2-2016 B&P Newspaper

FEBRUARY 2016 newspaper

Texas Prisons Expand Hormone Therapy Treatment To More Transgender Inmates By Carimah Townes, Feb 8 2016 published on Think Progress

The Radical Work of Healing: Fania and Angela Davis on a New Kind of Civil Rights Activism By Sarah van Gelder, Feb 21 2016,

published in YES! Magazine

Nearly one year after the Department of Justice confirmed that denying hormone therapy for transgender people in prison is cruel and unusual punishment, Texas just loosened its strict guidelines for who could receive the treatment. Texas’ Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) policy now allows prisoners to receive hormone therapy behind bars, even though they weren’t undergoing therapy prior to their incarceration.

Until last week, TDCJ only provided the treatment plan for inmates who went through hormone therapy before they were locked up. Now, any prisoner who is diagnosed with gender dysphoria — “clinically significant distress or impairment that is associated with the marked incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender” — can qualify for the treatment. Hormone therapy typically includes estrogen for trans women and testosterone for trans men.

TDCJ’s altered its policy in accordance with the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) updated classification of gender dysphoria, which is now considered a diagnosable condition. The change marks a small breakthrough for the state’s 212 transgender prisoners, but there are still many hoops they have to jump through in order to receive the hormones.

“Offenders are prescribed hormone therapy only after going through a rigorous process that includes being reviewed by a gender dysphoria specialist, an endocrinologist, and having an affirmative diagnosis,” Jason Clark, a spokesman for the TDCJ, clarified. “Only then would it be considered medically necessary and require the minimum level of treatment which is hormone therapy.”

LGBT policy advocates believe the policy is a slight improvement, but can still keep prisoners waiting long periods of time for treatment.

Lambda Legal attorney Demoya Gordon told the Associated Press, “We’re hearing from people that, for example, if they’re not close to the point where they’re going to try to perform surgery on themselves, or commit suicide or something like that, that their needs for treatment are not being taken seriously.”

Transgender people have a much higher suicide attempt rate than people in the general population, due to rejection, discrimination, violence, and harassment.

The denial of health care, including hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, is one of many ways prisons systematically discriminate against trans inmates, and it can fuel self-harm.

In the past few years, several trans inmates have made headlines for the drastic actions they took to change their bodies. Georgia prisoner Ashley Diamond, who was repeatedly raped and denied hormone treatments was so desperate that she attempted to castrate and kill herself. Michelle Norsworthy attempted suicide multiple times before a federal judge in California ruled that the state’s department of corrections had to provide sex reassignment surgery. That judge cited a trans woman who castrated herself in a Texas prison and forced the state

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Angela Davis and her sister Fania Davis were working for social justice before many of today’s activists were born. From their childhood in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, where their friends were victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, to their association with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party, to their work countering the prison-industrial complex, their lives have centered on lifting up the rights of African Americans.

In 1969, Angela Davis was fired from her teaching position at UCLA because of her membership in the Communist Party. She was later accused of playing a supporting role in a courtroom kidnapping that resulted in four deaths. The international campaign to secure her release from prison was led by, among others, her sister Fania. Angela was eventually acquitted and continues to advocate for criminal justice reform.

Inspired by Angela’s defense attorneys, Fania became a civil rights lawyer in the late 1970s and practiced into the mid-1990s, when she enrolled in an indigenous studies program at the California Institute of Integral Studies and studied with a Zulu healer in South Africa. Upon her return, she founded Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. Today, she is calling for a truth and reconciliation process focused on the historic racial trauma that continues to haunt the United States.

Sarah van Gelder: You were both activists from a very young age. I’m wondering how your activism grew out of your family life, and how you talked about it between the two of you.

Fania Davis: When I was still a toddler, our family moved into a neighborhood that had been all white. That neighborhood came to be known as Dynamite Hill because black families moving in were harassed by the Ku Klux Klan. Our home was never bombed, but homes around us were.

Continued on Page 7...

WHAT’S INSIDE

A MESSAGE FROM JASON

Dear friends, I hope this note finds you as well as possible.

As I write this letter from the Black and Pink office in Boston, I’m watching the rain fall, creating streams of water flowing down the street. There are a few trees outside the office window, bare branches reaching up into the sky like hands extending up from the parking lot. It is a lovely view to look up at.

My letter this month focuses on a submission that went out in the January issue of the Black and Pink newspaper. The submission was from Joshua (AKA Sonorous Nocturne). We have received many responses to his submission, and we will print as many as we can. I want to begin by apologizing for printing that submission. We have been clear in other issues of the newspaper that we do not print any articles, stories, or art that are oppressive or harmful. We acknowledge that no one of us wants to be defined by the worst thing we have ever done. However, that does not mean that we wish to create space to justify the harm we have caused.

We agree with many of you who responded that a child who has not reached puberty CANNOT consent to sexual contact with an adult. It is perfectly okay to use the newspaper to tell stories about your journey to take responsibility for the harm you caused. It is okay to ask each other questions about harm and feelings of guilt. It is not okay for us to print stories where someone details the harm they caused and justifies it. As an abolitionist organization, Black and Pink does not believe we can Statement of Purpose solve social problems by locking people up. This does Black & Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and “free world” allies who support not mean we do not believe people should be held each other. Our work toward the abolition accountable and responsible for their actions. We are of the prison industrial complex is rooted not trying to shame people for the things they have in the experience of currently and formerly done, but we are also not ignoring harm people admit incarcerated people. We are outraged by the specific violence of the prison industrial to. complex against LGBTQ people, and respond I also want to recognize that it may have through advocacy, education, direct service, been really hard, or triggering, for someone who has and organizing. experienced child sexual abuse to read that story last Black & Pink is proudly a family of people of all month. Reading about someone justifying sexual abuse races. as consensual can be really painful. I want to apologize, deeply, for that. While people detail lots of experiences About this Newspaper Since 2007, Black & Pink free world volunteers of being assaulted or harmed, it is very different to print a detailed story from someone describing the harm they have pulled together a monthly newspaper primarily composed of material written by our caused. I want to encourage people to take the space family’s incarcerated members. In response to needed to breathe and take care of yourself (as best as letters we receive, more prisoners receive the possible, given the reality of being locked up). We will newspaper each issue! do our best to prevent the printing of this kind of story This month, the newspaper is being sent to in the future by paying more attention to submitted over: 10,000 prisoners! stories at each stage of the process (when submissions Disclaimer: are typed, when they are selected for the paper, and Please note that the ideas and opinions expressed during the final approval of the issue). in the Black & Pink Newspaper are solely those of the authors and artists and do not necessarily reflect There was an organization called Generation the views of Black & Pink. Black & Pink makes no FIVE that was founded by survivors of child sexual representations as to the accuracy of any statements abuse who are working to end child sexual abuse within made in the Newspaper, including but not limited to legal and medical information. Authors and artists five generations. They give us these five strategies: bear sole responsibility for their work. Everything Leadership Development: train and support diverse published in the Newspaper is also on the internet— it can be seen by anyone with a computer. By community members and organizations to provide sending a letter to “Newspaper Submissions,” you leadership in ending child sexual abuse within their are agreeing to have your piece in the Newspaper communities. and on the internet. For this reason, we only publish First Names and State Location to respect Community Solutions: develop community-based people’s privacy. Pieces may be edited to fit our support networks and culturally relevant solutions to anti-oppression values and based on our Editing address child sexual abuse.

Guidelines.

Transformative Justice:build the capacity of communities to support survivor healing, foster offender accountability and recovery, and call bystanders into effective action.

Alternative Institutions: design alternative community CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO HOT institutions that prevent child sexual abuse and respond PINK! effectively to individual, family and community needs.

Seeking erotic short stories, poems, Movement Building: build a broad based social AND ART by Black & Pink incarcerated and free-world family members for a movement, creating change in the social values and new ‘zine. To be mailed, art cannot political conditions that allow for child sexual abuse to include full nudity. Please send continue. submissions (and shout outs to the As Black and Pink members we can begin authors from the first issue mailed practicing these things right now, whether you are in in January!) addressed to Black & prison or not. We have a responsibility to challenge each Pink - HOT PINK. This is a voluntary other and to work with each other to change. Black and project, and no money will be offered Pink works with all LGBTQ people regardless of their for submissions, but you might get the offense, we are not trying to shame anyone for anything chance to share your spicy story with they have done. We do want to invite our membership many others! The zine will be sent 1-2 times per year. To subscribe to receive to remember that we use the term family because we a copy of HOT PINK twice a year, are all looking out for each other. Part of looking out write to our address, Black & Pink for each other is inviting each other to change and GENERAL. encouraging each other to grow into stronger justiceseeking people. At the same time, being a family means Page 2 A Message from Jason A Decade of Black and Pink Change in BOP search policy for trans people Page 3, 4, 5 Letters to our Family Page 5 Celebrating A Decade of Black & Pink Video Transcript Continued Page 6 & 7 Poetry from the Heart Page 8 Letters to our Family Continued Page 9 Struggling for Rights The Forgotten Ones: Queer and Trans Lives in the Prison System Black & Pink Family Feedback Page 10 Struggling for Rights The Forgotten Ones: Queer and Trans Lives in the Prison System Continued Prison keeps us isolated. But sometimes, sisterhood can bring us together Page 11 The Radical Work of Healing: Fania and Angela Davis on a New Kind of Civil Rights Activism Continued Ashley Diamond Reaches Settlement with Ga. Dept. of Corrections Page 12 Calendar Addresses

Page 2 we have to support those of us who are survivors, acknowledge when we harm each other, and then work to address that harm. We keep building this movement together, even though it’s difficult, knowing that once there were no prisons, that day will come again.

