Audience
About the Series
The first annual Women’s Studies colloquium was held March 22-24, 2000. With the support of the Alice McLellan Birney Women Studies Fund, the cross-disciplinary study area in Women, Gender, & Sexuality presents a colloquium each spring in connection with Women’s History Month. Since 2000, the WGSX Colloquium has become an established tradition at St. Mary’s College. This successful annual program has regularly drawn large audiences to events that have offered powerful interdisciplinary combinations of scholarly discourse and artistic expression (including film screenings, theatrical performances, and exhibitions) to discuss a topic critical to critical conversations about gender.
THIS YEAR’S THEME – Expanding Gender: TRANS Experience and Actions.
The 2023 Colloquium continues the program’s tradition of engaging with critical social and intellectual themes, this time focusing on transgender and gender non-conforming populations. In 2020, nearly 80 different anti-transgender laws were introduced. In 2021, that number nearly doubled with approximately 150 proposals. In 2022, activists identified about 280 bills currently filed to restrict transgender people’s access to healthcare, bathrooms, education, and athletics. Further, violence toward the transgender and gender-non-conforming community highlights intersectionality oppression, with fatal violence disproportionately impacting transgender women of color. This year’s speakers will focus on the experiences and issues facing transgender and gender non-conforming individuals today.
We believe this topic is not only timely given the current political landscape but will be relevant to the students, faculty, and staff at St. Mary’s. This topic, in part, was inspired by student activism on campus (i.e. the Call Us By Our Names movement) and upcoming SMCM policy changes (e.g., changes in Open Housing, Name Change Policy, reinstating of the LGBTQ+ Student Affairs Advisory Committee).
SCHEDULE
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
“We Have Never Been Queer: Contested Politics of Queer Humanitarianism in Neoliberal Ghana.” Kwame Edwin Otu / Cole Cinema / 4:30 pm.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
“Trans Liberation in our Lifetime - past, present and future.” Isa Noyola / Margaret Brent Lecture/ St. Mary’s Hall / 7:30 pm.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
“Exploring Black Queer Joy (Even When it Feels Hopeless)” by Aurora Higgs /Nancy R. and Norton T. Dodge Performing Arts Center- Recital Hall / 4:30 pm.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
Round Table: Students Talkback.
Join SMCM’s students and the guest speakers Kwame Edwin Otu, Isa Noyola, Aurora Higgs /Nancy R. and Norton T. Dodge Performing Arts Center- Recital Hall / 7:30 pm.
Announcement Group
