Named after the historic Compton’s Cafeteria riots in 1966 (the
first known incident of collective LGBT resistance to police harassment
in U.S. history), The Compton’s TLGB District will encompass six blocks
in the southeastern Tenderloin and will cross over Market Street to
include two blocks of 6th Street.
The intersection of Compton’s
Cafeteria Way and Vikki Mar Lane (previously portions of Turk and Taylor
Streets) will be a hub of services and economic opportunities for trans
and gender-nonconforming communities, as well as a place to honor the
community’s history.
“The lower Tenderloin is one of the most important neighborhood in
America for transgender history, culture, and civil rights,” said
Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the Tenderloin. “By creating the
Compton’s TLGB District we are honoring this vibrant community built by
transgender people, and are sending a message to the world that trans
people are welcome here.”
This serene columnar sculpture may represent a goddess or votary. Conceived frontally with a flat back, the figure holds a flower to her breast with her right hand, while grasping another object at her left side. She wears an elegantly designed head cloth and necklace of Near Eastern origin. Her almond-shaped eyes and smiling expression, however, derive from Greek Archaic sculptural traditions. This mixture of styles reflects the varied political and cultural allegiances of Cyprus during the Archaic period.
“I’m not a woman / I’m not a man / I am something that you’ll never understand.” – Prince, “I Would Die 4 U” (1984)
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Picture: Prince, Metro, Boston, Massachusetts, March 17, 1981. Photo by Steve Stone, c/o The History Project.
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Prince Rogers Nelson, who died one year ago today, was a cultural icon who, as Chelsea Reynolds wrote, “tried to help us understand the differences between identity (how we think of ourselves), behavior (what we do), and perception (how others think of us).”
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Prince, in short, “dismantled and queered what contemporary culture has tried to bracket.”
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Much has been made of an interview Prince gave to The New Yorker in November 2008 in which he discussed becoming a Jehovah’s Witness; specifically, much has been made of the following:
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“When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, ‘God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’”
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Despite Prince’s indisputable contributions to the queering of society, this quote continues to haunt his legacy.
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“What might strike audiences as contradictory stances on issues of sexual expression and marriage equality,” Reynolds explains, “may well be understood within their larger discursive context. Prince wasn’t merely a voice for marginalized or queer communities.
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“He reigned at the confluence of a culture tipping away from disco toward hip hop. The same culture that told Mariah Carey not to announce her blackness…that demanded Michael Jackson defend his vitiligo…that produced the Down Low and expectations for rigid heterosexuality among black men in the church.
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“We should agree on one thing: Identity is unstable. It is myriad. There is little logic in absolutist binaries. No straight, no gay. No black, no white. No woman, no man. No ideal Christian, no ideal atheist. At least not singularly. This is the gospel of Prince circa 1982:
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‘I just can’t believe all the things people say / Controversy.
Am I black or white, am I straight or gay? / Controversy.
Do I believe in God, do I believe in me? / Controversy.’” #HavePrideInHistory #Prince
Ten years ago, men were metrosexual, but now I’ve lost track. Currently, the spornosexual, a more body conscious and sexually explicit version of the metrosexual, is vying with the check-shirted, bearded lumbersexual for top spot. Nattily dressed and neatly bearded, the “dandy wildman” and the hipster also abound, too.
These are men’s consumer lifestyles. If you want to be a spornosexual, you buy gym membership, protein and some expensive photography equipment to spruce up your Instagram feed. To be a hipster, go to vintage clothes shops, buy the most obscure craft ales, and some beard oil.
In the last 30 years, the number of men’s lifestyles on the market has grown exponentially. My ongoing PhD research explores this phenomenon, trying to understand and explain the appearance of new “marketed manhoods”. Having held focus groups with young men around the country, I have found new marketed versions of manhood have taken hold to vastly differing extents in different areas.
Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) was an
Italian mathematician and philosopher. She was a member of the University of
Bologna, and was the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, and the first
in the world to be appointed as a Mathematics professor.
She was a child
prodigy who could speak seven languages by age eleven, and at age nine composed
and gave an hour-long speech in Latin on the subject of women’s education. The
book she wrote and published was the first ever to discuss differential and
integral calculus. In later life, she dedicated herself to philanthropy, and
established a care home for the elderly.
