The Butch Voices Conference will be held in Oakland from August 20 to 23 of this year. Butch Voices is a grassroots organization dedicated to all self-identified butches, studs, aggressives, transmasculine folks, and our allies. We can be found online at www.butchvoices.com.

It is extremely important to us that as many voices as possible be represented, and that the question of butch/trans (liminal spaces, border wars, points of allegiance, the putative continuum, etc.) be explicitly addressed.

This conference is an opportunity for us to speak, both to one another and to our allies. To talk about why we identify in the ways we do; about how we can tell our stories when the words available to us simply don't fit; about masculinity and maleness, femininity and femaleness, areas of overlap, and areas in which we are none of the above; about sex and embodiment; about community and about placelessness; about homelessness and about the search for home.

Submissions of all kinds are welcome, though we especially welcome those that grapple with difficult questions:

• Desire and relationships
• Various “border wars” (and what we can do about them)
• Drag, passing, and failing to pass
• Misogyny
• Penis envy (or our lack thereof)
• Community-building
• Race
• Class
• Trans-generational dialogue
• Culture, faith, and nation.

We particularly encourage proposals by and for people of color, working-class people, and people with disabilities. We hope to draw participants from across disciplinary, social, and formal boundaries. Relevant proposals from non-butch, stud, or aggressive presenters and allies are also welcome.

Contributions may include, but are not limited to:

• Workshops
• Performances
• Presentations
• Skill shares
• Photography/ visual art
• Video

To apply to be a presenter, please submit a completed session proposal form to us at EMAIL ADDRESS. Submission deadline is JUNE 1, 2009.

To learn more about us and our mission, and to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns, please find us at www.butchvoices.com. Proposals can be sent to programming@butchvoices.com

Trans/Gender Migrations: Bodies, Borders,
and the (Geo)Politics of Gender Crossing

Editor: Trystan T. Cotten
Deadline for abstracts: January 15, 2009
Deadline for complete essays: April 1, 2009
Email: Trystan38@hotmail.com

Concepts of “migration” and “travel” abound in the field of Transgender Studies. Many transgender cultural productions explore questions of identity and transition trajectories using metaphors of home, displacement, relocation, etc. To our knowledge there are no full length text(s) or monographs that treat the many possibilities of critical, scholarly investigation of this subject in TG history, identity, and art/cultural production. We are proposing a volume of criticism to fill the void and invite contributions for an interdisciplinary collection on the topic. Broadly conceived Trans/Gender Migrations will explore, trace, and map the myriad meanings and functions of “migration” and “travel” in transgender cultural production, politics, and identity/subjectivity, including related concepts of movement and location like space (and spatiality), place, border(s), bridge(s), home, expatriation, displacement, relocation, etc.

We welcome essays from all academic disciplines and scholarly fields and provide some suggestions. Essays might examine these concepts and metaphors in transgender identities (and subjectivities), politics, and cultural productions like literature, film, dance and other performance arts, photography, music, body-art, etc. Or, how TG Studies is itself an interdisciplinary field of methodologies, theories, concepts, and knowledges that are imported from other disciplinary and artistic sites. When and where do western definitions of transgender (and transsexuality) fail to translate across cultural and geographical borders? Other possible topics include exploring the multiple crossings of gender/sex transitions: how the crossing of borders of sex/gender entails other shifts in identity and subjectivity like social class, race and ethnicity, national and religious identity, etc. What additional borders are crossed in sex/gender transitions? Essays might also examine the surgical re-mapping and re-routing of bodily tissues, nerves, organs, and chemicals on TG and TS bodies. Other topics for exploration might include how sex/gender transitions effect migrations to new sexual and political communities; how the politics of race, class, gender, (trans)sexuality intersect with or manifest in immigration policies of the state; and what politics of sex, gender, (trans)sexuality are operative in the forced displacement and relocation of peoples.

Please send a 500 word abstract, working title, and brief biographical statement (MS Word or PDF) to Trystan Cotten by January 15, 2009 at: Trystan38@hotmail.com. Please send a brief biographical statement along with your abstract. Completed essays (formatted in Chicago guidelines) are due by April 1, 2009.

International Symposium on Trans Cinema Studies

19th May 2009 at the University of Amsterdam
Co-sponsored by T-Image Foundation and The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis
Convened by Eliza Steinbock, PhD Candidate at ASCA and board member of T-Image Foundation

Taking place in conjunction with the Netherlands Transgender Film Festival (NTGF)
20-24 May 2009 at de Balie Cultural Center

In celebration of our 5th bi-annual festival, we will convene a full day of debate amongst scholars, filmmakers, the transgender community, and festival attendees. We imagine this symposium to be both reflective and forward-looking.

Susan Stryker (visiting Professor, Harvard University and Associate Professor Gender Studies, Indiana University) will present her groundbreaking work on Christine Jorgenson, a transsexual celebrity and filmmaker, as well as lead the closing plenary.

We invite 20 min. presentations from scholars and/or professionals in the field. In the interest of staking out some of the concerns of “trans cinema studies,” we suggest the following issues:

History: in what ways have gay and lesbian television, cinema and festivals enabled trans visibility; what are the histories of other avenues of emergence; in what ways have film festivals shaped the films that have been made?;

Accessibility/Distribution: what might we do about the identity ‘problem’ facing trans film festivals, which as a platform for trans cinema are sidelined as being too specialist or become redundant as more queer film festivals curate a trans program; what are the implications of greater or lesser distribution for certain films at festivals and elsewhere?

Reception: what work do (trans) viewers perform on films to make them trans, read them as trans, to make the films work in particular ways; what is at stake in trans perceptibility and how might we understand it?

Film Craft: to what extent have techniques and strategies from queer and feminist film been incorporated into trans cinema and vice versa; is ‘transness’ in the director, content, conventions/expectations, the market, or?;

Genre: which genres has trans representation tapped into and why; which genres have not yet been explored; might trans cinema be an expansive term to include experimental cinema (new languages and strategies)?;

Representation: what are the dominant and subjugated models of trans representation, especially in terms of the politics of nation, race, age, sexuality, and class; what kinds of shifts have occurred in terms of films with MTF or transfeminine characters and films with FTM or transmasculine characters?;

Film Theory: how might feminist film theory overlap with trans film theory; do we mean ‘trans’ as a concept or a practice; what methods of film analysis and film history does trans cinema render obsolete; what tools of analysis does trans cinema call for and suggest?

Interdisciplinarity: in what ways might transgender/transsexual practice and cinema relate?; how might shared concepts, such as, duration, narrative, technology expand and enrich both fields of study?;

Please submit a 250 word abstract of your intended paper
and a biographical note.
Send to Eliza Steinbock
by 1 February 2009.
We look forward to your response and hope to see you in May!
www.transgenderfilmfestival.com