In loving solidarity, Jason

BLACK AND PINK HOTLINE NUMBER!!!

After over a year of thinking about how to make this happen we are now announcing that people can call

us. The phone number is 617.519.4387. Your calls will be answered as often as possible. We are not currently able to set up accounts, so calls must be either pre-paid or collect. The hotline will be available Sundays 1-5pm (Eastern Time) for certain. You can call at other times as well and we will do our best to answer your calls.

The purpose of the hotline is for 3 primary things: 1. Story telling. We are trying to collect stories of incarcerated members to turn into a recording that we can play at our 10 year anniversary celebration in October. Your voices are important to us and we want to make sure they are part of this event. We want to make time to record your story if you give us permission.

2. Supportive listening. Being in prison is lonely, as we all know. The hotline is here for supportive listening so you can just talk to someone about what is going on in your life.

3. Organizing. If there are things going on at your prison in terms of lock downs, guard harassment, resistance, and anything else that should be shared with the public, let us know so we can spread the word.

Restrictions: The hotline is not a number to call about getting on the pen pal list or to get the newspaper.

The hotline is not a number to call for sexual or erotic chatting.

The hotline is not a number for getting help with your current court case, we are not legal experts.

We look forward to hearing from you! This is our first attempt at this so please be patient with us as we work it all out. We will not be able to answer every call, but we will do our best.

We are sorry to share that we can only accept prepaid calls at this time. We apologize to anyone who has been trying to get through to the hotline with no success. We are still working this system out. Thank you for being understanding.

Change in BOP search policy for trans people from Program Statement 5521.06, Searches of Housing Units, Inmates, and Inmate Work Areas: (2) Transgender Inmates. For purposes of pat searching, inmates will be pat-searched in accordance with the gender of the institution, or housing assignment, in which they are assigned. Transgender inmates may request an exception. The exception must be preauthorized by the Warden, after consultation with staff from Health Services, Psychology Services, Unit Management, and Correctional Services. Exceptions must be specifically described (e.g., “pat search only by female staff”), clearly communicated to relevant staff through a memorandum, and reflected in SENTRY (or other Bureau database; e.g., posted picture file). Inmates should be provided a personal identifier (e.g., notation on commissary card, etc.) that indicates their individual exception, to be carried at all times and presented to staff prior to pat searches.

LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY

Page 3

Dear Black & Pink, My name is Jack Martinez. I'm currently an inmate at A.S.P.C. Eyman/ at Florence, AZ. I'm housed in the "Special Management Unit" (S.M.U.) It's a housing unit for the state's so-called "Worst of the Worst" offenders. I'm housed here apparently for my good looks, haha, so I guess that makes me a "serious threat."

This place is a total chaotic joke, I currently got into a tango with the staff here. As a result, I'm suffering the extent of their retribution. The staff here have no respect or regard for the inmate(s) wellbeing or situation(s) so to speak.

Since being here since May of 2014, I've seen A LOT of negligence and total deliberate assault(s) by staff, directed and administered on the inmates.

Inmates housed here have gone (30) days or more without their personal property being issued to them (including hygiene.) Inmates are left locked in the shower in the heat for up to an hour at a time before staff come back and take(s) them out, inmate(s) wait at least (30) days or more before they are seen by medical staff to be treated for their situation. There are roaches in the dinner trays which are often dirty when chow is served, vegetables are brown, rotten and often times wilted when served. Inmates with mental issues often go overlooked and more often than not when an inmate reports that he is suicidal and wants to kill himself, staff just outright ignore the problem rather than dealing with the situation.

The list of antics and problems here go on and on...Yet what can one inmate do?

I'm not writing for sympathy, nothing of the sort. I'm just merely trying to find some light at the end of the tunnel by staying positive and keeping my mind right!

Jack, AZ

To their credit, it is not that the plan hasn't worked, but that the lies and distractions no longer hold most of us captive. The call to abolitionism is in our DNA and no amount of passive resistance will satisfy the urges for change.

The infamous reign of political terrorism has passed, and the system of fear-mongering, suppression, and supremacy ideals are falling with the new minority. Simple hatreds are being exposed; single identities and personalities are illuminated; Social interactions are increasing, and the world is drawing a new consensus about government and their role in supression.

We now see the evils of mass-incarceration as nothing less that the legal extermination of marginalized people of color. The fight over social equality and justice are center stage, it will remain so until all the power is returned from whence it came, the people.

Therefore, fight, or else...

Fight for justice, peace, equality and lasting change. Otherwise you will find yourself in between a rock and a hard place, like me. You can get a life sentence for stealing the things you need to survive out on the street. If you are in the inner-city take heed and stay with a group and a cause, join others in positive reform and in chance dialogue with the enemy. or else you will be limited in your fight to a pen and paper, essentially neutralized fight. I have my own fight in the system, but it is one of basic human needs, the stuff you might take for granted on the outs.

So Fight, or else...

You can come here with me and we'll take on the prison system for our human rights, you know, fight from within the devils' camp.

Sound like fun?

Cindy(CeCe), CA

Whats up Black and Pink? This ya boi Jit, Im a 26 year old Lesbian. I was born a female but I live, look and act like a male...Im doing damn good if I do say so myself (lol) I just wanted to say...To all my brothers/sisters out there, keep your head up and only down in prayer. I've been a solid member of Black and Pink for 4 and a half years now and it's been hella good receiving this news letter. Im living in a world of its own (prison) and Im sure many of yall can understand.

Greetings to my B&P Family!

I would like to take this time to give a well deserving "Thank You" to our founder and CEO of Black&Pink (Jason). I'm proud to have the opportunity to be a subscriber of this unique newspaper and apart of the family that's supportive of one another. This movement is far greater then myself, and with numbers come strength and power; it's without a doubt that this family will make a difference and impact across this nation. Jason, I sincerely wish you the best in your transition out of leadership, however, I hope that you remain head of the board as it was your vision and commitment that started this wonderful family.

My name is Paula D, for the sake of privacy. I'm incarcerated in Maryland, serving a five year bid for violation of probation. Im 28 years old, soon to be 29 in the coming days (Dec 21st to be exact). Since I've been apart of B&P I've had a reason to look forward to receiving the monthly newspaper. Reading stories of my fellow brothers and sisters have gotten me through some trying times. I can't even count on my fingers how many times I was down-in-out and once I got the paper my spirits was lifted because I realize that I'm not alone.

Thank you Jason and the whole black and pink family for your stories, words of wisdom and your undying love and support. I love you all and I continue to look forward towards your stories. To all continue your fight and commitment towards justice and equality and upon my release in "2017" I look forward to joining B&P in any capacity as needed; with love and appreciation "I love you all" Sincerely, Paula AKA Perry, MD

I just want to encourage my Black and Pink family to continue to encourage each other. Its hard being gay in prison cause the male officers envy ya cuz the way you chose to embrace yourself. Id had many many male officers tell me "Go put on a dress and stop acting like a boi" or "you a woman not a male" But I take it as they made cuz if It wasnt for these blues and time I got...They know as well as I know I can take they bxxxb and they main Hox (lol) "Ya mad or not" hahahaBlack and Pink I love yall man, fareal!

Alwayz and forever Littles AKA Jit, FL Dear Black & Pink Fam It's your brother LA from PA. If the PREA policy hasn't been implement in your prison it shortly will.

After reading the PA D.O.C. PREA policy, which is 80 pages (DC-ADM 008) I have a few concerns.

Firstly I'm grateful that now our sisters can order their cosmetics and clothing. Brothers there’s a kicker!

Under PA's PREA policy they can place any inmate under involuntary administrative custody, if there under the 'suspicion' of victim/predator rolls.

So brothers be careful how close your interactions become. If the prison says "well these two are getting too close" they will separate you. And brothers we have our one way ticket to administrative custody involuntary. And all they have to say every 30 days is your a predator.

There is at least three of us brothers in the RHU under these conditions.

I'm one and have been back here for 6 months now.

Brothers and sisters please understand that yes PREA is to protect us but until the prison systems learn how to correctly understand and implement this policy, there will be backlash and we're on the wrong end. Get acquainted with your prisons PREA policy so YOU understand.

I leave you with this quote: "Fraternity comes into being after the sons are expelled from the family; when they form their own club, in the wilderness, away from home, away from women. The brotherhood is a substitute family, a substitute womanAlma Mater."

