by abbey volcano
http://gatheringforces.org/2010/03/18/sylvia-rivera-transliberation-and-class-struggle/
Sylvia Rivera, transliberation, and class struggle.
Key readings:“Amanda Milan and the rebirth of Street Trans Action Revolutionaries” by Benjamin Shepard in
From ACT UP to WTO.
Leslie Feinberg Interviews Sylvia Rivera: “I’m glad I was in the Stonewall Riot.”
The Transfeminist Manifesto by Emi Koyama.
Street Trans Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was founded as a caucus within Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in 1971 to put forth trans demands in the gay liberation movement. The co-founder of STAR, Sylvia Rivera, was a Puerto Rican trans woman who led the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969 along with other trans of color. Yet gradually, the gay liberation movement was co-opted by white middle-class folks who are gender-conforming and became conservative. Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), a New York based gay rights group was founded by ex-members of GLF who did not appreciate its radicalism and wanted to form a single-issued organization that only focused on reformist gay rights. GAA’s conservatism and transphobia showed when they dropped the trans demands while advocating citywide anti-discrimination rights in the 70s. They saw actions put on by STAR and Sylvia Rivera as too “dangerous,” “crazy,” and “extreme.”
[Read more →]
by ayala
We are Israeli queers trying to bring about an end to Israel’s apartheid and occupation of the Palestinians in any legitimate non-violent way open to us, including supporting the Palestinian-led BDS campaign. We are appalled by attempts made at the City of Toronto to use censorship measures against the pride parade’s participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). We wish to pledge our support to QuAIA in this time of unjust political persecution for their courageous standing for Palestinian rights and against any form of oppression.
It has become custom among pro-Israelis to falsely accuse BDS promoters of practicing censorship, while actually all BDS promoters do is ask artists and intellectuals to act on their own conscience and political motivation. On the other hand, BDS promoters and other human rights solidarity groups and activists are the ones who face real threats and acts of censorship, directed against them, involving authority and budgeting mechanisms. Perhaps people at the City of Toronto are taking their lead from the Israeli Knesset, who recently has passed another one of its apartheid laws against Palestinian citizens of Israel, known as the Nakba law. The Nakba law prohibits government budgets or sponsorship for organizations who commemorate the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by Israel.
In this atmosphere of silencing and denial, in Israel and across the Western world, it is of vital importance to remind people the atrocities that are performed by Israel and encourage them to get involved, as done by QuAIA. Israel still rejects the Palestinian refugees’ right of return as stipulated by UN resolution 194. It violates numerous international laws and court of justice decisions in its settlements and apartheid wall enterprises, confiscating Palestinian lands and resources and segregating populations. Israel applies a cruel siege on Gaza which puts the population on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. It executes Palestinians without trial, imprisons thousands, destroys homes and terrorizes communities.
It is due to these crimes and atrocities that QuAIA is desperately needed in Toronto’s pride parade, doing their indispensable solidarity work against all forms of censorship and oppression. QuAIA’s work is in line with queer struggles going on also within Israel. These struggles join the struggle of the Palestinians, a struggle that should be shared by all queers to end oppression and injustice.
In solidarity,
Israeli Queers for Palestine
by abbey volcano
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/04/07/gays-and-lesbians-in-zimbabwe-facing-corrective-rape/
An annual report by the US State Department on human rights in Zimbabwe has said that gays and lesbians in the country face harassment and rape by people trying to ‘cure’ them.
It said that lesbians were sometimes raped, even by their family members, to try and turn them straight, while gay men were forced into heterosexual sex.
Associated Press reports that Amanda Porter, political officer at the US Embassy in Harare, said yesterday: “Some families reportedly subjected men and women to corrective rape and forced marriages to encourage heterosexual conduct.”
Sodomy is illegal in Zimbabwe and punishable with up to a year in prison or a heavy fine. [Read more →]
by abbey volcano
CALLING ALL GENDERVARIANT/ GENDERQUEER/ AND TRANS HEALTHCARE PRACTITIONERS! !
The time has come. Jacoby Ballard (trans health educator, herbalist and yoga instructor) and Devynn Emory (trans health educator, healer, massage therapist) are preparing an anthology about the vast and varied approaches to trans healthcare. This collection will include excerpts written only by gendervariant, genderqueer and trans practitioners/ providers; we are often written about, but rarely get to represent our own communities, wellbeing, and healthcare. This anthology is a resource for both healthcare providers and the trans and gendervariant community that includes first hand experiences of what its like to work with the community, information to empower trans people about our own bodies, facts and tips on how to get the healthcare you need in a safe environment, and will offer insight to other practitioners about what questions arise in our work with trans and gendervariant people and how we approach or resolve such questions. Our goal is to open
up the conversation of trans healthcare to include more than just the medical system, and to integrate other issues that inevitably affect our bodies and wellbeing, such as legal issues, the prison industrial complex, trauma and abuse, and more.
