Queer Feminism is a new workshop I have developed in order to explore, in a collective way, how a queer feminism would work in our current activist struggles.

I am keen for this workshop to go to as many places and contexts as possible in order to develop its concepts, so please get in touch, particularly if the idea of queer and feminism together makes you feel uneasy.

In contemporary feminist activism - what we may want to call 'the third wave' -  the relationship between feminism and queer has not always been harmonious, particularly if we take into account intergenerational issues.

For many feminists of the pre-queer theory genderation, queer is perceived as being a postmodern, academic phenomena, issuing a flight from reality as drag and gender performance erase the specificity of women's struggles.

This workshop seeks to work through some of these antagonisms, encouraging participants to explore the connections between feminism and queer before producing a context where a specifically queer feminist agenda can be explored.

I am keen to move away from the idea that queer is synonymous with gender performance, and situate queer feminism as something far more gritty and embodied. A queer feminist praxis returns to the body as a site of possibility, resistance, reclamation and, i hope you will agree, revolution.

The main bulk of the discussion will be based upon using the following demands as a platform for exploring action and ideas of queer feminism.

• The apology and ceasing of cutting of intersex babies by the medical
  establishment
  
• Recognition of biological diversity of bodies, ie there is more than
  just 'male' and 'female' and multiple forms of intersexed embodiments.
  
• Allowing people to consent their gender: all children born will
  automatically be assigned an all purpose pronoun at birth. When a person
  reaches an age when they are ready they can choose male, female or
  multigendered pronouns or remain genderfull and unique: gender can be an
  opt in, opt system.
  
• Getting transgender pronouns into the Oxford English dictionary
• Getting transgender options/titles to be legally recognised/put on forms
  etc (the equivalent of ms)
   

On top of these demands, participants will gain understandings of ethical issues such as the right to bodily integrity, develop critical understandings of consent and an awareness of bodily and social agency as central parts of queer feminist praxis.

Queer feminism will be appearing at the following places:

May 10th, Ladyfest London