By: Norman O. Brown God Bless, Your Brother Joshua, LA-PA FIGHT, OR ELSE...

There are so many battles right now being fought in the war. The "war is an individual-based struggle which calls its soldiers to fight for a cause greater than the individual. We rally around the cause for equality, justice, abolition and human dignity.

People are awakened from the darkness that casts a shadow over the deeds of mankind--and we are slowly gathering to arms. Too long have we sat idly by when it was and is in our power to do or say something against injustice.

Dear Family, Consider the next few paragraphs.

In the wake of several terrorist attacks, Paris and San Bernardino California, really. Obama has deemed that ISIS needs now to be destroyed and simply not just contained. Yet Obama backs planned parenthood selling of aborted baby (fetus) tissue.

Trump wants to ban all Muslims from entering America. Can you say violation of constitutional right to freedom of religion? Is this the land of the free, Christian or soon solely, the atheist.

Heres a treat, Trump wants to send immigrants back to there motherlands. Lol! That means the only people left would be the Native Americans. AMERIKKA wouldn't want to do that would they?

The supreme court is now trying to distinguish "one person, one vote".

Should it be by population or eligiable voters? As it stands its population, which prisons give the area there in a bosst in numbers. Yet prisoners can't vote. Yet many free world people make excuses, can't, don't or won't vote. So really politicians voting for politicians.

The LGBT Community stood strong during the summer and gave a victory for most , with the ruling on same sex marriage. Where's the LGBT community at now? Back behind closed doors or underground. Radical "Amerikka" Christians some what satisfiy'd?

Now lets really get to the meat of what really ticks me off.

It takes over a year and a court ruling for the release of a dash cam of a white police officer pumping 16 shots into a 17 year old African American.

Aren't dash cams public record? The "Biggest" gang in Amerikka shows it hand once again. #BlacklivesMatter!

Whats all these have in common? They impact minorities and mainly the African American community.

As A white transgender woman I use to question, what about the white communities? I've come to realize this, there’s only one white community and that’ s Amerikka.

Continued on Page 4...

LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY CONTINUED ...Continued from Page 3...Family I pray for anyones lives that are impacted by any of these issues. As a transgender woman my fight is hard, but theres so many worse off.

I love you all a pray for your safety.

Love your sister, Tiffany XO, PA I am a lesbian woman in a Texas prison. I suppose you could say I’m a soft butch/tomboy. My walk, short hair cut and obvious attraction to women is a proud giveaway to the life I've chosen to live after many years of confusion during an abusive upbringing. But its hard to be proud and invoke my right to freedom of expression as granted to me under my U.S. Constitutional rights when I'm faced with the critically pre-judicial views of the authority structures around me. For those of us who are in touch with, and comfortable expressing our sexuality-it can be a problem.

A day for me in prison consists of: •Accusations of sexual misconduct when socializing with other women-"Scoot over! You're too close to her" when the two straight [women] behind us are much closer. Or "I've got my eyes on you." as if being a lesbian means problems are imminent.

•Frequent & humiliating personal & cell searches coupled with comments like "any love kites on you?"

•Extreme punishment and rebuke when faced with a typical misunderstanding that would otherwise be of no concern or interest in the case of a straight woman.

•Grueling and harsh questioning in matters of little or no importance (such as why I have 2 pieces of candy in my pocket and not one) all in an effort to antagonize me, anticipating an aggressive ie. action in which case would warrant cause for further punishment/harassment.

Authorities claim a liberal approach to the LGBT prisoners when faced with their own inconsistent and unfair obvious abuse of power-going as far as condemning us to guilt for the simple ground of our reasoning and defense: peacefully declaring that their acts of stereotyping, prejudice and bias to conservatism in a system where it doesn't belong.

So what do we in the LGBT community do as individuals fighting for our right to freedom of expression? Live in fear and walk around on eggshells, hiding who we are to avoid the drama. No! It's not against the law or the rules in a Texas prison to BE LGBT, only to act on it by engaging in sexual misconduct...with anyone for that matter. Being LGBT, or not, can not legally be a determining factor when creating policy or making authoritative decisions in a prison. But it seems that lately more and more abuse of power and harassment stemming from personal beliefs, opinions and values have occurred. And the personal satisfaction of illegally expressing these prejudicial beliefs (incognito) in a system where it shouldn't be seems to have taken precedent over so-called policy.

In fact, its not about "policy" or "rules" at all. Its about people and their beliefs acting as a control factor within the system to de-humanize us for our choice.

Diedre, TX

Dear Black and Pink, I just got my first copy of the paper this past week and I am looking forward to more. Lot's of great information from everyone and some very strong stories that tug at the heart.

I wanted to comment on a couple of things. : First to Miss Angel in Nevada...I'm glad to finally got the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) info. Better late than never. For anyone else experiencing Sexual harassment or rape from wither staff or another inmate, your institution is required to have visible and available for you to call from ANY inmate phone. If you are a victim of PREA and just need some emotional support you can call 855-210-2087 from any inmate phone. In either case you should not have to enter your PIN, which would otherwise identify you to the administration.

Jery in FL..it was through the PRAC publication that I found B&P. PARC is a very valuable publication full of information regarding issues of incarceration. There's also free books to inmates and educational opportunities as well. Thanks for the tip on the Tightwad magazines. sending out a letter tonight!

Thomas in PA...very brave of you to finally come forward on your actions. I hope this brings both you and Michael the peace you need and deserve.

I am a gay man in Washington state facility. It took me being arrested to finally come out of the closet but what a huge weight off my shoulders. Im not specifically out here but most of my friends know. It isn't an important fact because it doesn't define who I am. I'm Christian, and, yes Jesus does love me. There is no hate. He died for the forgiveness of our sins. We were born primarily to love and serve the Lord and to love and serve each other. Love is the meaning of life no matter who you love. you don't have to like everyone, we are just called to love. No sin is worse than any other so if you are ridiculed by what you have done in the past...let it go. You are loved!!

That's all I have. I hope to contribute often and I look forward to reading your letters and stories. I will be setting up a pen-pal listing when that comes around, too!

I love you all, unconditionally!! Peace be with you always.

Mark, WA

Page 4 Dear Black and Pink First let me thank you for the postcard. (It was the only mail I got for the Holidays.) it is on my wall where I can see it all the time :) I have no family. But I do have my Black & Pink family, I am at Mt. Olive Prison in West Virginia, and in LockDown in a supermax pod I am doing 18 months in the supermax unit. I am doing Life without for a murder they say I done! Well anyway, the reason I am writing is to say Thank You! You all made my Christmas Holiday (a hell of a lot better just to know I do have someone to help me stay strong!) Thank you so much, I love all my family at Black & Pink.

I have been incarcerated for almost 10 years now. And I have struggled with being (gay) people like CO's and people in power in the prisons look down on us, but they will put (2) two gay guys in a cell together and when they are busted by CO's for having (sex) they want to lock us down and then AD-seg us to super max and make us do an 18-month program called "Quality of Life".

This program is b***s***!! They use this program to control Inmates. See I was in a special management correctional facility in Moundsville, WV. I used to go to church all the time, then the 8 other inmates found it not so acceptable that a gay man was in the church so they had one of the Inmate leaders of the church have a chat with me, and more or less told me that I was not welcomed in the church. So this situation had me so disgusted that I attended a Devil Church! I did not like that, so I went to one of my gay friends and told them what happened and the next week when the church call came around he had me and 23 other gay and bi Inmates go to the church. You should have seen the other Inmates, and come to find out most of the Inmates in the church was in the closet. (LOL) Well Thank you for letting me vent about the b***s*** that happens in most of the prisons in West Virginia.

Now I have an Issue I would like to know if you can help me with. As I told you in this letter I was on special management, well the reason I was on it was due to separation issues at the Mt. Olive Correctional Complex. I was sent to the Northern Correctional Facility in Moundsville, WV to be protected from being killed at the MT. Olive Prison that was March 31 2009, and on March 6th 2015, they moved me back to Mt. Olive Prison on Administrative Segregation to the Quality of Life program, then some of the same Inmates I had separation Issues with was in the same Pod as I was, then they started telling me they was going to kill me, they slung poop and pee under my cell door so many times that the smell was so bad. The CO's moved me to a cell next to one of them.

I told them that I had problems with that Inmate, they told me "oh well Deal with it". I have requested to be put back on "Special Management" and to this date 12/15/15 I have not been told anything. And one of the Inmates that I have issues with just got his cell door open and jumped on an Inmate that was handcuffed and shackled. The Inmate was sent to the Hosp, he had some cuts and a broken nose and then he told me well "B**** you are Next". I told him look I am not a b**** I am gay and the top person in my relationships. then he told me well anyway you are next and I will have my shank this time. I am so Terrified I will not go to the rec or go out for a shower. I use the sink in my cell to shower in, the CO's in this prison show encouragement to Inmates that will kill someone and most of the CO's are terrified of them too.

