paper outlines the creative process of the author's project, and the theatrical history, theory, and methodology behind it. Fishnets & Desire is a reflection of performance and queer theories, meditating upon the specific art forms of burlesque striptease and drag, and how they enact gender performativity. Neoburlesque is a tongue-in-cheek and satirical form of expression, which lampoons gender stereotypes, and societal expectations. The current art form draws upon cultural nostalgia for the kitsch of burlesque striptease that was performed in theatres, and gentleman's clubs from the 1920s-60s. Through the use of comedic exaggeration and hyperbolic gender presentation, burlesque seeks to undermine conventional notions of femininity, and deconstruct them. The author's performance piece also sought to engage with the energetic relationship between the audience and the burlesque performer's reciprocal gaze; and neoburlesque as a genre of carnivalesque spectacle. As an integration of live performance, projected video, and photography, Fishnets & Desire created a space in which the audience simultaneously experienced the feeling of being on stage, as well as actively watched (and thus, participating in) a burlesque striptease.

Human Resources Development: Women Role Optimization in the Local Government Bureaucracy in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Research on gender roles in relation to government bureaucratic structures is still minimal. This study aims to find answers to the main problem, namely how the role of women in the local government bureaucracy seen from human resource development aspect in Central Sulawesi Province. This research is a qualitative descriptive study which aims to create a picture of the gender presentation in the bureaucratic staffing and the role of women. The subjects of this study were women who hold echelons. The data collection technique used in this study was literature review. For the validity of the data, the cross check technique was used. The data analysis technique used is the inductive analysis technique. The results showed that the role of women in the local government bureaucracy in Central Sulawesi was still not fully implemented. The echelon holder ratio is still dominated by men. However, it is possible that this ratio will change over time.

Health and Care Utilization of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youth: A Population-Based Study

BACKGROUND Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) adolescents have difficulty accessing and receiving health care compared with cisgender youth, yet research is limited by a reliance on small and nonrepresentative samples. This study’s purpose was to examine mental and physical health characteristics and care utilization between youth who are TGNC and cisgender and across perceived gender expressions within the TGNC sample. METHODS Data came from the 2016 Minnesota Student Survey, which consisted of 80 929 students in ninth and 11th grade (n = 2168 TGNC, 2.7%). Students self-reported gender identity, perceived gender expression, 4 health status measures, and 3 care utilization measures. Chi-squares and multiple analysis of covariance tests (controlling for demographic covariates) were used to compare groups. RESULTS We found that students who are TGNC reported significantly poorer health, lower rates of preventive health checkups, and more nurse office visits than cisgender youth. For example, 62.1% of youth who are TGNC reported their general health as poor, fair, or good versus very good or excellent, compared with 33.1% of cisgender youth (χ2 = 763.7, P < .001). Among the TGNC sample, those whose gender presentation was perceived as very congruent with their birth-assigned sex were less likely to report poorer health and long-term mental health problems compared with those with other gender presentations. CONCLUSIONS Health care utilization differs between TGNC versus cisgender youth and across gender presentations within TGNC youth. With our results, we suggest that health care providers should screen for health risks and identify barriers to care for TGNC youth while promoting and bolstering wellness within this community.

Genderdysforie en ASS

There is a growing interest in the co-occurrence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and gender dysphoria (GD). Research has shown that people with ASD show more gender variance than people without ASD. Due to the difficulties associated with ASD (limited social skills, problems in information processing and difficulty with change), regular GD treatment does not seem to be adequately equipped for this specific group. In this study we want to gain insight into the clinical needs of adolescents with ASD and GD and their parents. We are conducting a pilot study to the effects of a specific peer support group for adolescents with ASD and GD on quality of life. A pre-posttest design is used. Prior to the start of the support group, during each meeting and at the end of the support group, the adolescents fill out several short questionnaires. The ASD and Gender support group consists of nine monthly meetings for the adolescents, covering topics such as autism and gender-related needs, psychoeducation on medical interventions, environmental factors, gender expression and practicing gender presentation skills. Simultaneously, parents can follow the parent meetings. Currently, three rounds of the peer support group have started (each round with about 10-12 adolescents).

Testosterone therapy masculinizes speech and gender presentation in transgender men

Voice is one of the most noticeably dimorphic traits in humans and plays a central role in gender presentation. Transgender males seeking to align internal identity and external gender expression frequently undergo testosterone (T) therapy to masculinize their voices and other traits. We aimed to determine the importance of changes in vocal masculinity for transgender men and to determine the effectiveness of T therapy at masculinizing three speech parameters: fundamental frequency (i.e., pitch) mean and variation (fo and fo-SD) and estimated vocal tract length (VTL) derived from formant frequencies. Thirty transgender men aged 20 to 40 rated their satisfaction with traits prior to and after T therapy and contributed speech samples and salivary T. Similar-aged cisgender men and women contributed speech samples for comparison. We show that transmen viewed voice change as critical to transition success compared to other masculine traits. However, T therapy may not be sufficient to fully masculinize speech: while fo and fo-SD were largely indistinguishable from cismen, VTL was intermediate between cismen and ciswomen. fo was correlated with salivary T, and VTL associated with T therapy duration. This argues for additional approaches, such as behavior therapy and/or longer duration of hormone therapy, to improve speech transition.

Dynasties and brand names in the political sphere of the post-industrial society

During the formation of contemporary democracy, its ideologists strived to create a management mechanism that did not resemble monarchy at all, so that to emphasize the radical nature of social-political changes in the transition from pre-industrial to industrial society. The dynastic transfer of power in all its manifestations and at all levels of governance was denounced as outdated, ineffective, and violating the very foundations of the peoples will. The article shows that, despite the initial criticism, dynasties are widespread in contemporary politics. The family is a part of politics and systems of public administration in a truly post-industrial form - as a brand, image, and symbol. The transition to the post-industrial society predetermines a change in the attitude to dynasties and their role not only in politics but also in systems of interaction with the population (electorate). Based on the analysis of other research and authors data on political dynasties at different levels of government in 17 countries, the article proves the changing attitude to political dynasties even within democratic systems. Political dynasties increasingly often contribute to the creation and expansion of social networks, establishing sustainable political ties, ensuring gender presentation in government, etc. There are numerous manifestations of dynasties in countries with different levels of social-economic development (developed and developing) and different types of government (authoritarian and democratic) due to the application of marketing thinking and technologies in politics. Dynasties allow to effectively use the family potential to create and promote political brands, to ensure sustainable social choices of political candidates and parties, to facilitate political socialization of new generations and relative predictability of politicians behavior, who would follow a family line in making important decisions.