Hello, everyone! My name is Olivia , a 3rd year doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology PhD program at Oklahoma State University. I am currently conducting a research project for my dissertation exploring individuals’ feelings about imagined acts of infidelity within their current romantic relationships. [Read more →]

Hello all,

I am writing because a young queer prisoner in the Federal Prison system at La Tuna in New Mexico needs your support! Anthony LaRue (85582-008) has been fighting to take care of his teeth for many, many months now. He currently has only eleven (11) teeth with NO contact points, making chewing nearly impossible. Tony has lost a considerable amount of weight and can’t chew his food properly, leading to choking and gum bleeding. Often dental issues are not taken seriously, but because of the decay in his mouth and the inadequate care, the rest of his body is in danger of infection. Support is needed now. Tony has been taken out to see the dentist numerous times, but always 30 minutes before institutional recall, making the work he needs done impossible. [Read more →]

Against Equality is an online archive, publishing, and arts collective focused on critiquing mainstream gay and lesbian politics. As queer thinkers, writers and artists, we are committed to dislodging the centrality of equality rhetoric and challenging the demand for inclusion in the institution of marriage, the US military, and the prison industrial complex via hate crimes legislation.

We want to reinvigorate the queer political imagination with fantastic possibility.

http://www.againstequality.org/

Educate, agitate, organise.

Tue, 02/23/2010 - 14:52 — AileenOCarroll

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/aileenocarroll/educate-agitate-organise

Educate, agitate, organise. The phrase has been around for years but the ideas it encapsulates are still radical. We live in a world where we are encouraged to be passive. We are all consumers. We watch, we read, we observe, and some of us wait, hope and dream. These words go against the grain. You can’t build a revolution by watching from a distance. There comes a point where many decide that they are tired of sitting on the sidelines. [Read more →]

“Intersectionality” is a Big Fancy Word for My Life

(Excerpts from MBGLTACC 2010 Keynote Address)

[Read more →]

Radical queer politics and anarchism have much in common. Queer theory argues against traditional identity politics, recognizing the social construction of “sexuality” and identity categories. Anarchism argues against any structured hierarchical arrangement of humanity that allows some members of society to systematically exploit and oppress others. Thus, both projects argue for a need to move beyond hierarchical and naturalized arrangements of socially constructed identities–though, at times, articulating those arguments in different ways. Nevertheless, despite these commonalities, little has been written about the deep connections between anarchism and radical queer politics. This edited volume is an attempt to fill that gap. [Read more →]

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/flaherty150110.html

Sex Workers Targeted in New Orleans
by Jordan Flaherty

More than half of the people on Louisiana’s Sex Offender Registry — which was designed for rapists and child molesters — are indigent women convicted of sex work.

Tabitha has been working as a prostitute in New Orleans since she was 13.  Now 30 years old, she can often be found working on a corner just outside of the French Quarter.  A small and slight white woman, she has battled both drug addiction and illness and struggles every day to find a meal or a place to stay for the night.

These days, Tabitha, who asked that her real name not be used in this story, has yet another burden: a stamp printed on her driver’s license labels her a sex offender.  Her crime?  Offering sex for money.

New Orleans city police and the district attorney’s office are using a state law written for child molesters to charge hundreds of sex workers like Tabitha as sex offenders.  The law, which dates back to 1805, declares it a crime against nature to engage in “unnatural copulation” — a term New Orleans cops and the district attorney’s office have interpreted to mean anal or oral sex.  Sex workers convicted of breaking this law are charged with felonies, issued longer jail sentences, and forced to register as sex offenders. [Read more →]

January 23, 2010
2:00 pm	to	4:00 pm

From Daly’s Wiki page:
“Also in Gyn/Ecology, Daly asserted her negative view of transsexual people, whom she referred to as “Frankensteinian.” She labels transsexualism a “male problem” and claimed that post-operative transsexuals exist in a “contrived and artifactual condition.”[13] Daly was also the dissertation advisor to Janice Raymond, whose dissertation, published in 1979 as The Transsexual Empire, is critical of “transsexualism.” Transsexual activist Riki Wilchins has accused Daly of being transphobic.”

Find the article on her death below:

http://ncronline.org/news/women/mary-daly-radical-feminist-theologian-dead-81

Mary Daly, radical feminist theologian and a mother of modern feminist theology, died Jan. 3 at the age of 81. She was one of the most influential voices of the radical feminist movement through the later 20th century.

Daly taught courses in theology, feminist ethics and patriarchy at Boston College for 33 years. Her first book, “The Church and the Second Sex,” published in 1968, got her fired, briefly, from her teaching position there, but as a result of support from the (then all-male) student body and the general public, she was ultimately granted tenure.

[Read more →]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html

Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

[Read more →]

As part of QWB’s queer history project, the following is an excellent summary of the period known as the “Lesbian Backlash.”  This article is an archive piece from the now defunct TransHistory.net (Transsexual, Transgender and Intersex History”) maintained by Kay Brown. Also see the earlier QWB piece from Outrage ‘69.