Sorry I went on and on, please forgive me but now I feel a lot better, cause I know some one will know how I feel.

Sincerely Yours, Dale, WV Dear Black and Pink Family, My dear brothers and sisters of Black and Pink, its me Kasper again!

Its been a while since I've written.

Here on the unit we've also been having trouble getting our newsletters, so I've gotten a bit behind on the going's on. I want all of you to know that I pray for all of you to the goddess everyday!

Here lately I've taken a much more involved role in the incarcerated LGBT Community! I try to get our brothers and sisters to be proud of who they are! I know that when I look around I, like other gay men, can see those who try to conceal their sexuality. I see these individuals, see them try and prove that their something they are not, and I know that it makes them miserable!

I sit them down, and I tell them that there is no reason to be ashamed of their sexuality! I mean I have always been openly gay and yeah, people do downgrade me for that, but who are they to judge me!

A friend of mine recently said something to me "that once you've reached your 30s, you quit caring what people think about you." More recently, my lover asked me how it does it not bother me what peoples opinions of me are. Now, my response in both cases were "Its not that we (I) don't care what people opinions are, I (we) just have learned those people who's opinions truly matter."

My dear brothers & sisters, Let things go! Find those people who you need in your life, those you cannot live without, those dear and most trusted friends, and know those are people who's opinions truly matter! Anyone else, their opinions should not affect your life. Hear what they say and yes if it does ring true, make some necessary changes, but otherwise do not let those opinions make you miserable! You have to live your life for you, no one else!

If you live your life how others want you to, you'll never be happy.

This advice is the same as I have given to my lover, Sasha, who is finally beginning to heed my advice. By the way, I wish to let all of my family know, as soon as I can, I will be asking her to marry me, here's hoping he says yes, wish me luck.

In love and Solidarity Goddess Bless -Kasper-, TX

LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY CONTINUED Dear Black and Pink, First off I want to thank Black and Pink. I received my first issue the September 2015 issue. I really enjoyed the reading.

My name is Miguel Antonio aka Anthony Michaels. I am a member of the LGBTQ family. I love and respect all members of our community. I am locked up in Colorado for distribution/possession schedule II substance and escape. I am down to the last of this sentence, only months left. I've seen a lot of bad stuff happen to our community. I've put my life and freedom on the line behind bullies in the system. Let me say I feel for Ashley Diamond, Kiesha, TX, Titia, CA, Michelle KS, and Chelsea E. Manning. I feel for you all. Keep your head up whether in prison or on the outside. My best friend and girlfriend for 5 years is transgender and I couldn't imagine her being in a place like this.

I am very proud of her. She has been there for me in and out. She has worked hard to beat stereotypes. She's out there working to get jobs and still finds time for me. I'm just saying, if you got daylight, get out and work hard.

People will see who you are and they will respect you.

As for Animal, CA, Earl AK, Rob MI, Luke OH, Timber UT, I love y'all. Keep them chins up and think positive.

Wiz Kid, TX, I think you on to something real but that might stop the revolving door and they sure are greedy, but keep up the good work.

Geoff from NY and MA get all the help you can. We can never give up on fams. Hope you get better soon. <3 Skittles IL, you remind me of my closest relative, just younger. When we were your age we were like Starsky and Hutch till the wheel fall off and they did- still didn't stop us. Love you. Much love fams.

I loved hearing all your stories. I wish we could all be in touch somehow.

If it's possible you will hear from me.

Much love and respect, Anthony Michaels, CO Dear Black and Pink Family, Hello, This is you Brother Josh AKA Love Always from PA. You my recall my article from the June 2015 issue about my fiancé and I's marriage inside the D.O.C. and the grievance filed. An update on that. Once the grievance was remanded back to the prison, the prison said my fiancé and I could get married, but we had to file the marriage policy all over again. Well we did. My fiancé's block guard came to her cell and questioned her up and down about who, why and when. On my end my counselor wouldn't start the paperwork, so I filed another grievance on gender-discrimination and retaliation. I have two attorneys one from Philadelphia (PA) and one from Orlando (FL) working alongside me on this matters.

Yet this is not why I write you my brothers and sisters. After reading "A Message from Jason" in June 2015's issue, I feel I must say something.

I also feel annoyed by Justice Kennedy's closing paragraph. LGBTQ members NOT getting married are NOT condemned to loneliness.

I choose to marry because I want that engagement in my relationship, to be bonded as one and recognized with my partner. My choice doesn't mean that members in our LGBTQ family don't have the highest ideals for love, sacrifice and family.

Justice Kennedy got that one wrong!!!

I do pray that now that the fight for marriage equality has been fought and won, that more time, effort, and funds are placed towards other struggles.

For one the prison system needs destroyed.

I'd love to see help towards the struggle of our immigrant LGBTQ members that are held under ICE. If we American citizens of the LGBTQ think we have it rough, I can only imagine what its like for an immigrant LGBTQ member trying to live free in Good Ol' U.S. of A. I commend your work Jennicet Gutierrez from the Front page of the June 2015 issue.

While one battle has been won, there lays many still unsolved.

A few shout outs. Nahbeel (PA) loved your poem "Happiness" in May 2015 issue, I can understand your mindset. Gizmo from (PA) I'm in the RHU now and will be until my max date, hold your head up high. Ms. Juicy (NV) stay strong and keep helping those in NV. Alright family I'm done. I love you all. Keep your heads held high.

With much love, Your Brother, Josh AKA Love Always, PA OUTREACH TIME COMMENTARY: In April, somewhat of a summit was held at the White House that involved Transgender Woman of color. Personally I think it was a good thing, that transwoman of color finally got an opportunity to have an audience in the White House. I believe it to be a good thing whenever people from a marginalized group get a chance to address the problems that plague that group of people.

As an African American transwoman, I'm sure I relate to most if not all the problems discussed at this briefing. My problem is, first it was just a briefing, and second, that things like this are not done on the state-and-locallevels. For the most—part-in-most-cities; -the members of the transgender community are ignored until a crime is committed either against , or by a member of the community and in many cases, a crime committed against a transgender person invariably becomes a crime committed "by" a transgender person, and that person is going to prison, or at the very least, jail.

Page 5 What I would like to see at these "briefings" is a presence by transwoman who are incarcerated. There has to be a point where the care and treatment of Transgender inmates becomes a serious discussion among the people who can create and enforce policy within the prison industrial complex.

The existing policy for transgender care and treatment is nonexistent, insomuch as there are blanket policies against transgender inmates being transgender. There are unspoken rules among the staff that allows them to disrespect and abuse trans inmates simply because (in their words), "this is a men’s prison" and you are not woman. This opens the door for all manner of abuses, which are readily used.

Many times the problems of Trans men and woman in prisons across america, is that we are not taken seriously, and often have to go into long protracted court battles to get taken seriously, almost always, when we win those battles, the state appeals as if it is wrong, and they are being disrespected by the court for being made to respect a human being. So for these reasons and many more there should be someone at these meetings to account for the Trans prisoners.

I for one would welcome the opportunity to be abłe to (by phone), attend one of these conferences and address as many issues as possible, primarily because I feel that if you want to know if water is wet, sometimes you have to put your hand in it. I am (obviously) always available to have these conversations, either by phone or in person if need be. We, the Prison Transgender community are the ones best equipped to tell you what's really going on.

With that said, it's OUTREACH TIME::: Fatima Dear B&P, I'm writing in direct response to a few questions Jason posed in B&P June 2015. I subscribe to B&P so that I can gain perspective into the struggle of those around me, You ask specifically about what makes marriage the most profound union? What about this state sanctioned relationship do you think holds the highest ideals of love, sacrifice, and family? Why do you think people who are unmarried are somehow condemned to loneliness? Do you agree with Justice Kennedy's assessment of marriage?

What makes marriage a profound union is tax breaks. We live in america where there is supposed to be a separation between church and state.

But, you have very "religious" pundits (not politicians) who project the "holy" union of marriage into the system of government to persuade the deaf, dumb & blind. Think about this the Supreme Court had to find a reason to bring the issue up in court. The court can't speak on religion, if it did we'd all be condemned to hell. So money had to be a factor. All that other fluffy sh*t is smoke and mirrors.

Marriage isn't state sanctioned. The tax break/credits are the paperwork is sanctioned. If people really wanted to say they were married all they'd have to say is I see you as me we are one #married. Simple. But in this capitalistic environment you always have to ask where can I make some bread from this venture? Let's not downplay the talktivism and slacktivism that goes on in any movement. People sell out for personal gain once that is on the table the movement is co-opted and moved towards a Democratic party slogan. They aren't Real Democrats they are neo liberalist under "Democratic" cloaks.

People who aren't married aren't condemned to a life of loneliness.

Some people don't believe in the ideal of marriage. Because it's an oppressive union by nature. For example I am Izkallah I'm a five %er I don't believe in Religion I practice the science of Islam which is peace My political foundation is Kemetic, i.e. socialist science. You can't redistribute natural human rights without first ridding yourself of all oppressive institutions.

