APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Issues

From the Chair

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Claudia Card
University of Wisconsin at Madison

My tenure as the first Chair of the APA Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People in the Profession will draw to a close in June 2001, as the Chair passes to Mark Chekola (Minnesota State University, Moorhead), and so it seems a good moment to review and reflect on the experience of chairing this important new committee.

There is overlap in membership from year to year, created by staggered terms. Concluding their terms this year are Cheshire Calhoun, David Hull, and Timothy Murphy. Beginning July 1, 2001, the committee will have an entirely new regular membership (Pamela Hall, Joseph Sartorelli, Christopher Horvath, Kayley Vernallis, Kelly Oliver, Ralph Wedgwood, and Mark Chekola), as compared with the initial membership of 1997 (Timothy Murphy, Cheshire Calhoun, David Hull, Laurie Shrage, Edward Stein, Jacob Hale, and myself). We even have a new editor of the newsletter, Carol Quinn (Miami University, Ohio), who is also an ex-officio member of the committee and who will take over from Timothy Murphy, who has done such a splendid job for the first several issues. The complete turnover in membership is one small indicator of how substantial a constituency we serve in this profession. It is important for the committee to keep an eye out for potential future members, especially younger members who may not yet be well-known, and especially members knowledgeable regarding the interests of transgender people, which were so ably represented by Jacob Hale (Cal State Northridge) during our first year (see, for example, his bibliographical article on transgender studies in our first newsletter).

Let me review briefly the actions the committee saw in its first three years. Our committee met once as a whole on October 12, 1998 (expenses paid by the APA), with Executive Director Eric Hoffman, at an airport hotel at Chicago's O'Hare. We went through a long agenda that took up most of a Saturday. Since then, those of us attending a particular APA divisional meeting have sometimes met for breakfast or supper to discuss issues informally. But most of our work has been done by email.

As a result of the Chicago all-committee meeting, we issued a call for narratives of experience in the profession during the 20th Century for the 100th Anniversary celebration of the APA, which was published in the APA Proceedings as well as in our own newsletter. Only a few narratives have been submitted. But they are very interesting!

Our most regular activities have been the semi-annual publication of a newsletter (under the editorship of Timothy Murphy, now ex-officio member of the committee) and the sponsoring of APA paper-reading sessions at all three annual divisional meetings. Three sub-committees, consisting of two members each, have organized the paper-reading sessions for the Eastern, Central, and Pacific meetings. Beginning this year, we have embarked on a cooperative venture of cosponsoring with the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy (SLGP) sessions at the Pacific and Central meetings, with SLGP taking responsibility for the Central meetings this year and LGBT (us) taking responsibility for the Pacific, and the reverse to be the case next year, and so on, indefinitely. This joint effort made sense in view of our competition for audiences and the difficulty of avoiding scheduling conflicts.

Just as Timothy Murphy was able to draw upon his prior experience of editing the newsletter for the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy, our new newsletter editor Carol Quinn will also be able to draw on her experience of editing the SLGP newsletter. Send items to Carol (quinncv@muohio), as she will be starting soon to organize the next newsletter. Since only 20% of the APA membership actually subscribes to the newsletters, it is important to remember that for very important announcements that should reach a wider constituency, it may be a good idea to place something also in the APA Proceedings.

During our first year, we submitted a motion to the APA Board, which it passed, to modify the then existing APA anti-discrimination statement in JFP by inserting the words "gender identification" into the list of bases of
discrimination that the APA regards as unethical. We understand "gender identification" to encompass both (1) individuals' senses of gendered self and (2) the means by which individuals express their senses of gendered self, regardless of the relations between the characteristics of individuals and individuals' physical sex characteristics.
Jake Hale was especially helpful in this process, which was conducted by email with much discussion by all members.

We have also joined with other diversity committees in endorsing a proposal to the APA to create a special committee to oversee general issues regarding inclusiveness in the profession, with respect to traditionally underrepresented or not highly visible groups, such as LGBT people and people of color. The APA has recently approved the creation of such a committee, to be called the Inclusiveness Committee, and each of the divisions will soon be voting on whether to make it a standing committee (as opposed to an ad hoc committee) of the APA. We have also had considerable email discussion about the issue of whether to urge the APA to boycott states that still have sodomy laws. But we have not yet taken formal action on this matter. Other matters discussed but not acted on formally include checking into whether the APA health insurance policy meets the specific needs of GLBT and HIV+ members of the profession, how to put teeth into the APA nondiscrimination policy, increasing access to newsletters, working toward establishing an LGBT journal (comparable to Hypatia), and whether to urge the APA to prefer unionized hotels in choosing convention sites. Also not yet acted on is our potential to spend $1,000 annually on committee activities, such as hospitality, honoraria, or questionnaires. This money is in addition to the committee's once every three years meeting as a whole (as we did in 1998), but it does not carry over from year to year.

All in all, it has been a busy and exciting three-plus years (we actually started late in 1997, although our terms did not officially begin until July 1, 1998), and yet there is so much more to be done. I have enjoyed working with everyone on the committee and have appreciated everyone's willingness to pitch in and divide the responsibilities. Being an official standing committee of the APA brings us closer to becoming part of the "establishment," which has both advantages and disadvantages. No doubt it makes us appear more "respectable," in the eyes of fence-sitters. Let us, however, ever be open to suggestions and perceptions of our activities by others, especially those whose interests we aim to represent well.

Committee Membership as of July 1, 2001

Mark Chekola, Chair, Minnesota State University Moorhead, term through 2003
Pamela Hall, Emory University, 2002
Kelly Oliver, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2002
Carol Quinn, Miami of Ohio, ex officio
Joseph Sartorelli, Arkansas State University, 2003
Kayley Vernallis, Altadena, CA, 2003
Ralph Wedgwood, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2