On Feb. 28, the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) presents “Gender as Target: US 2024 Elections and Aftermath,” a teach-in featuring University of Oregon faculty and GTFF representatives discussing how gender and race discourses informed the recent election cycle and ways we can collectively respond to the barrage of policies impacting immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities today. 
Anita Chari, associate professor of political science, will situate the elections in the context of critiques of “identity politics” (including the politics of gender, sexuality, and race) and their relationship to discourses regarding societal trauma, and will discuss strategies for working toward a constructive, coalitional politics. Chari is a political theorist and somatic practitioner. Her interdisciplinary scholarly research explores the political significance of aesthetics and somatic experience for our times. She is the author of A Political Economy of the Senses (Columbia University Press, 2015) and A User’s Manual to Claire Fontaine (Lenz Press, 2024), and is co-founder of the organization Embodying Your Curriculum™.
Alison Gash, professor and chair of political science, will speak about the reliance on anti-queer and trans rhetoric as a catalyzing force in the rise of the conservative politics in the United States, with a particular focus on queer and trans politics at school and among young people. Gash focuses on US law and public policy. Her work on LGTQIA policies has appeared in USA Today, Washington Monthly, NPR, Washington Post along with numerous other public and academic journals. She is the co-author of Democracy's Child (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Graduate students Kaito Campos de Novais and Brennan Fitzgerald will introduce the GTFF Rapid Action Working Group and discuss the role of intersectional labor organizing in support of immigrants and queer and trans people. They will examine how we can collectively resist the escalation of white-nationalist and transphobic policies from the current administration. Kaito Campos de Novais is a fifth-year PhD candidate in cultural anthropology and the VP for International Affairs at the GTFF. He is a Brazilian queer artist and labor organizer. Brennan Fitzgerald is a third-year PhD candidate in chemistry and biochemistry and the VP of Membership Communications for the GTFF. They are a southerner and a proud trans person.  
The CSWS teach-in will be held Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, from 4–6 p.m. in 145 Straub Hall, 1451 Onyx Street, Eugene. The event is free and open to the public. Food will be provided. To aid with planning, please register for the event.
UO faculty are encouraged to invite their students to attend the teach-in for extra credit. Please email jenee@uoregon.edu for more information and to arrange for a class sign-in to record attendance.