I don't agree with the Supreme Court because how I see it the principle contradiction is church (which condemns gay rights) vs. state (shouldn't condemn gay rights). Why would anyone who supports a church/religion recognize a gov't. When the constitution separates matters of the church from matters of the state. The real issue is how do you exploit a market of untapped buying power in an economy that is slow? How can we as a gov't move the economy? Those are the questions. The movement sold out as soon as the law passed. Just like the NAACP did in the 60s. The only way to true freedom is liberation from ALL oppression.

Peace, D.P. Toussant, CA P.S. Does the church support B&P and the LGBTQ movement? Do they struggle with doctrine or do they overlook "sin"?

Letters Continued on Page 8....

Page 6

POETRY FROM THE HEART PRIDE

He Calls Me Baby.

I'm proud of who I am of what I am, what I like WIth pride I take a stand all who oppose take a hike I don't feel bad at all because they don't agree From weakness I won't fall nor tremble at the Knee

He calls me baby

In numbers there is strength those like me are many who'll go the extra length LGBTQ plenty they think I'm all alone Look again, we are one my pride will keep me strong I won't quit until we're done!

Prince Osiris, FL

In the privacy of our aloneness When we shut the door on the world Locking us away from prying eyes And vicious tongues.

He calls me baby In a way that draws me near And locks me into the warmth Of his arms.

He calls me baby When he’s in that mood.

Double Stance Confusion is who I am The only constant in my life Its why I have no friends to talk with Its why I have to write.

It leaves me vulnerable, influenceable So easy to be led astray.

Heart's laden with good intentions These two minds often render me unstable The mediocracy of my life derives from the thorny vines of unbalance I'm neither up nor down nor left or right These hurricanes fight violently, chasing away the silence.

The essence of good will, ripped open, poisoned by unkindness

The mood when silence is golden And words are not needed.

He calls me baby In a voice low and guteral Making it sound almost pornographic Making me love it When he calls me Baby.

Tim, FL

Two entries with two different propensities Not enough clarification Both valley for space, neither friend nor enemy This double stance will soon be the end of me socially Arya, PA

Inside these walls, I do not feel like me.

Treated like a man, when will they see.

Behind lock and key, innocent of my charge.

I’m a girl inside, as my Beauty is Large.

I will be the true me one day.

When Proven Innocent what will they say.

My Transition is in Process, starting with life.

When I’m happy, I’ll feel no need for a razor, or a knife.

Nobody knows what us as girls on the inside go through.

One day I will feel brand new.

Haunted by razor blades, dope, and being falsely in here.

One day my enemies will have that fear.

Is really hard right now, don’t know what to do My father is a homophobe, and would abandon me if he knew I know that for sure, so I keep it to myself I write R&B songs and sing my sorrow Maybe someone feels how I do Maybe you’ll reach out Or maybe you won’t Maybe you think I deserve someone or maybe you don’t My confidence and self-esteem is on empty I really want to be happy B&P newspaper opened my eyes Opened my soul, and tugged the strings of my heart This is a new start I say to myself All of us deserve to be treated equal I believe with all of myself But I just saw a gay man get beat up That’s why I keep being bi to myself Until I get out in 2017 Where I can finally feel free To be who I am And love who I want to To the Black and Pink Family and all of those like me, I really do love you. In loving solidarity

Cici, TX

Kenya, MN

One Day

POETRY FROM THE HEART & STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED

Page 7

At times we love a little Other times we love a lot But we love and we love No matter what the cost....

...Continued from Page 1...

Angela Davis: Fania is probably too young to remember this, but I remember that strange sounds would be heard outside, and my father would go up to the bedroom and get his gun out of the drawer, and go outside and check to see whether the Ku Klux Klan had planted a bomb in the bushes. That was a part of our daily lives.

We love and we love At times the feelings of the heart Fade away and they are lost Once what was a warm heart, Now it's cold and covered in frost...

Many people assume that the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was a singular event, but actually there were bombings and burnings all the time. When I was 11 and Fania was 7, the church we attended, the First Congregational Church, was burned. I was a member of an interracial discussion group there, and the church was burned as a result of that group.

We love and we love These things here on Earth Even some things up in Heaven above But we never even stop.

We keep going and going and going We love and we love....

We grew up in an atmosphere of terror. And today, with all the discussion about terror, I think it’s important to recognize that there were reigns of terror throughout the 20th century.

The Lady in the Woods, PA

Sarah: So where were you when you heard the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had happened?

"We Love"

“We went to segregated schools, libraries, churches. We went to segregated everything!”

Fania: I was attending high school in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. And I didn’t take no stuff from nobody. I was always talking about James Baldwin or Malcolm X, and always bringing up issues of racial equity and justice.

"LOVE" Love... It's a four-letter word, that can heal or cause hurt. Or even do both like a mom giving birth. Love can be so strong.

Yet if we misuse it, it could be so wrong.

We fight in this battlefield, with swords of steel, that pierce heart, and cause tears to rip us apart. At moments we can be so fierce. If only they knew how it feels to be so weird. And they ask how can a man be so queer? Heartache can make it seem as if the earth stood still.

Someday you'll see that love can be so real.

I heard about the bombing when my mother told me that one of the girls’ mother had called her up—because they were close friends—and said, “There’s been a bombing at the church. Come and ride down with me so we can get Carole, because Carole’s at church today.” And they drive down there together, and she finds that there is no Carole, she’s been … there’s no body even. I think it fueled this fire, the fire of anger and just made me determined to fight injustice with all of the energy and strength that I could muster.

Sarah: Can you say more about what everyday life was like for you growing up?

Angela: We went to segregated schools, libraries, churches. We went to segregated everything!

Quadre, IL

Fania: Of course, in some ways it was a good thing that we were very tight as a black community.

Freedom's Bliss

When we went outside of our homes and communities, the social messaging was that you’re inferior: You don’t deserve to go to this amusement park because of your color or to eat when you go downtown shopping. You must sit in the back of the bus.

Summer's Day, what a blessing it is to have, In many a way, it does share freely to all.

The bright azure sky, the lush green carpet below, I see all playing in everything but snow.

Such warmth the sun do share And in all just ways it's light shines and illuminates the bare.

Now in such a time, Nature does run free And if we allow it so can we.

For even though the world binds us in gloom, It can never shackle our minds in darkness Catarina, CA

At the same time, at home, our mother always told us, “Don’t listen to what they say! Don’t let anybody ever tell you that you’re less than they are.”

And so I found myself—even as a 10-year-old—just going into the white bathrooms and drinking out of the white water fountains, because from a very early age I had a fierce sense of right and wrong. My mother would be shopping somewhere else in the store, and before she knew it, the police were called.

Sarah: Let’s skip ahead to when it became clear that you, Angela, were going to need a whole movement in your defense. And Fania, you ended up spending years defending her.

Fania: Yeah, about two years.

Angela: In 1969, I was fired from a position in the philosophy department at UCLA. That’s when all the problems started, and I would get threats like every single day. I was under attack only because of my membership in the Communist Party.

“It was an exciting era because people really did believe that revolutionary change was possible.”

Fania: Angela had been very involved with prison-rights activism at the time, leading demonstrations up and down the state. And then she was all over the news: “Communist Fired From Teaching at UCLA,” you know, “Black Power Radical.”

Angela: Then in August 1970, I was charged with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. And so I had to go underground. I found my way to Chicago, then to New York and Florida, and finally I was arrested in New York in October.

It was during the time that I was underground that the campaign really began to develop.

Art by Mike S, CA

Sarah: So, Fania, when did you turn your focus to supporting your sister’s cause?

Continued on Page 11...

Page 8

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS A Letter Responding to Joshua (aka Sonorous Nocturne) published in January 2016 First, let me say that it was courageous of you to write your opinions about the issue of involving children in sexual situations. Don't get me wrong.

I do not advocate such involvement even though I, too, was guilty of not only hand-on offending but also the spreading around and possession of Internet child pornography. I know all too well the appeal of seeing children as sexual beings. I even used your logic by saying children approach adults for sex, pose for naked pictures of themselves or with other children, and looking at images of child pornography was better than hands-on touching a child. I also subscribed to the theory that not everyone accused of pedophilia is such a person. I no longer hold those views. Let me explain why, and understand that this is just something or you, and others, to consider. It is my opinion now, twenty years after the first conviction, and while I'm still involved in the legal process through a civil commitment process.

True, children being involved with other children with in five (5) years of their own age is something that happens. Most kids do, as you said, play "show you mine, show me yours." However, these children are usually always close in age, interest, experience, and knowledge. For someone, say, eighteen (18) and older to play the game with a minor child is completely inappropriate because of the differential in those same factors. I am not debating whether some children (who usually have already been victimized or are imitating something they've been shown or seen) can and do seem to make the first move sexually. I am not debating whether or not they can also "want" to continue the attention they receive from the older person in a sexual way. You did ask the question of was what you did really so wrong. My opinion now is that, yes, it was/is wrong just as the same as what I did wrong, whether hands-on or through images of child pornography.

