Keynote Speech of Bing Lan (LGBT archive founder, Aibai Culture & Education Center, Beijing) and Damien Lu (ICCGL President, Aibai Culture & Education Center, Beijing), with moderator Daniel C. Tsang (University of California, Irvine) at GLBT Archives, Libraries, Museums, and Special Collections (ALMS) Conference 2008, New York

Voice Recording (.wav)

• Monday, March 19, 2007
  No Time No Place (2004) by Kazuyo Oishi
  3-Second Melancholy (2001) by iri
   
• Friday, May 11, 2007
  The Helmet (2003) by One
  Identity Behind the Mirror (2003) by Julian Jeeyaseelan and Lina Tan
  PROLESB (2003) by Joselito Mendoza

Both events are open to the public. Screenings start at 7 pm at Segal Theatre, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York.

Check for more information in the films.

Co-Sponsored by The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) and Q-Wave.

  100 NU TONGZHI $10,000 INITIATIVES

What can 100 Nu tongzhi do together? We will certainly have fun. We will build friendship, and some may fall in love. Some will brawl and some will forgive. Some will borrow and surely some will give. We will build a community that heals, inspires and empowers us all. When we each commit to collect $100, we will have a pool of $10,000 to build our communities through timely projects.

Following is a list of Nu Tongzhi community projects seeking funding. These are timely and critical projects run by volunteers.

1. The state of today’s Nu Tong in China National Survey – no such data ever exists in the country. We want to collect it ourselves.

2. Nu Tong Community Web Radio Start up – building communication infrastructure for a sustainable national community. We have the skill, the network, and the commitment. Any amount of start up funds will help greatly.

3. The 1^st National Nu Tong Empowerment Conference (大陆女同社区工作研讨会) – this historic gathering was held June 24 to 26, 2005 in Beijing. We were able to sponsor 40 Nu Tongzhi from 15 provinces of China. More funding is needed for post-conference report and follow-up in building an active network.

4. Nu Tong Cultural Festival National Tour – We found that one of the best ways to engage isolated and marginalized communities is through cultural activities and through support for artists.
 

Brazen Women: Hong Kong Women who have Same-Sex Desires - An Oral History Project 1950-2004 (香港會愛上女人的女人口述歷史計劃). This is the first project of its kind in Hong Kong aiming at documenting the life history of women who desire women in their own voices.
 

1. The 1^st International Asian Lesbian Film Festival (2005亞洲拉子影展), Aug 5 to 10, 2005 - Our objectives are to share the experiences among Asian queer/trans/lesbian/bisexual women, foster discussion of our concerns and encourage more cross-cultural dialogue, creative, networking and collaborative possibilities for sexual minorities within Asia. Many of the works to be screened have not been shown outside of local communities.

2. Nu Tong Documentary film: "T-P Factory" (T婆工廠). Migrant workers make up a large proportion of Taiwan’s labor force, and especially in the manufacturing and domestic worker/caretaker sectors, women migrant workers are the in the majority. Amongst the many women migrant workers who have come to Taiwan from the Philippines, we find not a few lesbian partners who have come together. Some of these luckily have ended up working in the same factory; others can only work far apart, and arrange to meet on the rare holiday. Through Taiwan’s filmmakers, we are able to see how these lesbian migrant workers struggle for their survival, their lives and their future.

3. Nu Tong Softball Team (小摩拉子壘球隊) to enter the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago - Established in 2001, “MoreLes” team is the first lesbian softball team in Taiwan; we went to 2002 Sydney Gay Games. We believe in presenting positive image of lesbians and building a community through sports. We are seeking funding to play at the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago.
 

Nu Tong leadership training program – Working with international students, visiting artists, and community groups, we are building an experience-sharing network on anti-oppression organizing.
 

 A DIALOGUE WITH PERSPEX FROM HONG KONG

Saturday, October 29, 2005
6 to 8pm
721 Broadway, ground floor
New York University

Perspex is a founding member of Nutongxueshe (女同學社), a study group that encourages creative expressions of sexual minorities in Hong Kong.  She is also an editor of InMedia Hong Kong, an independent alternative media in Hong Kong.

Graduated with a Master of Arts degree in Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Hong Kong, Perspex is the winner of Hong Kong’s Youth Literary Award (Drama Section).  She is the Executive Producer of “Devils Like Me”, a music video produced by the gay & lesbian community which responds with a sense of humour to the latest challenges posted by the religious groups.

Perspex is currently visiting NYC taking four-week intensive filmmaking course at New York University. The Institute for Tongzhi Studies is pleased to invite you to join us in a dialogue with Perspex. She will talk about the recent tongzhi movement progress and obstacles in Hong Kong and share her experience at Nutongxueshe with local tongzhi community.

This event is organized by The Institute for Tongzhi Studies (ITS) and open to the public.

 SAVING FACE blog >>

 Beyond the Strai(gh)ts:
Transnationalism and Queer Chinese Politics
April 29-30, 2005 University of California, Berkeley >>

 Sexualities, Genders, and Rights in Asia
-- 1st International conference of Asian Queer Studies
Thailand, July 7-9, 2005 >>

Queer theory rises in the West around 1990s, as a new theory on gender and sexuality. It emerges from gay/lesbian studies’ attention to the social construction of categories of normative and deviant sexual behavior.

Nowadays, the word “queer” has become an umbrella term developed from gay and lesbian politics and studies and “queer theory” is understood as an interdisciplinary study.While gay/lesbian studies, focused largely on questions of homosexuality, queer theory expands its realm of investigation to any and all forms of sexuality. Queer theory looks at, and studies, and has a political critique of, anything that falls into normative and deviant categories, particularly sexual activities and identities.It expands the scope of its analysis to all kinds of behaviors, including those which are gender-bending as well as those which involve “queer” non-normative forms of sexuality and insists that all sexual behaviors, all concepts linking sexual behaviors to sexual identities, and all categories of normative and deviant sexualities, are social constructs, sets of signifiers which create certain types of social meaning.

Sexuality is difficult in part because of the way our culture has always taught us to think about sexuality.After a decade, the Western queer theory has been introduced to China.What impact do the dynamic and critical features of queer theory bring to Chinese academia and beyond?This panel, organized by the Institute for Tongzhi Studies at CUNY, will include the most recent research of queer studies in China and to explore the emerging influence of it to China.

ITS Panel Two: Tongzhi Community Building in China

After the record-high-attendance from mainland celebrated at the 5th International Tongzhi Conference in Hong Kong, many committed to convene the 6th Tongzhi Conference in Beijing.  Later in the fall, a plan for a national working group is on the drawing table, and ways to set a national strategy are being developed. These are just some of the confirmation that Tongzhi communities have flourished in recent years in China, despite challenging conditions.  Let us take this time to weigh up and reflect.  What is queer activism in Chinese historical and contemporary context?  What are the most effective and empowering models proven so far?  What are some of the emerging approaches being tested?  Who are on the front line and who maybe left behind?  What can be done better to best channel this escalating vibrant energy and, most important of all, how can we sustain for long-term viable growth and success?

Institute for Tongzhi Studies, CUNY organizes this panel wishing to bring Tongzhi community organizers, prospective supporters, and the international communities together for recognition, visibility, sharing, dialoging, and synchronization.

• The 5th Tongzhi Conference, Hong Kong, May 2-5, 2004 >>
• The 36th World Congress of International Institute of Sociology, July 7, 2004 >>