The Transformative Promise of Queer Politics

The story of Lt. Dan Choi’s protest action is a useful entry point into a discussion of the current trajectory of gay and lesbian organizing because it emblematizes one major reality of the activist moment: the widespread sense of urgency in pursuit of the assimilationist (rather than radically transformative) goals.

Same-Sex Weddings, Hindu Traditions, and Modern India

Same-sex desire and even sexual activity have been represented and discussed in Indian literature for two millennia, often in a nonjudgmental and even celebratory manner, but a new virulent form of modern homophobia developed in India during the colonial period.

Islam and Homosexuality

In 2002 I began a long and lonely journey, daring to visit some of the darkest corners of the taboo that permeates the consciousness of that unlikely character: the gay or lesbian Muslim.

A War Against Boys?

By now, you’ve probably heard there’s a “war against boys” in America. The latest heavily-hyped right-wing fusillade against feminism, led by Christina Hoff Sommers’s new book of that title, claims that men are now the second sex and that boys–not girls–are the ones who are in serious trouble, the “victims” of “misguided” feminist efforts to protect and promote girls’ development. They counsel anguished parents to “rescue” or “protect” boys–not from feminists but from a definition of masculinity that is harmful to boys, girls, and other living things.

Israeli Feminism: The Impact of Women’s and Gender Studies on Jewish Studies

In Israel, where the rabbinate together with the army give patriarchy a stranglehold on civil society, the potential impact of the feminist study of Judaism is of far more than personal significance. Nevertheless, it is only recently that the isolated efforts of a few scholars working in different institutions have begun coming together to form a vibrant and distinctive Israeli branch of feminist Jewish women’s studies, bringing a breath of fresh air and activism to a field dominated by conservative Judaic studies faculties and yeshivas. This in itself is one of the most important messages to emanate from the conference on “The Impact of Women’s and Gender Studies on Jewish Studies” held in Jerusalem in June 1999.