In the evening hours of Saturday, November 22nd, anonymous
BB! Memphis operatives called in to request that a hearse,
a casket, and a dozen pink daisies be delivered to Officer
Bridges McRae, Duanna Johnson's attacker, as he dressed for
church on Sunday.

A note attached to the flowers read;

"See you soon...
-Duanna
BB!"
---
Officer Bridges McRae is responsible for beating Duanna
Johnson with handcuffs and fists just months prior to her
"mysterious" death. It is clear that McRae and others in
the notoriously anti-trans/queer Memphis Police Department
had it out for Duanna. Bash Back! News, clandestine queers,
and above ground activists know that the MPD murdered Duanna.
Anyone who denies this fact is living the bubbble that Bash
Back! is dedicated to bursting.

Click on over to QueerToday.com to view Castro in the Streets Video–HRC Protest Left Out Party. This video is on view now by clicking here.  MANY THANKS to QueerToday for this.

Queers Without Borders Goes to Print and Needs Your Help!!!

In Connecticut (as with most places throughout the world) there is a decided lack of queer voices in media. In Hartford, this often seems doubly the case. While editors of mainstream gay and lesbian publications call for a separation between the politics of sexuality and the politics of gender, queer voices call into question basic assumptions about identity (in most cases, even the construction of an essential category called “sexuality”). Thus, to many non-identified and queer identified folks, “sexuality” is seen as a social construction—one that cannot be neatly separated from any number of other socially constructed categories such as race, class, gender, ability, etc.

Queers without Borders is a multi-issue group arguing for a radically different conception of politics—one that does not separate struggles for sexual dignity from struggles against racism, sexism, class exploitation, and the policing of gender conformity. We house a blog site at http://queerswithoutborders.com/wpmu/ but want to add queer voices to print media (especially in the greater Hartford area) to provide an alternative to the politics-as-usual approach of existing publications geared toward the LGBT community (and beyond!). With this in mind, we need YOUR help!!!

This is a call for submissions for our first print ‘zine/journal. Send us your stories, analyses, and theories of the fantastic and fabulous work and experiences you’ve had being active in struggles for social justice and dignity for all people. We seek a variety of submissions relevant to daily personal struggles as well as workplace, community, and national/international fights for the liberation of us all! We especially seek submissions that take note of the intersections between the politics of sexuality, race, class, gender, nation of origin, ability, age, and any host of subjectivities that have been formed into hierarchies in our often messy world. After all, none of these identities exist independently of the others and to talk of one is to talk of them all (even when ignored, what goes unsaid is often as telling as what is actually articulated)!

Submissions should be emailed to blog@queerswithoutborders.com by mid-September. Also, don’t forget that Queers without Borders is holding a public meeting at 5pm, August 17th at MCC (155 Wyllis Street located in the Colt Memorial Parish House of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church) if you’d like to come by and chat, observe, or ask questions about the publication or our purpose. Thank you for your time and submissions! Projects like this cannot exist without the active involvement of many! We need YOU! We need each other!

Yours in solidarity,

Queers without Borders!

Check out the posting today on www.QueerToday.com. This posting is of local coverage of the planned protest this evening at the HRC dinner in San Francisco and is posted by Ethan St. Pierre. Sending our radical selves and love to all who stand up and out against HRC and for justice now this evening.

Click here for the video.  

Check out the update. San Francisco Labor calls for a boycott of the HRC event. As QWB has sung for a  long time, Solidarity Forever!!

I found this discussion on Diana’s Little Corner In The Nutmeg State this AM. Diana calls her posting “Revisionist History Part III.” She puts it so well in her posting when she writes, “You ask why am I hung up on the Stonewall uprising and it is because so many people want to write us, the trans-community out of the history of the uprising. I feel that if I write about it enough than our rich history of political activism will not get lost.”  Check out the discussion and the video here. The video is taken from Stonewall the movie which does take some liberties with the actual story but the charters are based on real life people who were at the Stonewall Inn during the rebellion. Queen Allison Alante was the only person who was at the rebellion and is in the movie. The people at the discussion table were there the night of saying NO! While your over at Diana’s check out her “Revisionist History Part I and Part II.” (check out her beautiful photographs too)

A note: We need each and everyone of us to be watchdogs when it comes to our stories. Nothing is small or insignificant about this process when people are trying to write any of us out of history. Attempts to erase, deny, omit, suppress must be met with us in full force out against the oppressors no matter who or what they may be. One thing that bothers me is we as a people haven’t taught our children well. Many do not know our wonderful stories. We have not shared with them or with straights the great gifts that we bring to all of human kind. That is a sadness that must be corrected. 

