04-2016 Black and Pink Newspaper

APRIL 2016 NEWSPAPER

The Misclassification of Transgender Women in HIV Research

By: Tyler Currey, Feb. 23, 2016, published on hivequal.org While transgender women are the most at-risk population for HIV, they are often the most overlooked when it comes to HIV research and prevention.

Although it is known that trans women have some of the highest rates of HIV transmission in the U.S., this demographic has often been incorrectly categorized as men who have sex with men in HIV research. Now, researchers are looking to capture more accurate data on trans women and HIV so that this population can get the attention and care they need.

For the first time, transgender issues took center stage at the National HIV Prevention Conference (NHPC) held in December 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The conference, sponsored by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, discussed a host of issues related to trans health issues, but possibly the most important finding was a study presented by Mesfin Mulatu from the CDC’s Program evaluation branch on HIV testing, transmission rates, and linkage to care among trans people.

Previously, data on those who take part in HIV research was collected using the traditional “one-step” approach. Under this collection method, researchers would categorize participants based on only their current gender identity. This required the individual to choose from limited options and often resulted in a misclassification of trans people. A prime example of the error of this method is the iPrEX trial for Truvada as PrEP in which trans women were classified under “men who have sex with men.”

The two-step approach, however, allows for the participant to differentiate between the gender assigned at birth and their current gender. The study found that this method was far more accurate in the identification of trans people in HIV research.

In Mulatu’s study, most of the participants were cisgender (or non-trans) men and women. Using the one-step method for gender data collection, 10,201 participants were identified as trans women (0.03 percent), 1,769 were identified as trans men (0.03 percent), and 515 identified as unspecified transgender or other (0.01 percent). Under the two-step method, however, researchers were able to identify an additional 5,363 trans women and 3,244 trans men, resulting in 69 percent increase in transgender identification.

Mulatu noted that trans people face a host of barriers when it comes to HIV treatment in prevention including stigma, discrimination, violence, poverty, unstable housing, and mental illness. Given that trans women are more than 50 times more likely to be HIV-positive, it is crucial that HIV researchers and prevention specialists continue to focus on better ways to assess and treat this at-risk population.

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Toward Transfeminism: Moving Beyond Inclusion

By Zave Martohardjono and Rye Young, March 2nd, 2016, published in Non Profit Quarterly

Public conversation about transgender people and their rights has come a long way. A quick look at television, mainstream magazines, and social media reveals the huge cultural shift that is taking place. According to Amazon, Transparent was the most binge-watched television series in its Prime Instant Video history.

People around the country—straight, LGBTQI, and others—cheered Caitlyn Jenner after her big splash in Vanity Fair, and educated those slinging hate speech her way; and the world has made room for Laverne Cox of Orange Is the New Black and writer and transgender rights activist Janet Mock to be recognized as the fierce and outspoken role models they are.

Yet, when activist Jennicet Gutiérrez raised her voice at the White House in June 2015, demanding that President Obama end the deportations of trans women and address the disproportionate violence inflicted upon them in immigration detention centers, her action was met with animosity. Jennicet was escorted out of the room to a chorus of shushing and booing from LGBT rights advocates, along with President Obama’s clear words: “You’re in my house” and “Shame on ya.”

How can we reconcile the mainstream media celebration of trans identity with the stark reality of violence and injustice that trans women of color, in particular, continue to face today? Has much changed since 1973, when Sylvia Rivera faced intense disrespect at a New York City Pride rally in Washington Square Park? Archival footage shows a young Sylvia standing onstage, pleading to her gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to take political action on behalf of trans people, amid booing and cursing from the crowd. She was able to get out her call to action in the end, and even inspired the crowd to chant “gay power!” along with her, but not before being almost drowned out by a hostile group reminiscent of the one that tried to shame Gutiérrez over forty years later.

Today, the lived realities of low-income and trans people of color remain trapped in the cycles of poverty and violence that trailblazer activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson fought so hard to end in the 1960s and 1970s. What can we still learn today from Sylvia, Marsha, and the trans women of color who fought alongside them toward uprooting the violence, police profiling, racism, homelessness, and poverty they experienced firsthand? We must ask ourselves, throughout history and up to the present day, who is lifted up in national attention to trans people? Who is furtively erased from the conversation?