Where you come in:
We need YOU, as a practitioner with experience working with genderqueer/ gender non-conforming/ trans health to offer your wisdom, facts, tips and experience. We are seeking a more clinical perspective, rather than a personal narrative, although we do wish to hear your struggles and joys. We are in search of acupuncturists, Chinese Medicine practitioners, voice specialists, hormone specialists, yoga instructors, massage therapists, healers, fertility specialists, midwives, surgeons, psychotherapists and the like. If you are trans or genderqueer identified and provide healthcare for these communities, we want YOU! We are interested in topics such as: augmenting the side effects of hormones, treating the physical effects of binding and tucking, trans pregnancy, psychotherapy from a trans-positive and -affirming perspective, treating the effects of abuse and harassment, and more!
please spread widely!
we can’t wait to hear from you!
feel free to inquire with questions and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: AUGUST 15, 2010
contact: transhealthantholog y@gmail.com
by abbey volcano
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/31/2010-03-31_transgender_woman_edelbuerto_gonzalezandujar_found_dead_naked_in_ransacked_apart.html
http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/trans-woman-found-dead-in-apartment/
by abbey volcano
My favorite quote so far: “There is still an overall presumption of heterosexuality,” the biologist Bruce Bagemihl told me. “Individuals, populations or species are considered to be entirely heterosexual until proven otherwise.” While this may sound like a reasonable starting point, Bagemihl calls it a “heterosexist bias” and has shown it to be a significant roadblock to understanding the diversity of what animals actually do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me
March 29, 2010
Can Animals Be Gay?
By JON MOOALLEM
The Laysan albatross is a downy seabird with a seven-foot wingspan and a notched, pale yellow beak. Every November, a small colony of albatrosses assembles at a place called Kaena Point, overlooking the Pacific at the foot of a volcanic range, on the northwestern tip of Oahu, Hawaii. Each bird has spent the past six months in solitude, ranging over open water as far north as Alaska, and has come back to the breeding ground to reunite with its mate. Albatrosses can live to be 60 or 70 years old and typically mate with the same bird every year, for life. Their “divorce rate,” as biologists term it, is among the lowest of any bird.When I visited Kaena Point in November, the first birds were just returning, and they spent a lot of their time gliding and jackknifing in the wind a few feet overhead or plopped like cushions in the sand. There are about 120 breeding albatrosses in the colony, and gradually, each will arrive and feel out the crowd for the one other particular albatross it has been waiting to have sex with again. At any given moment in the days before Thanksgiving, some birds may be just turning up while others sit there killing time. It feels like an airport baggage-claim area.
[Read more →]
by saffo
Yo, we SERIOUSLY need some workshop proposals for the 2010 Bash Back convergence!
BB! Denver is seeking workshop proposals for the 2010 Bash Back! convergence this May 27-30. We hope this weekend is more than just a couple days with our favorite radical queermos–we want to talk about cool things with awesome people, and build new connections between our struggles. Workshops are one way to do that, and are an integral part of the convergence planning this year. Several workshop proposals have already arrived, but lets get some more!
We are seeking workshop proposals for this year’s convergence especially on the following topics: Anti-Oppression, Mental Health, Palestinian Solidarity, Strategies for Physical Well Being, Response to Sexual Assault, DIY Sex Toys, DIY Other Sexy Things, Sex Work, Direct Action (including Bloc Tactics, Mobile Soundsystems, Analysis/Theory), Anarchist and Queer Theory, Prison Abolition, Prisoner Support, Kink, Spirituality, Group Presentations, Films made by Anarchists, Queer Films, and Permaculture. Your workshop idea doesn’t fit into any of those categories? Awesome, submit it anyway! And we want to hear what you queermos are doing in your communities, so send that too!!!
Please include: workshop title, presenter(s), description, ideal time length, and your material and logistical needs. Including blackboard needs–this convergence will probably not be at a school! The deadline for workshop proposals is May 2nd at 10:32 pm EST, and a materials deadline for accepted workshops is May 9th at 8:59 pm PST. Workshop proposals should be sent to: bbworkshops |at| gmail |dot| com. Questions about workshops are welcome as well.
For more info on the convergence, check out the website @ http://www.bashback2010.org/
by abbey volcano
http://dsm.ifge.org/petition/
by abbey volcano
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/03/11/australia-is-first-to-recognise-non-specified-gender/
Australia is first to recognise ‘non-specified’ gender
By Jane Fae • March 11, 2010 - 17:29
Australia may have made gender history this week, as the New South Wales government lays claim to being the first in the world to recognise an individual’s sex as officially “not specified”.
This milestone in the evolution of gender queer came about with the issuing of a ‘Sex Not Specified’ Recognised Details Certificate in place of a birth certificate to Norrie (also known as norrie mAy-Welby) a resident of Sydney. [Read more →]
by abbey volcano
| April 3, 2010 |
| 6:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
We are hosting a dinner party (@ the Unitarian Universalist Society, 608 Whitney Ave, New Haven) to benefit the Feminism, Autonomy, Diversity, and Gender Expression (F.A.D.G.E.) Fest that will be held at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford on April 25 & 26. We are requesting donations of $5+ to provide us with a budget for speaker fees, travel expenses, etc. for the upcoming conference.
The theme of the F.A.D.G.E. Fest this year is mental, physical, and sexual health. There will be workshops spanning the 2-day event supporting female-positive discussions, knowledge, art, skill-shares, and music.
by abbey volcano
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 →]
by abbey volcano
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 →]
by abbey volcano
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/
by abbey volcano
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 →]
by abbey volcano
“Intersectionality” is a Big Fancy Word for My Life
(Excerpts from MBGLTACC 2010 Keynote Address)
We have to confront white supremacy within LGBT and Queer communities. A queer politic MUST include solidarity with people of color; it MUST include fighting racism and white supremacy. Because we aren’t queer OR people of color; queer OR white; queer OR able bodied; queer OR working class. We can’t just decide to come together as queer people and expect that we are all going to be united and work together—or that we’ll even feel comfortable.We must be willing to have hard conversations as queer people with each other about how we are different as queer people. It helps us to expand what “queerness” is—to see that there are many different ways to be queer. We can’t be afraid to do our own work at our own tables. And yes, there is much work to be done out there, with folks who aren’t queer. Yes, that is important too, but we are outsiders here as well. Because really, there is no “out there.”
[Read more →]
