Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Riki Wilchins, an American LGBTQ rights activist, one of six activists named by TIME Magazine among its "100 Civic Innovators for the 21st Century," founder of The Transsexual Menace, Camp Trans, GenderPAC, and author of "Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender" (1997). Hello Riki!
Riki: Hello Monika!
Monika: Do you still wear the Transsexual Menace logo? :)
Riki: Alas, no – I haven’t had an occasion to wear mine lately.
Monika: Here is my favorite quote of yours from Read My Lips: "Academics, shrinks, and feminist theorists have traveled through our lives and problems like tourists on a junket. Picnicking on our identities like flies at a free lunch, they have selected the tastiest tidbits with which to illustrate a theory or push a book." Is it still valid?
Riki: I think it’s finally improved. Folks realize we’re not just some gender-weird tribe for them to cut their professional teeth on.
Riki: Alas, no – I haven’t had an occasion to wear mine lately.
Monika: Here is my favorite quote of yours from Read My Lips: "Academics, shrinks, and feminist theorists have traveled through our lives and problems like tourists on a junket. Picnicking on our identities like flies at a free lunch, they have selected the tastiest tidbits with which to illustrate a theory or push a book." Is it still valid?
Riki: I think it’s finally improved. Folks realize we’re not just some gender-weird tribe for them to cut their professional teeth on.