Trans inclusion is not as simple as letting go of hurtful stereotypes. It is not as easy as featuring a handful of trans role models in the media and celebrating their visibility. True inclusion is the act of pushing at the tipping point of elevated awareness to tackle the multiple and complicated ways that trans communities are marginalized in society. Trans inclusion needs movements to engage interconnected justice frameworks to address the deepest forms of inequity. True inclusion comes from movements that explicitly dismantle the interrelated harms of gender discrimination, sexism, economic barriers, violence, and other systemic abuses that compound one another, leaving trans people perpetually at the margins of society.

There are powerful examples of trans inclusion in racial justice, immigrant justice, and feminist and reproductive rights movements that exemplify the catalytic power of centering those at the margins. Across a wide range of missions, movement-building efforts have become more inclusive of trans leaders, and this has led to an important realignment of strategies that address the complex needs of trans people—particularly trans women of color, who disproportionately suffer from the violence and inequality leveled at the LGBTQI community.

These shifts in organizing are teaching us to be trans inclusive, but not just because it’s the right thing to do or because it is a trending topic. We are learning that when we connect the silos of racial justice, economic justice, health justice, immigration justice, and civil rights, we are closer to ending marginalization and oppression. Inclusive approaches are a practice—not just an idea—of destigmatization and empowerment that makes it clear that we are all better off when we focus on advancing the needs and leadership of communities that are most marginalized. ...Continued on Page 7...

WHAT’S INSIDE Page 2 A Message from Jason Black and Pink Hotline Number Page 3, 4, 5 Letters to our Family Page 6 Poetry from the Heart Page 7 Strugling for Rights Towards Transfeminism: Moving Beyond Inclusion Continued Page 8 Towards Transfeminism: Moving Beyond Inclusion Continued Page 9 Towards Transfeminism: Moving Beyond Inclusion Continued Introduction Page 10 Introduction Continued Outro Birth of a Revolution Page 11 Birth of a Revolution Continued Call for Council Members for National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

Page 12 Formerly Incarcerated Peoples’ Quest for Democracy Advocacy Day Calendar Call for Spanish Submissions Addresses Statement of Purpose Black & Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and “free world” allies who support each other. Our work toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex is rooted in the experience of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are outraged by the specific violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ people, and respond through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing.

Black & Pink is proudly a family of people of all races.

About this Newspaper Since 2007, Black & Pink free world volunteers have pulled together a monthly newspaper primarily composed of material written by our family’s incarcerated members. In response to letters we receive, more prisoners receive the newspaper each issue!

This month, the newspaper is being sent to over: 7,544 prisoners!

Disclaimer:

Please note that the ideas and opinions expressed in the Black & Pink Newspaper are solely those of the authors and artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of Black & Pink. Black & Pink makes no representations as to the accuracy of any statements made in the Newspaper, including but not limited to legal and medical information. Authors and artists bear sole responsibility for their work. Everything published in the Newspaper is also on the internet— it can be seen by anyone with a computer. By sending a letter to “Newspaper Submissions,” you are agreeing to have your piece in the Newspaper and on the internet. For this reason, we only publish First Names and State Location to respect people’s privacy. Pieces may be edited to fit our anti-oppression values and based on our Editing Guidelines.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO HOT PINK! Seeking erotic short stories, poems, AND ART by Black & Pink incarcerated and free-world family members for a new ‘zine. To be mailed, art cannot include full nudity. Please send submissions (and shout outs to the authors from the first issue mailed in January!) addressed to Black & Pink - HOT PINK. This is a voluntary project, and no money will be offered for submissions, but you might get the chance to share your spicy story with many others! The zine will be sent 1-2 times per year. To subscribe to receive a copy of HOT PINK twice a year, write to our address, Black & Pink GENERAL.

A MESSAGE FROM JASON Dear friends,

I hope this note finds you as well as possible.

Last month I was sitting in the same office chair I am sitting in now, but this time it’s a gorgeous day.

Also, my partner and I just recently got a dog, he is a little chihuahua dachshund mix, and he’s sitting on the chair next to me. I am looking out this window and appreciating my Sacco, the dog’s, company as I have my mind on all of our Black and Pink members incarcerated in prisons all across the country. As the sun shines in my window I am thinking, especially, of those of you who are locked in cells with no windows. Know that we are fighting for the liberation of all prisoners.

I wanted to pick up this month’s letter with some more reflections after a couple letters came in questioning what I was saying in my letter last month.

