Traveling with Twain

In Search of America's Identity

Gender Identity

If Mark Twain were alive today he undoubtedly would have something provocative and perhaps profound to stay about a contemporary Other much in the news–people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. He once wrote: “I can stand any society. All I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.” The project focuses on interviewing Americans about their attitudes toward “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” single-sex marriages and other issues involving sexual orientation.

Posts in Gender Identity

'Who Is The Other?' Interviews at the Yale School of Drama

‘Who Is The Other?’ Interviews at the Yale School of Drama

What makes a woman The Other? Race? Ethnicity? Sexual orientation? Skin color? Wanting a family, not a career, first? Or does a woman become The Other by just being a woman, not a man? I’m asking … Read more >>

New Haven, CT Featured Gender Identity More...
Craig Hotchkiss describes Twain's experiences with race, sexuality and imperialism

Craig Hotchkiss describes Twain’s experiences with race, sexuality and imperialism

Craig Hotchkiss is the Education Program Manager at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Conn. In this video, Hotchkiss addresses some of the topics we’ve been dealing with, including race and sexual orientation, as … Read more >>

Hartford, CT Featured Gender Identity More...
Women of Yale Drama talk race, loss, money and being caught in the middle

Women of Yale Drama talk race, loss, money and being caught in the middle

You’ve probably noticed that this video is six minutes long. So far, I’ve been making an effort to keep the videos I upload brief, sometimes (read: most times) under a minute. That’s, of course, a response … Read more >>

New Haven, CT Featured Gender Identity More...
Journalism professor Ed Alwood questions current gay rights movement: 'We come across as clowns'

Journalism professor Ed Alwood questions current gay rights movement: ‘We come across as clowns’

The Saturday morning we went to see journalism professor Ed Alwood at Quinnipiac University, it happened to be parents’ weekend and the campus was abuzz with activity—music playing, lots of hand-drawn cardboard signs, mothers and fathers … Read more >>

New Haven, CT Featured Gender Identity
Gay writer and physician Larry Mass on the pains of assimilation

Gay writer and physician Larry Mass on the pains of assimilation

Larry Mass invited us to his Manhattan apartment to discuss the sense of wistfulness that the gay community feels as it becomes more and more assimilated in society. Mass, co-founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, … Read more >>

New York, NY Featured Gender Identity

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Featured Content from Gender Identity

Before Occupy Wall Street there was The Greening of America

Four decades before the Occupy Wall Street message spread across America, the New Yorker published on September 26, 1970, a nearly 70-page article, “Reflections: The Greening of America,” by Yale Law School professor Charles Reich that … Read more >>

Visiting the Matthew Shepard murder site, 13 years later

After Matthew Shepard’s bloodied and frozen body was found tied to a buck fence on October 7, 1998, the city of Laramie, Wyo., changed the names of the streets. On a wintry day, at the intersection … Read more >>

Joanna Hernandez, president of Unity, tackles challenge of diversity in newsrooms

Joanna Hernandez, multiplatform editor of The Washington Post, grew up in the projects of New York, then moved to Hell’s Kitchen, once a gritty midtown Manhattan neighborhood of walk-ups that “West Side Story” made famous. Her … Read more >>

Trevor Thomas of Media Matters on representing the small-town gay

We met Trevor Thomas in a futuristic office on Massachusetts Avenue. Blue neon lights cast a ghastly hue on the employees at Media Matters, a Web-based progressive research and information center. The employees’ eyes were focused … Read more >>

Transgender activist Gunner Scott advises us on how to respectfully report on the transgender community

At first, transgender political activist Gunner Scott hesitated to give us an interview. The media so often bungle trans coverage that it’s not hard to understand why. Take Rita Hester’s case, for example, which continues to … Read more >>


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