Reading Notes: Herring, "I Hate New York"

[rax]

I have to read this paper for two classes this week --- both Colloquium and Transsomatechnics --- so I'm not entirely clear what I should be reading for. I'll figure something out.

The author takes issue with the way queers have to justify living most places inside our community but don't have to justify living in New York. I've caught fragments of

Comments

[sylvanstargazer]

i've hung out a lot with radical fairies in Boston. They have, in my experience, been mostly about queer-ness and not gender; i've met bi men, campy lesbians and heterosexuals and trans-men at fairy events. i haven't met any trans women, but i believe there are some who attend the mixed-gender camps i haven't made it to yet. Depending, of course, on the woman, it might be slightly uncomfortable in that gender is not always particularly respected (group including women get called "boys", men are referred to with female pronouns, everyone adopts fairy names most of which would be coded female by broader society), but i am sure that they would be welcome. Anyone who wants to be a fairy pretty much is. (The only events i've heard of that have been single-gender are sex parties, but there is always a focus on gay male sexuality and emotional connections. i happen to enjoy that focus and fit in there, and have met ciswomen who do too.) The group around here, at least, is mostly about being explicitly queer and resisting assimilation

[kelkyag]

Epistemological: Urban "culture" rubs off on you whether you go to the opera or not, I guess? I don't entirely understand this one.

There's a whole stew of urban cultures; relatively few of them involve opera. And yes, some of the culture(s) you live in will rub off on you, though you may be more or less resistant. I'm not sure what's not to understand? Or is this a more complicated assertion than I'm taking it to be?