As a reminder, Black and Pink is open to working with all LGBTQ prisoners, regardless of what they are convicted of. We are not here, as a family, to cast any one out because of their actions. We are not defining any person as only one action. All of us are more than the worst thing we have ever done. We also recognize that not everyone did the things they were convicted of. We also know that what people are convicted of is not always the worst thing they have done. We honor all of these things to be true. This does not mean, though, that we ignore the harm each other have caused. Our radical acceptance of each other includes holding each other accountable. In our effort to create a welcoming community, we encourage each other to be honest about the things we have done.

When a person is able to take responsibility for causing harm, that gives strength to others in the community to accept them more honestly. Black and Pink does not ask for any kind of confession to be part of our open family, and I am not suggesting that we do so. What I am suggesting is that we can all be more honest about the harm that we have caused and can use our open family to begin to heal ourselves.

I want to say, especially, that my letter last month was not an attempt to shame anyone convicted of a sex offense. I was making clear that sexual relationships between adults and prepubescent children are never consensual relationships. As an open family that works to dismantle all forms of oppression, we do not accept the argument that children can consent to sexual relationships with adults, no matter what the circumstances. This does not mean, though, that we do not accept people who have been inappropriate or harmful to children. We are not suggesting that any type of harm is “the worst of the worst” or in some way unforgivable. I was using my letter last month, and again this month, to clarify our organizational opinion.

No matter what you have done in your life, we believe in transformation, and we will go on that journey with anyone who wants to join in.

We also know that the sex offender laws across the country are terrible. We know that LGBT people and men of color are targeted. We know that the Registry is ridiculous and doesn’t make anyone safer. We know that people are arrested for consensual sex. We know that people are charged with serious offenses and sent to prison for incredibly long sentences when there was not even an actual victim. We know people are set up in stings. When we say we believe in abolition, that includes an abolition of the way we deal with people convicted of sex offenses.

I also want to acknowledge that our newspaper has been getting censored and banned from numerous prisons. This censorship is in part because of the original letter from January, but we have been dealing with censorship and rejections of our paper ever since we first started printing it. Many prisons and jails are afraid of the power behind prisoners telling stories and sharing with each other. Two prisons in Kentucky ban the newspaper simply because they believe it “promotes homosexuality.” We have been rejected

Page 2 from prisons in nearly every state across the country, recently the newspaper has been denied to prisoners who are in solitary confinement. Prison administrations are taking away the 1st Amendment rights of people in isolation, and we need to resist. When you get rejection slips, let us know. We are trying to fight back. We won an appeal in North Carolina, and we want to keep winning. It is important that this newspaper gets to all of our members. We are building strength in our family to keep up this fight 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.

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LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY Mi Familia...

One of the greatest moments in my twenty-two years of living was receiving the Black and Pink newsletter for the first time. It opened my eyes to a world outside my relatively small one. I can only hope you all accept me as graciously as it seems you have over 7,000 other prisoners. It took me coming to prison to really find myself and it took quite a bit of soul searching and adversity for me to accept myself. I’m at peace with myself at this point. But up until this moment I’ve felt like a hyena in the midst of lions. I’m a warrior in every sense of the word though so I take pride in the fact that even when I felt I was the only one in the trenches I held my ground and stood firm on what I know to be right and exact.

I feel like I’m home now so all the sacrifice was worth it. Black and Pink is the Promised Land.

I’m incarcerated in Ohio and just a few months ago there was an altercation that led to me getting my status raised again...see I’ve been a level 4 inmate “max security” for the past 2 years. Last year a gay friend of mine named Josh got into an argument with the leader of the *****. It was all over an imaginary bet that never really took place; it was just that the leader saw Josh as an opportunity for exploitation and extortion. I’m not a fan of either one of them so I tried to step in and kill the situation before it got out of hand but things didn’t work out that way. Behind bars there is only so much arguing you can do and even less physical harm, but all the same, things kept rising to a boiling point. Eventually I got my level dropped and I landed on the same block as the gang leader and Josh. Josh decided he wasn’t gay anymore and joined the *****. To make a long story short the fact that I tried to aid and assist someone I saw as my brother didn’t stop him [from] participating when the ***** jumped me and the amazing thing is that although I didn’t start it my level got raised again as if I were the instigator.

As I write this I sit in a cell [where] I can touch both walls at the same time, but I’m cool with that because I feel like I have an outlet now, a way to express my esteem and know that the people on the receiving end can reciprocate.

Thank you Black and Pink...