See also Anti-Gay Fascists Successfully Confronted at Chicago’s Gay Pride Parade

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Stonewall Rebellion and the tasks ahead

We reprint this article from Workers World of June 27, 1975, as part of our archival series. In 1976, the writer, Bob McCubbin, published the first edition of his ground-breaking book, now titled “The Roots of Lesbian & Gay Oppression: A Marxist View” and available from LeftBooks.com.

[Read more →]

QUEERS WITHOUT BORDERS (QWB) 

Who we are. 

A small group of Queers activists who are active in the anti-war movement began meeting several years back to bring a queer presence to the many movements that we as individuals were involved in. Our name Queers Without Borders was taken from the slogan, “We are here, there and everywhere.”  It logically follows in our mind then that all issues are our issues. We stand with all who fight oppression. We work to build a new day of justice and a culture of peace. 

Over the years we have actively help to plan and to participate in all sorts of activities.  We firmly believe that for the lgbt community to not take a multi-issue stand is foolish and unwise and any single issue stand denies our true heritage. The following is just some of the events that we worked on. These are not listed in chronological order. [Read more →]

Reprinted from the People’s Weekly World, “World Notes” May 24-30, 2008. www.pww.org.

Spain’s La Vanguardia newspaper recently interviewed Mariela Castro, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education. Anticipating change, Castro believes that gay people’s rights will be protected under Cuba’s Family Code and will evolve through an educational and media strategy assisted by the Communist Party. A “legal union” formula will eventually guarantee the rights of homosexual couples.

All societies are patriarchal, Castro suggests, but violence against women has waned as women’s rights advanced under Cuba’s revolution. She envisions a future of reduced prohibitions, easy departures from Cuba, and expanded citizen participation in decision making. That’s the “principal objective of socialism,” she says: “the emancipation of human beings; their well being with fairness and social justice.” To view the entire interview with Mariela Castro, go to www.walterlippmann.com/docs1800.html. [Read more →]

LGBT activists from Harvard will be in New Haven on Wednesday, May 28 to protest the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. For information about the campaign of the students and for more info on time and on their tour click here.   The following dates have been given out but for up to the minute details e-mail the contact on their page.

Saturday, May 24, Boston Ma. 2:00pm, Tuesday May 27, Portland Me 10:00am, Wednesday May 28, New Haven Ct. 2:00pm, Thursday May 29, NYC, 2:00pm, Friday May 30, Washington DC, 2:00pm.

If you have not already heard, a dangerous thing happened this week that poses a very serious threat to the transgender and allied community, and could potentially impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, and allied people as well.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently appointed Dr. Kenneth Zucker to chair the task force responsible for updating of mental health language and treatment of diagnoses such as Gender Identity Disorder (GID) for the upcoming DSM-V (Diagnostics and Statistics Manual, Fifth Edition).

Don’t let his recent appearance on NPR sounding like a nice guy fool you. At a time when the American Medical Association (AMA) is supporting stopping discriminating against and stigmatizing transgender people, Dr. Zucker is a widely recognized proponent of reparation (”ex-gay”) and aversion therapy for children and youth. These techniques have been proven to be ineffective
at best and–more often–severely damaging to the mental health of people who are LGB or T.

Dr. Zucker holds the fate of our young people in his hands. WE MUST ALL TAKE ACTION to remove Dr. Zucker as well as his cronies from this all-important APA working group, based upon his approach to clinical treatment of transgender and gender non-conforming identity in children & youth.

Please sign this petition to remove the most outrageous members from the DSM-V GID committee, and then the link on to everyone you know: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/412001300

It only takes a moment or two, and your signing could literally save lives. Thanks so much for your help and support.

From,

Michael Woodward

Tucson, Arizona

See also:

http://transactive.blogspot.com/2008/05/dsm-v-kenneth-zucker.html
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/kenneth-zucker.html
http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2007/05/zucker-and-bradley/
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Dreger/ASB%20paper/Zucker/Zucker%20subverts%20ASB.html

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-lgbt name -calling, bullying and harassment in schools. This years event will be held in memory of Lawrence King an 8th grader from California who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Hundreds of thousands of students will come together on April 25 to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior. For more information see here.