Ask yourself this: if the person under eighteen is truly sexually aware and/or active, how did they get that way? Does having multiple sexual acts with such a person over a long period of time make it any more right? Wouldn't the difference be that subjecting a child to such prolonged exposure to sexual things only further complicate their understanding of what is right versus what is wrong with such situations? There are laws to protect children that are put in place for very good reasons. First, it is very harmful to the child's development as a child to be exposed to adult sexual situations. A child's body simply and factually is not mature enough for an adult to have sex with under even the best of circumstances. A person's mind does not mature fully until their early twenties, and neither does their understanding of many things.

Some of the things a child cannot fully understand, beyond the fact that what can, but rarely actually does happen, to their bodies during sexual exposures, can in some ways feel good. A molester (and I use that term reluctantly) does not do his/her "job" properly if it does not cause the child to feel good and believe they participate in their own abuse or that they want it to happen again. That is one way in which early sexual encounters are harmful.

They cause the victim to believe everything is right, proper, and okay, when it isn't. You said that you had no sexual experience until you were nineteen (19) and then it was with your nine (9) year old cousin. Okay. So, what if you had the experience he had but when you were nine? Would you, at nine, have wanted an older male to do things to you when you didn't really know what your body was doing in response, only that it somehow "felt good?" Put yourself in your cousin's place. I'll bet all he really wanted was to please his older cousin and be accepted by him. He liked the video games and contact with you and seemed to indicate he "wanted" sexual contact with you, which you interpreted as the go-ahead from him to do with him what you did. That's how it was for the child I victimized twenty years ago. That's something I'll regret for the rest of my life.

There are five areas that need to be in place for a sexual relationship to be considered appropriate or healthy. (1) It involves equal partners. This does NOT mean adult/child, boss/employee, sober/drunk, etc. (2) capable of giving and withholding consent. This means both are legally able to voluntarily agree to, as well as to refuse sexual contact. (3) Involved in a relationship of affection and respect. Both persons are known to each other, aware of any conditions which violate the first two areas, and are sensitive to negative consequences to either party as an outcome of the sexual contact. (4) It is for the purpose of giving and receiving pleasure. This means making sure your partner receives pleasure and the sex is not for selfish pleasure. An adult with a child is selfish because they are not thinking of the consequences to the child or others. (5) Aware of unintended consequences. This covers areas such as STDs, pregnancy, divorces, loss of jobs, imprisonment, and other such topics.

There is no scenario ever that involves an adult with a child that passes all five of these criteria for a healthy sexual relationship.

As to your challenge to stop and rethink things, trying to find that the "monsters" aren't quite as monstrous as they are "made out to be," Joshua, this speaks well to your own current state of mind in trying to find rationale and justifications for your decisions that put you where you are. Your victim, nor the family, nor the system put you there. You did. I put me in the system, too.

That's the truth, and the responsible thing to remember. I have all the love in the world for you as a brother/sister/human being who, like me, made poor decisions. I'm sorry yours happened at the age it did, but at lease you have a CHANCE to change your thoughts and ideology and turn your life around now, not waiting until you're in your fifties. I never molested my own children, and they are a year older than you. I'm writing this to you, specifically, and to anyone else to whom it applies, in the hope that perhaps instead of searching

for unrealistic reasons why what you (and I) did was right, we can all face the fact that it was indeed wrong and should not have happened at all. I share the frustrations of society painting all sex offenders with the same broad strokes of definitions as monsters. I think that in order to change that view, it better serves the cause to search for understanding as to why we chose as we did, correct that thinking, and prove to society that a sex offender CAN change. This is in direct opposition to the Nancy Grace's of the world who scream from the hilltops that we are monsters. Joshua, your point of view, in my humble opinion, only gives that view fuel. Rethinking YOUR position can help take that fuel away and do more good than the thoughts you prescribe. Please consider that and know this is said with all the best intentions in the world, not to shame or chastise you in any way. Again, you were courageous for stating your views. I hope you can be courageous, too, in changing them. So, yes, Joshua, this does return the love you sent out to others. Be safe.

Thank you for taking time to consider this reply. My best to all the others out there in prison, sex offenders or not. My thoughts and hopes are with each of you.

M, IL Changed My Ways Love & Respect Family, I recently received and read the January 2016 B&P paper. There are a couple of things I would like to comment on, but first I want to address the survey recently distributed. The survey reflects a lot that we kinda already knew; that people and the system are fixated on targeting and discriminating against African Americans, especially transgender folk. As a person of Northern European descent, I see many of my peers engaging in racial slurs and jokes. This is NOT OK! And it makes me sick. When I say the same they look at me like I'm stupid. F*** that! I call upon all, to stand up for our brothers and sisters, and say NO this is NOT OK, and we're not gonna let this happen. My first time in prison at 18 I fell into the wrong path in CA Pen. I let the write supremacist lead me down a f***ed path. It's taken me 10 years to find the right path, which is just being myself and loving all people. And oh my god, it's so much easier.

I also wish to comment on the article/letter by Joshua AKA Sonorous Nocturne in the Jan. 2016 B&P. It is not, at all, in any way, OK to have an an adult engage in sexual activity with children. I must respectfully dissent with your statements and justifications. Just because it's been happening for thousands of years does not make it OK. Most world religions have persecuted GLBTIQ people for thousands of years. Doesn't make it OK! Right. Look bro, I am not not up with the hype, nor do I hate all sex offenders. You CAN be strong and not make the same mistakes you've made in your past: "Cura Personalis" (The creation of a person as a whole). As a Buddhist, and through my Buddhist training, I have learned something about compassion and developing a compassionate heart, so Joshua know that although you have some time to do you can better yourself, physically, spiritually, and mentally.

You don't have to do your time alone, you are loved by our community bro. It's not easy, I know, I'm relatively young and LWOP. I've had to peel myself off the bottom of the barrel too many times to count. But if you dig deep you WILL find a little extra, and it won't be so bad. Also, cultivate strong interpersonal (friendships) relationships. OH and music certainly helps, personally I love Framing Hanley (songs: Twisted Halos, Built for Sin, Livin' So Divine) and Three Days Grace (songs: Fallen Angel, Human Race) and of course AFI (A Fire Inside).

Finally, stay safe, look out for one another, and know you are NOT alone. You are loved.

Keep on keep'n' on- your bro "likewise" HDSP - NV P.S. Also, if you get the opportunity read the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Illustration by Ethan Parker

Page 9

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED The Forgotten Ones: Queer and Trans Lives in the Prison System By Grace Dunham, Feb 8 2016 published in The New Yorker late 2011, as Chelsea Manning awaited trial at the military corrections complex at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, she received a book from an anonymous sender called “Captive Genders,” an anthology of writings about the impact of the prison system on queer and trans people. Two years later, on August 22, 2013—the day after she was found guilty of multiple charges related to her leaking of classified government documents, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison—Manning publicly came out as a trans woman.

This past November, a second edition of “Captive Genders” was released, with a new essay by Manning about the ways in which the military and the corrections system police gender expression. Manning has felt female since childhood; while in the Army, she was diagnosed with “gender-identity disorder.” But reading “Captive Genders” gave her newfound awareness of institutionalized gender-based violence. The book brings together the work of activists, artists, and academics, many of whom are current or former prisoners; it challenges hierarchies of expertise, presenting recollection, poetry, and theory as equally legitimate mediums for political critique. Communicating through her lawyer, Chase Strangio, of the A.C.L.U., Manning told me that the book “had a forceful and immediate impact on my understanding of myself.” She continued, “It walks readers through the reasons why … the vast majority of us are totally screwed. We don’t have money. We don’t have stable careers or families. We don’t have our own voice in the community. We don’t fit into—and don’t want to fit into—the gendered stereotypes of modern society.”

For prisoners in the United States, many of whom live in solitary confinement or without consistent access to the Internet, hard copies of books, newsletters, and zines are the only reliable way to access contemporary political discourse.

It is up to friends, activists, and organizers on the outside to deliver content to those living within prison walls. For Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith, the activist-academics who edited “Captive Genders”, maximum accessibility for people on the inside was one of the project’s core goals. “We knew that if this was a Web-based project, then its circulation inside prisons would be much less,” Stanley told me. “And so the more traditional format of a book seemed vital.” Organizations such as Black & Pink do the work of locating L.G.B.T.Q. prisoners, through surveys and newsletters, but activists and prisoners continually run the risk of having their correspondence confiscated. According to Stanley, since the collection’s initial publication, in 2011, approximately five hundred copies have reached L.G.B.T.Q. prisoners on the inside.

At this point, it is common knowledge that the Unites States prison system incarcerates more people, and for longer periods of time, than any other prison system in the world. What is often referred to as the prison industrial complex is one of the fastest growing and most profitable industries of the past halfcentury. But while reform-minded politicians typically focus on shortening sentences and improving living conditions, Stanley, Smith, and the dozens of others who contributed to “Captive Genders” argue, through historical analysis and personal experience, that the prison system should be abolished altogether.