Sincerely,

The Alchemist Hello Soul Family!

What do you think about this phone call: “Hi mom and dad, I know that you didn’t know this, but I am happily GAY and married!! What do you think?”

Now, what is your opinion, my (LGBT) family?

There are so many differing viewpoints and opinions. As for me, well, I simply adore life, love, peace, understanding, unity, and the human spirit and soul.

Gay marriage is really about the right or wrongness of love being expressed and proclaimed between two people of the same sex. And frankly, “What is wrong with that?”

In my personal opinion of forty plus years as a bisexual male, experience and knowledge has taught met that God is Love and Love is God. And love being divine in essence is a very powerful force. In fact, I am quick to conclude that love conquers all, by attracting and uniting the individual parts of itself into a grander, harmonious unit for the betterment of the whole. Love has to be felt and experienced in order to be appreciated and valued. And once we experience love for the first time, we naturally find ourselves exploring and enjoying this grander form of energy at every chance we get.

The unique thing about love is that, to me, it only comes from one source, namely God. When I prayed and begged God to take this way of life away from me, God responded by making me see and recognize the beauty of me and my LGBTQ family’s soul. And then I was humbled by a love and a peace that blesses people everywhere I go. And I damn sure can not be persuaded into believing our loving creator made a grave mistake when creating and inspiring the LGBTQ community into existing and successful persisting amidst all the opposition.

True love is not biased. Love is shared and experienced by all of the living. Love begets Love. And Hatred breeds more hate. And community is about communication. It is designed with the intention of uniting the separate, differing parts into a harmonious, functioning whole. To me, there is one God, there is one consciousness. There is one spirit, and there is only one soul.

Love has no other source. And we, LGBTQ people, are also connected to God because we also partake of Love, enjoy Love, and are inspired by Love to share it with others. Many of us have suffered and died for simply loving life and loving what we are. For me, it would be ridiculous to assume that God ever condemned such a union. There are too many LGBTQ people that are so blessed. And I know that I am a very special child to Our Heavenly Parents.

I mean is it really wrong, bad, or evil for people to love one another?

We all at some point as humans shall experience True Love for another human, and when Love pulls on our heart strings like dummies, we all become a puppet and a slave to LOVE. And what our hearts and souls crave is to share our love, and to enjoy free reign to these powerful emotions. And sometimes love will have us doing things we thought we never would have done. And when blinded by Love, it has also been discovered that Beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder.

[…]What will you really do when love summons you?

[…]I love you family. I know our pain and our sufferings, and we all

have suffered together, and we all shall paint Rainbows into our lives together.

Now let’s show them why we are the flaming Lights of Life. Keep your heads up. A new day is dawning on us, and a new beginning. Congratulations!

One Love and Solidarity,

Vance/Vancina, GA

“The Trend Setters” Note: This letter has been excerpted for length and clarity.

Dear Black and Pink,

First of all My Love and Hugs to all Family!

Now I don’t really write or speak a lot about my self or the girls/ family—mostly because I have been down since 1996, before that I fell in 88, only 6 months out, but anyway, here’s my words, or plea.

I met my best friend, my mama, Stefi, in 1996 we managed to stay in the same prisons and yards until 12/1/15. On that day CDCR punished me worse than putting me in prison. Now I am alone, because nowadays the girls in CDCR do not stick together. Look ladies we need to be there for each other.

I’m not talking about money or food, but emotionally—all of us, no back biting, no gossip. I would like to have more girlfriends but I am scared cause of the way a lot of us treat each other.

Look keep it simple ladies, respect each other, for those of us that have been down—lets teach the new girls—we need to be a family—for real—lets’ stop hating on each other the bay’s and CDCR do enough of that.

With love,

Michelle P.S. To those I love I don’t play poker no-more Stay safe, be strong, get healthy Dear Black and Pink fam,

How’s the family doing? Hopefully Well. Everyone’s in my prayers!

I want to thank Jason for all his hard work not only in founding Black and Pink but reaching out to us all behind bars. Please don’t lose yourself from the newsletter, you’ve inspired many.

I’m writing because of an article that I just read from the TECH section of USA Today’s newspaper for November 25th, 2015.

California has implemented an Autodesk program featuring AutoCAD, Revit and Inventor.

Granted it is not a prison shutting down, but it is helping in that cause.

