STORIES

From the President's Desk

From the Chair Persons

Calendar of Events

Achievements

Exhibitions

Credits

Archives

Women’s Studies 110: New Course Looks at Sexuality Issues and Identities

Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues emerged from whispers in the dark to open discussions. CSU, Chico opens the door wider this semester with Women’s Studies 110, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (GLBTQ) Issues and Identities taught by Sara Cooper, Foreign Languages and Literature.

GLBTQ issues became more visible [in the late 1970s? date would help place this] as activists nationwide traded the closet for the street. With increased visibility came shifts in public perception, from severe heterosexism and homophobia to a gradually increased acceptance of GLBTQ realities. The academic world reflected this perceptual shift with a tremendous growth in academic journals and GLBTQ interest groups.

At CSU, Chico, Pride, the student gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender organization, is vital and growing. The Safe Zone project seeks to create an open, accepting environment for all members of the campus community and offers support through staff and faculty “allies.” The GLBTQ Issues and Identities course is the most recent example of acceptance and visibility.

Two years ago Elizabeth Renfro, Multicultural and Gender Studies, taught a GLBTQ course and led a committee to make it a permanent part of the curriculum. Carol Burr, MCGS director, says that the recent hiring of faculty like Cooper also allows CSU, Chico to offer the course on a regular basis.

When asked, “Why teach this class?” Cooper answered, “I’d say to not have classes on topics that are current, so much in the news, and so much in the forefront of academic pursuits would be ludicrous, so the real question as far as I’m concerned is, ‘Why hasn’t it been taught before?’ When topics such as alternative sexuality are silenced, that silence breeds misunderstanding, it breeds hate, it breeds fear,” Cooper said.

The course is a place to let go of some of the misunderstandings and lack of understandings that surround issues of sexuality, said Cooper. “We’re going to look at the continuum of sexuality. If a person identifies as lesbian, what does that mean? Can that mean a lot of different things? We’re going to take a bit of a historical look back at gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues since the late 1880s, then move more into the 20th and 21st centuries,” said Cooper.

The course will explore issues of family, relationship, acceptability, and visibility through the analysis of multicultural literature and film. Cooper intends “to include a good representation of written discourses by people of color, as well as integrate a discussion that takes into account class, gender, race, and ability.” Cooper hopes students will finish the course with a firmer academic understanding of the issues involved. “I hope they’ll come out with an ease of discussion and a terminology that includes popular culture, psychology, sociology, and literary studies and with a better understanding of the continuum of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer, and what controversies are raging among those camps, both among academics and activists.”

Another outcome of the course, suggests Cooper, is an understanding of other cultures and a little bit better understanding of themselves and identity, gender makeup, and sexuality as a specifically cultural construction.

Originally from Texas, Cooper moved to California to teach Spanish language and cultures as well as feminist studies at Stanford University, and, two years ago, came to Chico. Her background in Latin American Studies and her work with Mirta Yáñez, a prominent feminist Cuban author and scholar, led to a recent research trip to Cuba supported by CSU, Chico. Cooper has translated some of Yáñez’s work and is currently editing the first collection of her work in English. The Ties That Bind, a volume of critical essays on family in Hispanic literature and film edited by Cooper, will be published this year by the University Press of America.

Barbara Alderson