Issue 3, 2014

Hello dear readers,

Heres our third newsletter with even more
tidbits of information and again two amazing
events this week, were very excited and hope
to see you all on Thursday and/or Friday. If you
have any suggestions for a discussion or the
newsletter please dont hesitate to contact us,
we cannot promise anything, but we can
promise that we will take them into
consideration. Keep reading and have a
Word of the week: Transgender

The OED describes transgender as a person whose
identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional
notions of male or female gender, but combines or
moves between these(1). As such it would be the exact
opposite of last weeks word cisgender and also include
people who switch between genders and/or do not have
a gender. However, with the way it is most commonly
used, to describe a person identifying as a different
gender they were assigned at birth (so assigned male at
birth identifying as female, or vice versa), the identity
does conform unambiguously to conventional notions of
gender.
Events

Tomorrow, there will be another discuss-a-something Thursday: 20h, Eleanor 7. This time Kayleigh will tell
us all about the web-comic Go Get a Roomie and all of you are, of course, invited to come and share your
opinion!
Friday there will be another Glam! night. If youre scared of joining, maybe the fact that we always have fun
or that the booze is pretty cheap will convince you. Hope to see you all there!
Contact

www.facebook.com/LGBTQ.UCR
gaysociety@rasa.ucr.nl

Love,
Ian Snel, Kelly Roemer, Kayleigh Mathey
Queer person of the week: Wendy Carlos

Wendy Carlos is a trans woman, most notable for her soundtracks to The Clockwork Orange, the Shining
and Tron. She was born in 1939, and in 1968 she released her rst album, Switched-On Bach. On this
album, she played Bach for an hour on monophonic synthesisers, meaning that every note has to be played
individually. Everything needed to be played, recorded and overdubbed multiple times. (2) It was her who
brought synthesisers to prominence, and she won three Grammys for her album in 1969. (3)
She went on to create the scores to movies; a Clockwork Orange, the Shining, and Tron are all on her
resum. Her work has massively inspired Daft Punk; they composed the score to the sequel of Tron.
But most important, she was a trans woman. She was aware of her gender dysphoria at age ve or six,
saying "I was about ve or six...I remember being convinced I was a little girl, much preferring long hair and
girls' clothes, and not knowing why my parents didn't see it clearly". (4) After moving to New York, she came
into contact with other transgender people. She began taking hormones in 1968, at age 29. Because of the
nancial success that Switched-On Bach brought her at the same time, she was able to have gender
reassignment surgery in 1972. (5)
Trivia

The oldest LGBT organization in the world is
Netherland's COC (Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum
which stands for Center for Culture and Leisure),
which was founded in 1946, and used a 'cover name' to
mask its true purpose. (6)
Issue 3, 2014
Sources
1. http://www.oed.com.proxy.library.uu.nl/view/Entry/247649?redirectedFrom=transgender#eid
2. Barbrick, Greg. "Book Review: Keyboard Presents Synth Gods". Seattle Post-Intellegencer. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
"Switched On Bach almost single-handedly revolutionized the publics perception of synthesizers"
3. "Blood, Sweat and Tears beat out Beatles, Cash". Beaver Country Times. UPI. March 13, 1970. Retrieved August 28,
2010.
4. Bell, Arthur (May 1979). "Playboy Interview: Wendy/Walter Carlos". Playboy (Playboy Enterprises) 26 (5): 82.
Retrieved April 15, 2013.
5. "Composer Changes More Than Tune". New York Magazine 12 (14): 65. April 2, 1979.
6. LGBT Youth Issues Today by David E. Newton (2014) page 292.