Justice, Gender, Sexuality: Fall 2018

“Angels in America” a play written in 1992 was one of the first plays about the AIDS epidemic.   The question of “How does the play represent the impact of AIDS on the characters, their relationships, and/or our country as a whole?” is really pertinent to the time period due to the fact that it brought light to the AIDS epidemic. The impact of the characters such as Prior who is chosen as the prophet makes a big impact in the play. Since Prior is chosen as the prophet even though he is not a very religious person. The creation of Prior as the prophet makes him a relatable character. The characters also show that the disease does not spare anyone. From the upper class lawyer to a gay couple in the city. AIDS was effecting all of these people and their relationships while spreading. I think that it makes this something that people can relate to in the play and find a common ground within.   How does the play challenge its audiences (in the mid-1990s, or now) to think differ

Growing up I watched a lot of Law and Order. Because I watched so much Law and Order, I thought I had a good understanding of what a hate crime was. It wasn’t until I attended a hate crimes community forum held by my university that I realized I actually had no idea what a hate crime was or what necessarily constituted one. According to the assistant district attorney of Denver there are a series of federally protected classes, those classes include race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, and ability. Colorado is one of the few states that include sexual orientation as a protected class (and has done so since 2009), but there are many states that still don’t consider sexual orientation a protected class because it is not federally recognized as one. I believe that this has a direct impact on the way hate crimes against the LGBT community are handled and addressed. I was both shocked and appalled when I learned this and those feelings were only amplified when

For my second Queer Excursion I chose to stay on Regis Campus and go to the Drag Show. The Drag Show was on November 15 and was ran by QSA (Queer Student Alliance). The show included 8 students some new to the drag show scene and some who had done it in years past. The show itself was really really new to me as I had never been to a drag show before. The first three people were new to the drag community but were very comfortable in the environment they were brought into and could see that they were trying to show their most authentic self. The last drag queens and kings had previously done it before, and you could for sure tell this wasn't their first time. The drag kings and queens were confident within the space that was created for them, even with the 150 people there. After the performances were done there was a discussion forum about the show. When asked why they did drag most answered that it was something to test their boundaries while some had send it was to expose the

            Over the course of this past semester I visited Tracks Nightclub several times in an attempt to experience an aspect of queer culture that I do not regularly engage with. I prepared each time, as I imagine many people might prepare, by finding good friends to go with, a cute outfit to wear, and applying a lot of glitter. There was this hype. Most of the people around me made Tracks seem like the type of place that would set you free, a place to release stress, and probably even more important for the topics of this course, release inhibitions. Yet, when I went my time was not freeing. It was not fuzzy or warm or even a little bit encouraging. My experience at Tracks, while sometimes fun, and definitely a meaningful engagement with a queer space, was muddled with all the things about queer culture that have always felt inaccessible to me. The tension between the freeing possibility of queer spaces and the powerful feelings that they typically actualize in practice for peopl

At first glance, Pride and Swagger seems like it would be a really cool place to hang out and have drinks now that I’m 21. The sign on the door says if you’re homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist or sexist don’t come in. That is a tell tale sign that as an open bi woman I would be welcomed in. However, I found a different story on the inside. When I walked in, I expected to find a cool local queer bar that I could hang out in, where I could just be in touch with my queer identity. What I actually found was a very cis-gay-male oriented stereotyped congregation. There was absolutely no room for me here. It was a different experience than my first immersion when I went to a drag show at Tracks and found it to be more inclusive than I would have imagined. In this space, I found it to not be very queer at all. It did not represent any other population other than cis gay males, even the bartenders were white, affluent, able-bodied, cis males. There are many authors throughout thi