All throughout her childhood Daphne Scholinsky did not feel like a girl. She liked to wear pants and she enjoyed wrestling with the kids from the neighborhood. When she went to the women’s restroom at stores, sales clerks would drag her to her parents, alerting them they had found their “son” in the women’s bathroom.
Her parents felt Scholinsky was an “inappropriate female” and thought they could help her by sending her to mental institution after mental institution, where Scholinsky spent three years during her adolescence.
Scholinsky, 33, now an activist, artist and author of the book, “The Last Time I Wore a Dress,” shared her story with approximately 50 members from the campus community Tuesday night at Gerlinger Lounge as part of a three-day InterSEXions Conference.
Scholinsky shared how, rather than letting her be who she really was, her doctors thought they could help her become more feminine by having her wear makeup and dresses. She remembers how doctors set up a point system where collecting points by being feminine would enable her to go to the dining room or walk without an escort.
“It didn’t take me long to figure out that a half moon of blue over my eyelid was a better decision,” she said.
Scholinsky was released at 18 after she had earned her high school diploma at a mental institution and came out publicly as a lesbian a year after her release. She now uses art as a venue for coming to terms with her experiences, which include many hours spent in seclusion rooms, running away from drug-filled needles and contemplating suicide.
“I love the way that art can become a mirror, and I love the way you see that happen to people,” she said.
The InterSEXions Conference is part of the LGBT community’s celebration of Queer Pride this month and puts the transgendered community and its issues into the center of the spotlight.
“Usually the ‘T’ in the LGBT community gets really overlooked,” said Gabrielle Hendel, a senior psychology and women’s studies double major and director of the LGBTA. “It’s a huge, integral part of our organization.”
The series kicked off earlier on Tuesday with a brown bag lunch when graduate assistant Kate Sullivan gave her presentation, “TransGendering Monstrosity.” Twenty students filled the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance office at the EMU to hear Sullivan speak about how gender deviance is used in movies to make villains appear more devious.
Later in the afternoon, Susan Stryker, a historian interested in transgender phenomena in history and contemporary arts and culture, showed clips from several underground films from the 1960s. The clips introduced students to new perspectives on transgender visibility and its relationship to issues in society.
Today, students have the opportunity to attend another brown bag lunch at noon at the LGBTA office. Elizabeth Reis, an assistant history professor at the University, will give a talk titled: “You Can Teach a Whole Class on This?: Teaching Transgender Issues.” Reis, who has been teaching a class on transgender history for both the women’s studies and the history department, said her nine-year-old son inspired the title for her talk when he asked that question.
At 4 p.m., English Professor Dianne Dugaw will give a lecture performance dealing with 17th century through present-day English and American ballads about women who went to sea and war masquerading as men. The performance will take place in Gerlinger Lounge and, like all InterSEXions events, is free and open to the public.
Will Roscoe, a historian who has taught Native American studies and American studies, will give a presentation about the lives and times of native women leaders at 7 p.m. in Gerlinger Lounge. At noon on Thursday, senior psychology and women’s studies double major Molly McClure will share her thoughts and progress on her thesis “Feminism and Transgenderism,” during another brown bag lunch talk at the LGBTA office. McClure decided on her thesis after taking Reis’ class on transgendered history.
The last event of the InterSEXions lecture series will be on Thursday at 4 p.m. in Gerlinger Lounge. Alice Dreger, assistant professor of science and technology studies at Michigan State University, will discuss “The Meaning of Testicles In a Woman: The Medical Politics of Intersex.” Dreger will talk about issues surrounding the medical treatment of people born intersexed.