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Introduction: Transgender Citizenships
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>> 1 Introduction Transgender Citizenships In 2006, during my first summer in Atlanta, Georgia, sex-panicked residents in the gayborhood around Piedmont Park took it upon themselves to intensify their policing efforts and crack down on suspected criminal activities. At just under two hundred acres, Piedmont Park is a stunning green space in a pink haven in a blue city in the red South. The crown jewel of Midtown, it has long been a gathering place for any number of activities, including public sex. Undoubtedly, more than a few of Midtown’s current residents have firsthand knowledge of this history even if they have conveniently forgotten their own participation in it.1 Therefore, the communal outrage directed at those whom they had termed “transvestitutes” was not animated by surprise or shock as much as it was by naked financial self-interest and the judgment that sex work is somehow more threatening and shameful than the free exchange of pleasures. In addition, racial prejudices played no small part in these confrontations between the primarily white residents and the presumed non-residents who were often people of color. Like so many gayborhoods around the United States, Midtown has experienced a renaissance if measured by the metrics of gentrification. The demolition of older properties to make way for the construction of pricey, high-density housing, restaurants, and other amenities associated with middle- to upper-class American life is often trumpeted as a successful revival of a supposedly once-dead urban core. The steady increase in property values and taxes, along with revised zoning laws, slowly and unevenly squeezed out many of Midtown’s previous residents and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)2 businesses, including the iconic, twenty-four hour bar, Backstreet. As is so often the case with gentrification, race and class conflicts have complicated 2 > 3 at the camera’s targets and further strengthened public opposition to the MPSA’s tactics. Meanwhile, the circulation of the YouTube videos forced the APD’s hand, leading to another round of sting operations and “the arrest of 32 people, all but one of whom were black.”5 Having achieved a short-term goal, the MPSA deleted the videos from YouTube after media investigations into their antagonizing activities raised considerable objections on the part of LGBT community leaders. Around the same time, an incendiary newsletter attributed to Steve Gower, a self-identified gay man and vice president of the MPSA’s Board of Directors, found its way into the local press.6 Gower asserted that there was an escalation of violence associated with Sunday gatherings of LGBT youth in Piedmont Park—which would be understood as youth of color by residents of the area—claiming it to be “probably the most dangerous ongoing situation we have encountered so far.”7 Teens and young adults of color have long come together in this relatively safe space to be out in public without the surveillance of their families and neighbors, and violent incidents are the exception, not the rule. Gower recounted a few isolated acts of violence, over an indeterminate period of time, to justify a swift and firm response, and even went so far as to write, “The problem continues to escalate weekly and we fear that if some concrete solutions are not found, someone will be seriously injured or even killed.” According to Gower, the troubles stemmed from large, disorderly crowds dancing in the park: “This is somehow tied in with a group that has been meeting there for several years—they are organized to some degree into groups known as ‘houses,’ and into something known as ‘vogue dancing.’” Describing the groups as “apparently somewhere between a fraternity and a sub-culture of mostly African-American gay men and transgenders,” Gower assured his readers that much could be learned from an iconic documentary: “We are told the movie ‘Paris is Burning’ would shed more light on them.” (In response to these stunning statements, a Queerty blogger quipped, “You may want to go back a little and start with Roots.”8 ) In what can be read as a preemptive qualifier to insulate himself from accusations of racism , Gower concluded, “We don’t fully understand what this group is, but we do not think there is anything problematic about the group’s intention or philosophy—and certainly nothing problematic about vogue dancing—but some bad elements are definitely coming into their 4 > 5 APD’s vice unit blamed overzealous vigilantes for the violence: “[T]he only violence I...