---

The modern era of the gay & lesbian rights movement is usually marked as starting on a hot July evening at the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The New York police, as many city police departments across the United States did, made period raids on sexual minority bars to harass and arrest the patrons. On this particular night, transgendered woman, Sylvia Rivera, resisted arrest, touching off a riot that continued for three nights running.In the next year, three transgendered people, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and Angela Keyes Douglas would play pivotal roles in organizing the emergent Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. The goal of the Gay Liberation Front was complete acceptance of sexual diversity and expression. But by 1971 the gay men’s community had returned to the assimilationist strategy as the lesbians, in 1973, turned to separatism and radical feminism. There seemed to be no room for transgendered people in either camp.

In 1971, the GAA wrote and introduced a bill to the New York City Council that was the first omnibus anti-discrimination bill to protect homosexual people. However, inspite of early and avid support of the GAA by transgendered people the bill completely ignored transgendered people. Silvia Rivera, disgusted by the batrayal, said to the leaders of the GAA, “It’s not us that they are afraid of - its you! Get rid of us. Sell us out. Make us expendable. Then you’re at the front lines. Don’t you understand that?” This marked the first serious batrayal, but certainly not the last.

Disillusioned by the GAA’s betrayal of transgendered people, Angela Douglas formed the Transsexual Activist Organization along the same lines as the GAA, with some of the loftier ideals of the GLF. She began publishing MoonShadow, a quirky newsletter for and about transgendered people and the struggle for legal rights. [Read more →]

http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/2009/12/walter-trochez-active-member-of.html

[Read more →]

As we mobilize, here in Connecticut and throughout the US, in opposition to the Stupak Amendment it is vital to maintain an intersectional analysis and vision to our advocacy and activism. The following discourse hopefully outlines (employing the examples of reproductive rights and trans rights) how we as a society cannot and must not rely on our votes, our so-called political pressures, or our politicians in securing full and equal access to health care, as well as self-determination over their bodies.

We must, as in the words of the inspiring anarchist Ammon Hennacy “see our bodies as our ballots and to vote every single day with our bodies;” and so to work outside the system in assuring that all our comrades are provided accessible and comprehensive health care, including full control over our bodies! While at the same time educating those who desire to work within the system, to understand that compromise nor reform are acceptable nor tolerable from our politicians when it comes to such basic human rights as health care and self determination.

Here in Hartford a coalition of organizations, including several I am part of, will hold a demonstration on Dec 21 bringing awareness to the horrific imports of the Stupak amendment. HOWEVER, our outrage and our awareness must go beyond the Stupak amendment, and the single issue of abortion ~ and to go to the broader issues of health and reproductive justice which are impacting OUR bodies and OUR rights.

And so let us take a brief, and albeit select, historical journey into several legislative endeavors that our beloved politicians have deemed they must enact to legislate over our bodies:

Helms Amendments relating to ADA and Fair Housing Act:

September 7, 1989: On this day on the Senate floor a discussion ensued between senators jesse helms and tom harkin regarding a “few questions” about the Americans with Disabilities Act. I will relay just a few select portions of this exchange below and refer the reader to the Congressional Record for the full exchange.

Mr. HELMS. I thought the Senator would say that, so I will be specific. Does the list of disabilities include pedophiles?
Mr. HARKIN. What?
Mr. HELMS. P-e-d-o-p-h-i-l-e-s? [Read more →]

I found this beautiful poem while searching for archival remnants of Sylvia and Marsha

For Marsha P. (Pay It No Mind!) Johnson
Qwo-Li Driskill

found floating in the Hudson River shortly after NYC Pride, 1992

“You are the one whose spirit is present in the dappled stars.”
– Joy Harjo, from “For Anna Mae Pictou Aquash…”

Each act of war
is whispered from
Queen to Queen
held like a lost child
then released into the water below.
Names float into rivers
gentle blooms of African Violets.

I will be the one that dangles
from the side but
does not let go.

The police insisted you leapt
into the Hudson
driftwood body
in sequin lace
rhinestone beads
that pull us to the bottom.
No serious investigation — just another
dead Queen.

[Read more →]

Saturday April 17, 2010

First, many thanks to all of you who have submitted some excellent workshop proposals. For others who have not yet sent in your proposal, you still have a few days. Deadline is Dec 5, 2009.

In addition to some of our key Workshop presenters, the Transgender Lives Conference organizing committee is soliciting workshop proposals for our 2010 conference. As this conference has dramatically grown over the years, we recognize that many of you have very important topics and experience which fold into our theme of The Intersection of Health and Law. Workshop space is limited and all proposals will be reviewed for applicability and relevance to the Conference theme and audience. If you feel you have a workshop that would benefit the conference please complete the workshop proposal submission form located doc here and pdf here.The form is also on our Conference website at TransgenderLives.org.

Please be sure to have your proposal in our hands no later than December 5, 2009. The committee will then review all proposals and select those that will best serve the interests and needs of the Conference attendees.

If you have any questions please contact us at conference @ transadvocacy.org

Health Center
263 Farmington Avenue
Farmington, Connecticut 06030
Saturday, April 17, 2010
8:00AM-5:00PM