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Two Spirits | A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures | Independent Lens | PBS
On nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as transgender and gay are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).
Yet hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders. Fred Martinez, for example, was not a boy who wanted to be a girl, but both a boy and a girl — an identity his Navajo culture recognized and revered as nádleehí. Most Western societies have no direct correlation for this Native “two-spirit” tradition, nor for the many other communities without strict either/or conceptions of sex, sexuality, and gender. Worldwide, the sheer variety of gender expression is almost limitless. Take a tour and learn how other cultures see gender diversity.
Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America, is the first ever comprehensive web based documentary and archive to explore the LGBTQ community in America as a whole, through photographs and video interviews. This project seeks to introduce individuals from urban and rural areas and highlight a national experience in its many diverse, overlapping and even conflicting parts. As we engage with the connecting themes of love, religion, race, class, family, geography and gender identity, we seek to actively change the way queer communities are perceived, and offer individuals a chance to speak for themselves. In 2011 Embodiment will be launched as an innovative multi-media website, exhibition, book and DVD.
(Source: vimeo.com)
Trailer for Mike Mills’ Beginners
My most anticipated film pick for 2011- easy. And the trailer alone got my eyes watery. June 3rd can’t come soon enough.
Plummer & McGregor (source)
Mills with Cosmo, who plays Arthur (source)
This looks so lovely.
Three years before the famous rioting at New York’s Stonewall Inn, there was a riot in San Francisco at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria. On a hot Summer’s night in 1966, in the city’s Tenderloin district, a group of transgender women and gay street-hustlers fought back for the first time in history against everyday police harassment. This act of resistance was a dramatic turning point for the transgender community, and the beginning of a new human rights struggle that continues to this very day.
Interview by LL with the lovely Vivek Shraya about God Loves Hair