Cornell hosts the TransPositions conference March 27 through 29

Cornell will host a TransPositions conference March 27 to 29, exploring facets of transgender identity, culture and academic studies.

The conference will open Friday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m. with a performance by transsexual artist and author Kate Bornstein in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. Following breakfast Saturday morning, Anne Bolin, author of In Search of Eve: Transsexual Rites of Passage, will give the keynote address at 10 a.m. in the One World Room of Anabel Taylor Hall, "Do Transsexuals Dream of Gay Rights? Getting Real About Trans Inclusion in the Gay Rights Movement."

The conference will continue until 4 p.m. Saturday and then from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, with talks by gender studies scholars and activists, such as Shannon Minter, Morgan Holmes and Judith Halberstam. In conjunction with the conference, Cornell Cinema will present You Don't Know Dick and Different for Girls Saturday night. Both films frame transsexual experiences.

Transgender studies encompass the blurring of conventional gender norms, including transsexuality, cross-dressing, intersexuality and androgyny. TransPositions aims to open a discussion about gender boundaries and how traditional notions of gender relate to and affect sexual and gender identities. A round-table discussion Saturday will give participants an opportunity to discuss the topics of the presentations.

With the exception of the films shown (for which tickets are necessary), TransPositions is free and open to the public. No registration is necessary for the conference.

TransPositions is co-sponsored at Cornell by Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Studies; the departments of government, anthropology, German studies, English and Romance studies; Society for the Humanities; Rose Goldsen Fund; Lambda Law Association of Cornell; College of Arts and Sciences; Cornell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Coalition; the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Resource Office; the office of the Dean of Students; Out in the World; and Planned Parenthood of Tompkins County.

For more information contact David Whitmore at Cornell's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Resource Office, 254-4987, fax: 255-7793 or LGBRO@cornell.edu, or view the TransPositions web page at http://LGBRO.cornell.edu/TransPositions .