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Booking Julia: 
If you are interested in booking Julia for an appearance or event, here’s what you should know: Julia can do many things! --Performance poetry: as a spoken word artist, Julia has up to an hour’s worth of material that she can perform at the drop of a hat. Most of her pieces center on her experiences growing up and coming out as trans, the complexities of current trans/queer identity and politics, and the differences she has experienced being treated as a woman and man, as straight and queer, and as trans and non-trans, at different points in her life. If you are unfamiliar with what “performance poetry” or “spoken word” entails, you can watch web movies of a few of Julia’s performances on her audio-visual page. --Presentations and workshops: Julia has given all sorts of presentations over the years: she has conducted Transgender 101 workshops for high school and college classes, and given lectures on more advance topics in gender, sexuality, identity, sexism, sexualization, trans feminism, queer activism, etc., for gender studies departments and classes. Julia has also given speeches and keynote addresses, and has been a panelist and/or has presented papers at philosophy-, psychology-, queer-, trans- and women’s studies-themed conferences. The presentation Julia most often gives is Transsexual and Trans Feminine Perspectives on Sexism, which covers some of the main ideas she forwards in her book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. She is happy to tailor this talk for different audiences (e.g., general audiences, queer/trans/feminist audiences, academic audiences, etc.) starting in 2009, Julia is adding a few more presentations to her repertoire: Putting the Feminine Back Into Feminism As a feminist, biologist and femme-identified trans woman, Julia has a unique perspective on feminine gender expression. In this talk, she moves beyond questions of “nature vs. nurture,” and challenges the popular tendency in our culture to denigrate and sexualize feminine gender expression. In addition to critiquing both sexist and certain feminist interpretations of femininity, Julia offers new potential directions for femme politics and activism. The intersection of feminism, queer, and trans politics The word sexism is typically used to describe any double standard that exists between people based on their sex, gender and/or sexuality. Women and sexual minorities (e.g., LGBTIQ individuals) routinely face sexism, although the frequency and forms of sexism that any given individual experiences may vary greatly based upon their body-type or their gender and sexual identity or expression. In addition, sexism also intersects with other forms of marginalization (e.g., racism, classism, ablism, etc.). In this talk, Julia forwards an intersectional approach to reconcile the many existing debates about gender and sexism that have occurred within feminism, queer activism, and trans activism over the last several decades. Trans Feminism: A Performance and Discussion This presentation touches on many of the same themes that the previous talk (“The intersection of feminism, queer, and trans politics”) does. However, it differs in that it is part talk, part spoken word performance. Rethinking Sexualization Sexualization occurs when sexuality is nonconsensually imposed upon a person, or when a person is reduced to their their sexual body or behaviors. A significant amount of attention has been paid to the way in which women are often sexualized by men in our culture - for instance, via unsolicited evaluations of their appearance, sexually explicit remarks or propositions, objectifying depictions, and (at the extreme end of the spectrum) sexual violation, abuse and rape. Less attention has been paid to other forms of sexualization: the way in which sexual minorities and others are often accused of being sexual predators, perverts or deviants; the way in which certain women are presumed to be “asking for it” (that is, asking to be sexualized) while others are not; the way in which attraction to certain types of people are described as “fetishes,” or “paraphilias,” rather than viewed as genuine forms of attraction. What do these forms of sexualization have in common and how do they differ? Why is sexualization such an effective tactic to intimidate and invalidate people? What can we, as individuals, do to confront and challenge sexualization? In this talk, Julia tries to answer these questions and to provide a more holistic, intersectional view of sexualization. Sexualization and Anti-Transgender Discrimination Anti-transgender discrimination often takes the form of sexualization. For instance, transgender individuals are frequently the targets of sexual harassment (e.g., unwanted sexual questions or comments, nonconsensual groping). Sexualization is especially rampant for individuals on the male-to-female (MTF) or trans feminine spectrum, who are often portrayed in the media as being sexually promiscuous, sexually deceptive, sexually deviant and sexually motivated in their transitions. Strikingly similar depictions are also found in psychological discourses and in public assumptions about trans feminine individuals. In this talk, Julia offers examples of these sexualizing stereotypes, and explains why they are so prevalent and how they are related to the sexualizing stereotypes of women and other sexual minorities (e.g., lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals) that exist in our culture. She also discusses why sexualization is such an effective tactic in discrimination more generally. I’ll See It When I Believe It: On Experience, Perception and Gender Entitlement In discussions about gender, it is common to hear people talk about the male/female gender binary and how it contributes to sexism. In this talk, Julia will introduce another, often unarticulated, binary - one that exists between our own genders and sexualities (which we experience internally and first-hand) and those of other people (which we can only ever perceive and interpret from an outsider’s perspective). Often, this gap in understanding leads us to project our own experiences, preferences and beliefs about gender and sexuality onto other people’s behaviors and bodies. With thoughtfulness, sharp wit, and a sense of humor, Julia draws on her own personal experiences as someone who has been viewed by others as female and male, queer and straight, and transgender and cisgender at different points in her life, to highlight how invalidating it is to be viewed by others differently than we view ourselves. She makes the case that recognizing this experiential/perceptual binary can allow us to finally challenge the gender entitlement (that is, when people privilege their own perceptions, interpretations, and evaluations of other people’s genders over the way those people understand themselves) that lies at the root of most forms of sexism. (note: this talk is a bit more informal and personal than Julia’s other presentations). There are a number of other topics that Julia frequently writes about and does activism around; she would be happy to speak informally about any of the following topics:
Once you’ve decided what you are interested in booking Julia for, then please contact her by email at note from Julia: I always try to make a point of answering all booking inquiries I receive. I’ve had occasions where people have sent me booking inquiries or invitations to perform/present, but my response (for some reason unbeknownst to me) didn’t quite reach them or ended up in their spam folder by accident. So if you send me a booking-related email and I don’t respond within a week, it is likely that my reply disappeared in cyberspace. If this happens to you, please do not hesitate to send me a follow-up email...thanks! -julia |
julia serano ©2002-2008