Another intro. Another student.

Bil already mentioned that I'm INTRAA's membership coordinator. (Aside from starting a Gay-Straight Alliance in high school,) Working with INTRAA is the start of my experience with activism. Along with trying to coordinate membership and blogging at INTRAA.org, I've done a lot of INTRAA speakers' bureau events.

I'm also a senior at IU-Bloomington doing gender studies. There are still a couple lecture/discussion classes I'm taking this fall (including a queer theory class I'm excited about), but six of my credit hours will be spent on independent research projects. I've got three credit hours lined up for readings towards an honors thesis (which I'll write in the spring). My project, generally speaking, is to take a post-colonial look at trans issues. Some post-colonial work I've checked out so far grapples with some really interesting questions of racial/ethnic/national border crossing and questions of authenticity. The way my project is shaping up at the moment, it looks like I'll probably at least start by reading feminist of color critiques of a white feminist notion of doing activism with a group of people who are exactly like you (a group of people who feel like home). I'll be trying to draw connections between feminist of color experiences and T in GLBT-type issues, among other things. My other three research credits will be doing "web-based research" for sociology professor Elizabeth Armstrong at IU. I'll be cataloging information about pride celebrations around the world as part of a project to follow up a paper she worked on recently (titled "Meaning and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth," I believe) using Susan Stryker's recent work on the Compton's Cafeteria Riots as a starting point.

Bil also mentioned I'm "a(n extremely personable and thoughtful) transman." I'm not so sure about all that, but the FTM part at least is right. I've been taking testosterone for nearly two years and had top surgery just over a year ago. The major hurdles of my transition are cleared, but transition (like coming out) is never over. I'm still figuring out what it means for me to move through the world as a guy and what it means to be a transfag, among other things.