call for contributions

[sebastienne]

'BLOODY HELL, WHY DID NOBODY EVER TELL ME ABOUT THAT!'

Medieval trans women, the British judiciary killed Alan Turing, black people in Britain before 1945...

Histories that get silenced, leaving us feeling like some weird postmodern blip instead of full human beings. deathbyshinies' magnificent project intends to tell some of these stories, and she'd love you to write her 1,000-1,500 words about your favourite secret history.

I'm going to be writing about Alan Turing's prosecution for homosexuality, and about Oscar Wilde's bisexuality. Information on how to reclaim your hidden history can be found here. Please do consider signing up to what should be a deeply worthwhile project!

Life is good for me at the moment. I'm getting very, very into studying the sociology of the internet. So much so that I'm considering this, even though just last week I resolved to get myself a part-time job that would pay the bills in order to devote two days a week to working on volunteering, activism, and song-writing. There also appears to be A Boy, (is there an upper age limit on that term? Someone may have to give me another word..) which is new, and exciting, and scary, and yet somehow deeply comfortable.

Comments

[janetmweiss.livejournal.com]

As a queer girl about to get her B.Eng. in computer eng. (OH MY GOD, ONLY ONE MORE MONTH OF DEATH) I am looking forward to your Turing essay.

*appropriate icon*

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

That project sounds really fantastic. Thanks for the pointer... I'll have to see what I can contribute.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

There's a 'usual cast' of pre-1945 black people in Britain - Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Mary Seacole, Francis Barber. It would be good to find some more. LGBT people tend to be aristocratic - Lord Hervey - or royal (George I's brother Ernest Augustus). What about those outside the elite? This is an interesting project...

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Your expert contribution would be deeply valued, if you did have the time/inclination to get involved. Please consider it!

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

ZOMG DR sebastienne YES DO WANT NAO PLZ!

*ahem*

That sounds like an interesting, and definitely a fundable, course of study. Plus you'd almost certainly still have time for some activism on the side - perhaps not two full days per week's worth, but definitely some.

[giving-ground.livejournal.com]

That project sounds so cool! I don't know if I can think of anything to contribute but somehow it seems eminently likely that firescribble could come up with some suggestions. Maybe I will talk to her about it. (I've been trying to read more about the project on deathbyshinies' journal but, strangely, my browser closes itself after about five seconds of having that page open. Erk. ETA: never mind, dropping ?style=mine on the link made my computer love it again. My computer is a bit of an idiot, to be honest.)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

I'd be kinda wary about studying anything cutting edge socio-culturally at Oxford, it just doesn't have the best reputation for that sort of thing. I would worry about everything being filtered through a framework of 1960s Theory. Would probably be worth having a chat to the students if you're interested in it.

I really, really like the idea of the project and am trying to think of something to contribute.

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

I think the term 'boy' is always acceptable when he's your 'boy', unless he's more than 5 years older than you. Same thing applies to girl, I think, though I guess for some that would be patronising.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

I.. have just realised that I don't know exactly how old he is. He may not be in the five-year window. In fact I think he isn't.

The fact that I'm not sure I'm a Girl, any more, should be the alarm-bell that tells me this one's not a Boy, eh? Bah, it's no good, the terminology doesn't exist.

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

Would it bother you if he referred to you as his girl?

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Not *really*, because I know that he wouldn't do that with The Weight Of Patriarchal Oppression behind it, but the term does still ring those kinds of alarm bells for me in a way that "boy" doesn't. Like girl is infantilising and removing of agency, but boy is quite neutral in that regard.

(A & S are a case in point - she calls him her boy and that totally works but I can't imagine him calling her his girl.)

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

I completely see all that, it's just that couples tend to infantilise each other with nicknames a lot - baby, dear, darling, honey, and I think it's ok in that context, but not with people who you don't have that very close relationship. Obviously it depends upon how you as an individual respond to things.

My Dad has a habit of referring to women in their late 20s as girl (admittedly, he is double their age), which is rather dodgy, but then he mentioned an incident where my grandmother referred to a woman as a girl who was over 60! She is over 90, though. A lot of the time it's about context, I suppose.