Cornell will host the TransPositions conference March 27-29, exploring the facets of transgender identity, culture and academic studies.

Transgender studies encompass the blurring of conventional gender norms, including transsexuality, crossdressing, intersexuality and androgyny. TransPositions aims to open a discussion about gender boundaries and how traditional notions of gender relate to and affect sexual and gender identities. A round-table discussion Saturday will give participants an opportunity to discuss the topics of the presentations.

The conference will open Friday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m., with a performance by transsexual artist and author Kate Bornstein in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. Following breakfast Saturday morning, Anne Bolin, author of In Search of Eve: Transsexual Rites of Passage, will give the keynote address at 10 a.m. in the One World Room of Anabel Taylor Hall, "Do Transsexuals Dream of Gay Rights? Getting Real about Trans Inclusion in the Gay Rights Movement."

The conference will continue until 4 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, and will include talks by gender studies scholars and activists, such as Shannon Minter, Morgan Holmes and Judith Halberstam. In conjunction with the conference, Cornell Cinema presentsYou Don't Know Dick and Different for Girls Saturday night. Both films frame transsexual experiences.

With the exception of the films shown (for which tickets are necessary), TransPositions is free and open to the public. No registration is necessary for the conference.

TransPositions is co-sponsored by Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Studies; Government; Anthropology; German Studies; English, Romance Studies; Society for the Humanities; Rose Goldsen Fund; Lambda Law Association of Cornell; the College of Arts and Sciences; Cornell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Coalition; the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Resource Office; the Dean of Students; Out in the World; and Planned Parenthood of Tompkins County.

For more information contact David Whitmore at Cornell's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Resource Office at (607) 254-4987/fax: 255-7793 or LGBRO@cornell.edu or check out the TransPositions web page at: http://LGBRO.cornell.edu/TransPositions.