To shrink, let alone eliminate, the prison system would require a drastic and total restructuring of society. But abolition as a political practice asserts that there is an alternative—that punishment, confinement, and captivity are simply conventions with which many have grown complacent. Abolition envisions a world in which accountability is decoupled from punishment.

Critics working within academia have written extensively about the correlation between race, policing, and incarceration. Scholars of prison studies, such as Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Michelle Alexander, have used the abolitionist framework to argue that, in the modern era, populations formerly controlled through slavery and colonization—namely, poor black and indigenous peoples—are now controlled through the prison system. But it is only in the past decade that academics have begun to take up the question of how gender identity, particularly for trans and gender-nonconforming people, relates to the prison system. “Captive Genders” is, perhaps, the seminal collection to do this work.

The book makes plain the mechanisms that drive queer and trans people— predominantly those who are poor and of color—into the prison system,

and the often insurmountable obstacles that keep them there. In an essay by the academic Stephen Dillon about his correspondence with two imprisoned trans women, he explains how one of the women, referred to as “R,” came to be incarcerated from the age of sixteen. R was born into the foster-care system, where she was neglected and repeatedly sexually assaulted by her foster parents. At the age of sixteen, she escaped an abusive household. As a gender-nonconforming runaway, though, she was unable to find employment; she began stealing in order to survive. This led to her arrest and placement in juvenile hall. When she was released, her lack of education, her police record, and her gender presentation made it impossible to find a job. She was forced to steal, again, and was arrested once more. At the time of R’s correspondence with Dillon, she had spent more than half of her life incarcerated. In prison, she faced multiple assaults from fellow prisoners and guards and contracted H.I.V. In a letter to Dillon, quoted in the essay, she writes, “Life looks so gloomy for a person like me. What did I do to make it this way?” “Captive Genders” shows that stories like R’s are not exceptional; for many Americans, incarceration, not freedom, is their default state.

In the twentieth century, critiques of the prison system’s impact on queer and trans people primarily came from those with first-hand experience—poor queer and trans people of color, often navigating homelessness and the survival economies of sex work. “Captive Genders” includes essays on pre-“Gay Rights” movements in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, where queer street youth organized to protect themselves against police harassment and understood that the state itself was the primary source of violence in their communities. These movements present a stark contrast with modern gay-rights groups that work in tandem with the state, lobbying for legal protections such as hate-crime legislation. Throughout “Captive Genders,” writers contemplate a feeling that the mainstream L.G.B.T.Q. movement has forgotten how many of their people are living within prisons. Dillon quotes a letter from R: “What hurts me the most … is the lack of knowledge within the gay community in the free world concerning L.G.B.T. people behind bars. It makes me feel like my brothers and sisters in the free-world could care less about us that are behind prison bars, or we must be the forgotten ones.”

The second edition of “Captive Genders” features a new foreword by the black trans activist CeCe McDonald. On a June night in 2011, in Minneapolis, a group of white people began shouting racist and transphobic slurs at McDonald and her friends. The altercation escalated, one of the women smashed McDonald’s face with a glass bottle, and McDonald stabbed and killed one of the men with a pair of small scissors she had for her fashion-school classes. Despite her plea of selfdefense, and the bigoted language of her attackers, McDonald was sentenced to forty-one months in prison for second-degree manslaughter. Like all trans women who have not received gender-confirmation surgery, which is often the only form of trans identity formally recognized by the state, McDonald served her time in a men’s prison. Like Manning, McDonald found the first edition of “Captive Genders” central to her political education while incarcerated. “I realized I’d been hoodwinked and I started sharing this knowledge with the other prisoners,” McDonald writes. “I was a trans woman, surrounded by so many men, but they wanted to know who I was as a person…. This surprised me because the media portrays people in prison as angry, evil, and deceiving.

For me it was the opposite—those behaviours came from the staff.”

“Captive Genders” contains numerous accounts of prisoners uniting against unjust treatment. The scholar Michelle C. Velasquez-Potts tells the story of Victoria Arellano, a twenty-three-year-old trans Latina woman who died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2007. Arellano was H.I.V.-positive, but was denied medication by officials. While held in a men’s facility, her fellow prisoners organized on her behalf: they took turns tending to her, escorted her to and from the bathroom, and repeatedly agitated for the agency to give her proper care. Despite these efforts, officials continued to deny Arellano medication; she died in custody, handcuffed to a prison bed. (In 2009, a report by Human Rights Watch concluded that health care within U.S. immigrant-detention centers was “dangerously inadequate.”)

In 2015, after a nearly two-year-long legal battle, Chelsea Manning was granted permission by the military to wear cosmetics and feminine undergarments, and to take hormones.

Continued on Page 10...

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STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED

Page 10

...Continued from Page 9...She is still not allowed to grow her hair beyond the military-authorized two inches. Like so many other people in the U.S. prison system, she spent many months in solitary confinement, in a facility that refused to acknowledge her gender identity.* “From the start of 2010,” Manning writes in her contribution to the new “Captive Genders” edition, “I have continued to have my gender enforced and regulated (to varying degrees) as being forever and immutably male.” Manning’s battle has been aided by high visibility, a network of support, and legal counsel; the majority of imprisoned queer and trans people navigate the system’s violence in isolation. “Captive Genders” envisions a world in which their lives are not circumscribed by prison.

After spending about 40 days in a “reception” status in a self-contained portion of the prison, I finally met Alice in October 2013. She hurriedly and excitedly approached me in the prison dining area and described at machine-gun speed her own battle to receive healthcare, and how her enthusiasm to continue was re-ignited by my own efforts.

*This sentence has been changed to clarify that Chelsea Manning is no longer in solitary confinement.

I told Alice that I would do everything that I could to help her out. She smiled, and then she frowned and said “I don’t want a lot of attention.” I told her that I understood, but that I could help not by shining a media spotlight on her, but by showing her how to make another formal request, how to appeal the expected denial – an arcane and required bureaucratic process that many prisoners don’t understand – and how to petition for a change of name.

Prison keeps us isolated. But sometimes, sisterhood can bring us together By Chelsea Manning, Feb 8 2016 published in The Guardian

Alice told me the rest of her story, about her diagnosis and about how she had been ignored for all these years. I felt sick hearing her speak about being forced to live so many years without medical care; I tried to keep the tears, the concern, the anxiety, and the anger from boiling out of me.

I didn’t tell her then, but Alice was one of the few trans women with whom I had actually interacted with for more than a few fleeting moments. And then, even though we were housed in different parts of the prison, she instantly became my closest friend and confidante.

Over the next six months, we bonded more and more. As promised, we started Alice’s paperwork and, by the beginning of 2014, she finally started seeing a psychologist in the prison regularly.

Prisons function by isolating those of us who are incarcerated from any means of support other than those charged with keeping us imprisoned: first, they physically isolate us from the outside world and those in it who love us; then they work to divide prisoners from one another by inculcating our distrust in one another.

The insecurity that comes from being behind bars with, at best, imperfect oversight makes us all feel responsible only for ourselves. We end up either docile, apathetic and unwilling to engage with each other, or hostile, angry, violent and resentful. When we don’t play by the written or unwritten rules – or, sometimes, because we do – we become targets. It’s easy enough to make us go away; it’s easy enough to make us “someone else’s problem”.

The unique problem for transgender women in prison is that our health and welfare are also the responsibility of those charged with overseeing us. We live in an environment in which the same staff given the job of keeping us in prison for lengthy periods of time and occasionally “teaching us a lesson” are the same ones given the job of ensuring our transitions, when we’re allowed to transition at all. The first job always takes precedent over the other, seemingly more annoying one.

The day I first arrived at the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas on 22 August 2013, I announced my status as a trans woman intent on transitioning as soon as possible. At the time, the idea of a trans woman in a US military prison was considered unprecedented and even outlandish to the military brass and the outside world. However, when I arrived at the prison – and for nearly a year afterward – I was not the only trans woman at the facility, nor was I the first one to make such requests for treatment.

In 2009, another trans woman (who I’ll call Alice) had arrived at the same prison. She was not the first openly trans woman to arrive at the prison either, but she was the first woman to have documented a request for hormones and other treatments. Unsurprisingly, her requests were ignored and even mocked by the very same staff members who today oversee the decisions about the conditions of my transition.

Though Alice had multiple diagnoses of “gender identity disorder” – which was changed to gender dysphoria in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) – the medical and mental health providers at the prison acknowledged and denied her request. They told her what they told me four years later: the Army and the US Disciplinary Barracks do not provide hormone treatments or other gender-confirming healthcare.

The years since I was jailed for releasing the 'war diaries' have been Without any financial resources, personal support inside or outside, any knowledge of the legal complexities of making such a complaint and “exhausting” all administrative hurdles before doing so, any access to lawyers with knowledge of trans issues in prisons, or even knowledge that such resources existed, Alice stopped trying to get the medical treatment she deserved.

