Kingdom Come: Gay Days at Disney World

Despite its explicit use of the word "gay" in its title, this article's true focus is on Disney's censorship of anything seen by the company as non-family friendly or unclean, manifest here in Disney's treatment of its lesbian and gay employees and customers. At times, though very interesting, I questioned the article's relatable to our course's material. However, by the end of it, the article had clearly brought up the discrimination that the gay community faces in the workplace, ranging from partner benefits to gay/lesbian groups and public work-supported celebrations.

The best way to describe this article would be a historical telling of Disney's policies towards the gay community. Not using many statistics or personal anecdotes (only a few here and there), the article mostly built its information around quotes from experts on Disney as well as from its employees. The article definitely cited both support and opposition for the fight for gay rights within the Disney community, though clearly was arguing in favor of promoting those rights. - K.D.

            Disney World is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about race, class, or sexual equality, but Jeff Treusdell manages to uncover convincing evidence to illustrate a strong connection between the two.   He offers stories of Disney World's historical progress from a company run by Walt Disney, who fought against unions and racial equality, to the site of an annual Gay Day celebration.   In this article he highlights this celebration as a turning point in Disney's stance on gay rights, which eventually led to their decision to grant domestic-partner benefits to their employees.   Much of Treusdell's information is from first hand accounts of those who witnessed or were part of Disney's transition.   While this chapter shows some connections to the rest of the book, Treusdell waits until the conclusion to bring everything together.   Not until then does he successfully illustrate that, although it may be slow, frustrating, and at times unexpected, progress is being made towards a more equal future. -A.D.

Conversations with GenderQueen

This article is laid out as a manuscript from an interview, unfortunately without an introduction explaining who each speaker is and why they have gathered to converse. It is definitely meant for a person more scholarly in the field of gender studies, as it refers to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, etc., and additionally makes use of trans/gender neutral pronouns. At first the article correlation to our course is unclear, but the discussion of ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) focuses on gender and sexuality discrimination in the workplace. The article does an excellent job of pointing out that gender discrimination affects all people (not just transgender people), although most people, even when meaning well, do not recognize it or try to pass it off as something else. Thus, it is difficult to protect gender rights in a workplace setting. - K.D.