First day of Grad school

Today was my first day of Grad school. It was nice but sort of strange to be on zoom starting school again, but I guess none of us expected this. At least I have a quiet home to work in. Today’s class was Human Sexuality. It was a two hour session with a break. The class has about thirteen of us in total.

One thing I noticed off the bat – most people had their pronouns next to their names – was that my instructor has they/them pronouns, like me. There were a few other people with they/them pronouns too, and the majority are she/her.

Another thing is that I’m the only black biracial person. That always makes me nervous. There are some other POC, maybe like two. It worries me when the majority of a classroom is white and cis because a chunk of the reading material is centered around the experiences of Black and Brown queer trans folk.

We started off with our instructor, I’ll call them C, telling us a little about themself. Then they broke us up into pairs and gave us two questions to ask one another. I broke off with E. The questions were:

1. what is your name and your pronouns
2. what are you interests in Sexuality studies
3. what’s a unique thing about you

E’s name is E. Her pronouns are she/her. She is interested in Sex work – and of the opinion, it needs to be legalized [I concur] – , in sex education from pre-school upwards and friendship building and consent. She can’t swim and she used to teach preschool. We talked a little about the pandemic and she said that she had to move out of SF, and back into her parent’s home in LA because the apartment she was sharing with some other women was too small and all were teaching on zoom.

E seems cool. I had to really think about what it is I’m interested in within Sexuality. Like, get specific. and it took me a min. Once I heard what the whole class had said once we were back in the main area on zoom – consent, rhetoric, sex work, trans studies, queer relationships – I started to get a sense of what things pull at me.

For one, consent. Consent is a weird thing that is misunderstood a lot and a lot of folx aren’t taught about it. I know I wasn’t. I’m curious about consent in queer relationships and how it’s played out in different settings. Someone also mentioned Kink and my ears perked up, because, why not? Kink is super interesting to me because that is an area that utilizes consent to the max which I think is awesome.

C, my instructor is from the U.K like me. That was a surprise. They said they are from a small working class town outside of the London and that was a nice moment of recognition. Working class Britain is distinct and just hearing the way they didn’t pronounce their T’s and made two syllable words into one was such a joy to hear. Mostly though, it’s not that easy to detect. I had an inkling they were from outside the US somewhere, but I didn’t think the UK.

The next thing we did was break out into groups of four and come up with three things we wanted from our peers and three things we wanted from our instructor. E was in my group again, and so was A, and D. D is very chatty and quite extroverted and A is the opposite. E is sort of in the middle but leans towards D. For our peers, it was suggested:

1. help one another out in terms of if you hear opportunities, let each other know
2. take space, make space which means if you know you are chatty and likely to speak a lot in class, remember to make space for the introverts and shy folx who are less likely.
3. Respect pronouns, if you mess up, apologize swiftly and move on

D came up with the first one. E came up with the second. and I came up with the third. A had not said much yet, and I realized she was shy. Then we spoke about what we want from our instructor:

1. detailed notes on our assignments
2. opportunities to break into smaller groups

We only came up with two, and the second one was said by A, who told us that she is shy and does have a hard time speaking up in larger groups, and finds it easier to speak in smaller groups. I get that. It got me thinking about how I used to be such a chatty one, and my teachers couldn’t shut me up.

In my old report cards, the running them was: “Charlie has a problem concentrating, she prefers to talk to her friends”… or “Charlie talks a lot when she shouldn’t be”. Obviously, I didn’t know I was a “them” yet, or at least, didn’t have that language. I wonder if we did have non-binary pronouns then, if I would have insisted on them, or if anyone would have even tried to respect it. It seems unlikely in 90s London.

I found that I don’t feel the same chatty way that I used to feel in classes. Maybe because I’ve grown up some and actually want to hear what’s going on. I am distracted by shiny things easily though, so I need to work hard to concentrate.

C then compiled everything into one document and we all went over it to make sure we all agreed. The one thing I regret is not saying that racism is not accepted, and that when we are discussing texts about Black people, we should be aware of stereotypes and making assumptions. I felt like as the only Black person in the room, that the onus was on me to say it, but I actually know it’s on the instructor. That’s a burden too many tokens have to carry. ugh. We’ll see where that goes.

Mostly everything was agreed upon, however, those other them’s had expressed that if someone messes up on their pronouns that they don’t need an apology – because it could become an annoying, convoluted thing – and would prefer if folx just corrected themselves and move on. I totes get that. and that’s the beauty of not being the only “something” in the room: you get varying input on what’s what. With more genderqueer folk in the room, I felt less pressure to be “right” which stems from feeling like you’ve got to be perfet for anyone to take you seriously. Which is BS, but the feeling is real. ughhh. I hate tokenism. It’s the fucking worst.

Lots of reading for next Tuesday:

1. Heidi Hoefinger – ‘PROFESSIONAL GIRLFRIENDS’ An ethnography of sexuality, solidarity, and subculture in Cambodia
2. Martin F. Manalansan IV – Diasporic Deviants/Divas: How Filipino Gay Transmigrants “Play with the World”
3. Heather Montgomery – Children, Prostitution, and identity- A Case Study from a Tourist Resort in Thailand 
4. Evan B. Towle, Lynn Marie Morgan – Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the “Third Gender” Concept
5. Carole S. Vance  – Anthropology Rediscovers Sexuality: A Theoretical Comment 

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