That was, of course, until I made my announcement: after seeing an outpouring of support for me and my request, Alice restarted her battle.

She then began the same evaluation process that I had gone through earlier in late 2013. Because she was without any money or meaningful way of earning it, I also showed her how she could file for recognition of her indigence before a state court as part of her name change petition.

Though Alice had years of frustration and despondency behind her, she was starting to feel better. She became more outgoing and vocal as a person.

Before, she told me, she had just given up and “stayed quiet”. From what I saw, though, she was clearly not going to be doing that anymore.

Unfortunately, our friendship and the assistance I gave her created a problem for prison management: instead of only having to deal with one legal challenge over gender-confirming healthcare, the prison and the military had to deal with two. And, to make matters worse for administrators, Alice’s documented request dated back over four years earlier.

Fearing the possibility of potential liability and providing healthcare for which they had no existing expertise, the military prison sought to transfer me to a civilian prison in April through July 2014. At the same time – unbeknownst to either of us – Alice was considered for a similar transfer.

Still, we moved ahead with our requests and, in July 2014 after exhausting all of my administrative appeals, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) began representing me and submitted a demand letter to the senior prison and military officials.

A few weeks later, my best friend and ally at the prison was suddenly approached by prison officials on her way to work one morning. They pulled Alice aside and told her that she was going back to her cell to gather her belongings and “pack out”. She was being transferred to a federal prison.

I happened to be walking by as a guard led Alice to the same area for people being processed in and out from the prison. She was pushing a large cart filled with what few belongings she had, looking scared but confident. I asked her what was going on and she explained the transfer. I stalled her, trying to say a longer goodbye, but the guard escorting her told her to start moving again.

I wanted to hug her, but the best I was allowed was a quick high five, a sad head-nod and a little wave.

In my cell during lunch break, the reality that Alice was gone and that I would probably never see her again sunk in. I broke down and cried behind my closed door for at least an hour: I wanted her to get the treatment that we both need to survive, but I also wanted us to be able to be friends.

I often still think about Alice and wonder how she is doing in a civilian prison.

The times we spent together make me smile; the thought of seeing her with an uncertain look on her face pushing that big cart makes me sad.

While we came from different backgrounds and had different access to resources, we faced the same system. Alice started to become more confident and empowered once she became connected with more support and resources on the outside; that power she found from our friendship and from the hopethat she might finally get the medical treatment she needed made prison administrators nervous, and they took it away from both of us.

But even though helping Alice ended up limiting my time with her, I have but a single regret: I wish I’d told her that I love her as a sister. I wish I could tell her that I still do.

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED ...Continued from Page 7...Fania: Yeah, we abolished the institution of slavery, but then it was replaced by sharecropping, Jim Crow, lynching, convict leasing.

The essence of the racial violence and trauma that we saw in the institution of slavery and in those successive institutions continues today in the form of mass incarceration and deadly police practices.

Page 11 Angela: I think that restorative justice is a really important dimension of the process of living the way we want to live in the future. Embodying it.

We have to imagine the kind of society we want to inhabit. We can’t simply assume that somehow, magically, we’re going to create a new society in which there will be new human beings. No, we have to begin that process of creating the society we Angela: We’re taking up struggles that link us to the anti-slavery abolitionists, want to inhabit right now. and the institution of the prison and the death penalty are the most obvious examples of the ways in which slavery has continued to haunt our society. So it’s not only about getting rid of mass incarceration, although that’s important.

It’s about transforming the entire society.

Sarah: How might restorative justice help with this transformation?

Fania: A lot of people think that restorative justice can only address interpersonal harm—and it’s very successful in that. But the truth and reconciliation model is one that’s supposed to address mass harm—to heal the wounds of structural violence. We’ve seen that at work in about 40 different nations; the most wellknown is, of course, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“The institution of the prison and the death penalty are the most obvious examples of the ways in which slavery has continued to haunt our society.”

In South Africa, the commission invited victims of apartheid to testify, and, for the first time ever, they told their stories publicly. It was on all the radio stations, in all the newspapers, it was all over the television, so people would come home and tune in and learn things about apartheid that they had never known before. There was an intense national discussion going on, and people who were harmed felt vindicated in some way.

That kind of thing can happen here, also, through a truth and reconciliation process. In addition to that sort of hearing commission structure, there could be circles happening on the local levels—circles between, say, persons who were victims of violence and the persons who caused them harm.

Angela: How does one imagine accountability for someone representing the state who has committed unspeakable acts of violence? If we simply rely on the old form of sending them to prison or the death penalty, I think we end up reproducing the very process that we’re trying to challenge.

So maybe can we talk about restorative justice more broadly? Many of the campaigns initially called for the prosecution of the police officer, and it seems to me that we can learn from restorative justice and think about alternatives.

Sarah: Fania, you told me when we talked last year that your work on restorative justice actually came about after you went through a personal transition period in the mid-1990s, when you decided to shift gears.

Fania: I reached a point where I felt out of balance from all of the anger, the fighting, from a kind of hypermasculine way of being that I had to adopt to be a successful trial lawyer. And also from around 30 years of the hyperaggressive stance that I was compelled to take as an activist—from being against this and against that, and fighting this and fighting that.

Intuitively, I realized that I needed an infusion of more feminine and spiritual and creative and healing energies to come back into balance.

Sarah: How did that affect your relationship as sisters?

Fania: My sister and I had a period—right in the middle of that—when our relations were strained for about a year, due in part to this transformation. It was very painful. At the same time, I finally understood that it needed to happen because I was forging my own identity separate from her. I had always been a little sister who followed right in her footsteps.

Yeah, and so now we are close again. And she’s becoming more spiritual.

“Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension— all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles.”

Angela: I think our notions of what counts as radical have changed over time.

Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension— all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles. That wasn’t the case before.

And I think that now we’re thinking deeply about the connection between interior life and what happens in the social world. Even those who are fighting against state violence often incorporate impulses that are based on state violence in their relations with other people.

Fania: When I learned about restorative justice, it was a real epiphany because it integrated for the first time the lawyer, the warrior, and the healer in me.

The question now is how we craft a process that brings the healing piece together with the social and racial justice piece—how we heal the racial traumas that keep re-enacting.

Ashley Diamond Reaches Settlement with Ga. Dept. of Corrections By Cleis Abeni, Feb 12 2016 published in The Advocate The black trans woman who was denied medically necessary care and allegedly subjected to repeated sexual assaults while incarcerated with men has reached a settlement in her lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been representing 37-year-old Ashley Diamond in her federal lawsuit filed in February of last year, announced the historic settlement (for an undisclosed amount) in Diamond's favor today.

“We’re pleased that we were able to favorably resolve this case on behalf of Ashley Diamond and bring international attention to the plight of transgender prisoners,” said Chinyere Ezie, Diamond's attorney, in a statement today.

“Our lawsuit and Ashley Diamond’s bravery brought about important changes in Georgia and have put prison officials across the country on notice about the constitutional rights of transgender persons.”

Diamond, a trans woman of color, was denied medically necessary treatment and forced into solitary confinement, and she alleges that she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by other prisoners in all-male Georgia state prisons while she was incarcerated for three years for a nonviolent burglary and theft conviction. She was released from Augusta State Medical Prison last August and received judicial approval to pursue her lawsuit alleging anti-trans discrimination just two weeks later.

In a new video produced by the SPLC, a glowing, refreshed Diamond speaks about her harrowing, dehumanizing ordeal. She says that prison officials not only mistreated her and enabled her repeated assaults but also stripped her of authentic femininity, in part by refusing to grant her access to the hormone therapy she had been receiving for 17 years prior to her internment.

“I asked to serve my time safely and to be respected as a human being,” Diamond says in the video. "Yeah, you can cut all my hair off, shave my eyebrows off. You can take away that care that was very detrimental. My body was completely reversed. But that person is still here."

After the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement last year declaring that the U.S. Constitution requires inmates with gender dysphoria to receive medical treatment as any other condition would be accommodated, corrections departments were placed on alert. Last April the Georgia Department of Corrections began updating its policies to bring them more into line with federal standards for the treatment and health care provided to inmates.

Since then, the Georgia Department of Corrections “rescinded its ‘freeze frame’ policy that prevented many transgender inmates from receiving medically necessary treatment,” explains SPLC's statement. “Because of [Diamond’s] case, dozens of transgender inmates across the state are now receiving hormone therapy for the first time since entering custody.”

The statement also notes that “the Georgia Department of Corrections also adopted a sexual assault prevention policy that is more closely aligned with federal standards, and is in the process of training staff in prisons throughout the state on the health and safety needs of transgender inmates.”

"It was torture. I might be free now, but I am still struggling," Diamond said last year in a phone interview with The Advocate. "Straight out of solitary confinement, but into another confinement here on parole. Parole stipulates that I must stay here in Rome [Georgia], and this town can be like a prison too.

Yes, it’s a town in the Deep South, and down here you feel it even more that the transgender issue is the civil rights issue of our time."

Page 12

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