Charles Pattillo the general manager of California Prison Industry board states that it cost $400,000 for the program, yet it cost $63,000 per year to house an inmate in California. Also the recidivism rate for women is 49%, that lowered to 7.1% of all prisoners return to prison who have technical career training.

Pattillo finds the program a good buy based on the stats and price. I agree.

Now only if we could get more states to buy in.

I don’t want prisons to stand anymore than the next person. In the process of abolishing prisons we must find ways to help us in that matter. Education is key! That’s in all aspects of life.

I believe that if we would put together petitions for such programs as Autodesk to our wardens and state secretaries, we could get these programs as well. Just look at the last stat, ex-prisoners with technical career training only return at 7.1% that’s low.

Family I know we’re trying to eliminate the system. Why don’t we help the system eliminate itself?! I love you all. Hold your heads up.

Your sister,

Tiffany xo-PA Listen family LGBTQ - in prison life is hard-edge and ‘authority’ is capricious. Thoughts are contraband and writing is deadly serious business. Imprisoned writers/litigators and those of us who stand up against our keepers do not have the luxury of writing to entertain not to write as a matter of commercial adventurism. Every word must count; there is no second chance. Writers and those who stand up for what they believe in are looked at as troublemakers and liars and slandered as terrorists who plan to overthrow the warden’s administration. Those of us that are effective are sometimes shipped without notice from prison to prison.

Their bodies are abused, their lives are disrupted, families destroyed, their human rights are disregarded. Nothing is cryptic or subtle about prison. Everything is up front... direct and to the point and for real. Regardless brothers and sisters—never give up and keep hope alive not only for yourself but for others by the continuation of your resistance to the ignorance being displayed by our keepers.

If you’ve never been confined against your will in a prison environment—when prison officials take your name and give you a prison identification number, the first thing you have to adjust to is not who you are but how many digits you have become. Most prisoners knows the rules which govern them much better than most guards whose job is to enforce rules. There is nothing confusing about this. Here in prison it’s a normal situation. Just a simple matter of the oppressed knowing more about the nature of his oppression than the oppressor. Ignorance dictates. In most cases, prison discipline is more a matter of making up rules to create a crime than matching a crime to a written rule. The secrets of American justice are actually learned in dark places, like prison cells.

...Continued on Page 4...

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LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY CONTINUED ...Continued from Page 3...Who am I? My name is Mark Kelley but those here in prison know me as Problem because thats what I am considered by my keepers who have me confined in a world surrounded by concrete walls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year.

Mark AKA Problem, WA To the Black & Pink family:

I love all of you. I read all of your experiences and circumstances and absorb the energy generated by your courage and determination to be observed as equal and not out of the ordinary.

I would say I read all “stories” but they’re not stories. You couldn’t make some of this shit up. But every bit of it is powerful and it sets me to ponder “How can I take and absorb your energy and create something wonderful for the Black and Pink family?”

Because it’s in my nature and part of my spirituality to give back to the universe the same positive energy that you all have given to me.

I am a musician by profession and it seems to me that not all of us are locked up all the time at the same time right? Eventually some of us will get out and enjoy freedom again. Why can’t we all get together (through the mail or on the outs) and create a music festival to generate more support for our struggles, our indigent family members, and goals? I know Black & Pink probably already do fund raisers or rodeos and what not, but I very rarely read about anything to do with a music festival like Burning Man or Coachella.

I myself will create an interactive jam band (because I’m into jam bands like Phish and the Dead) and help support this publication and perhaps any of you that might need help out there with stuff and things. (Oh crap now everyone is gonna know it was me) I get out in a little over three years and by that time I can come up with a very decisive festival for such a purpose.

The question is only this: What do you think and ask yourself “what can I do to help?” Write B&P and let em know what you think and with any suggestions you might have. I am very grateful for all of you and may the Divine Oneness bless you all.

Diggy, AZ The Courage to Fight for Love

A lot of people who are not in prison would think that emotional feelings and love interest ceases at the gates of the prison when one is committed thereto. In fact, and speaking from experience, a huge majority of individuals in prison are equipped with the same meaningful desires to embrace their heartfelt feelings in spite of the situation of being restricted and unable to express and passions. The design and nature of prison setting is purposely designed to suppress that vital component which gives life, fosters love and compassion between free people and incarcerated ones. The restraints that begin in prison puts on both the incarcerated as well as their loves ones are suspended and over ran by cruel efforts of prison overseers who vehemently work to enhance their aim to sever whatever bond exist between loved ones and prisoners. This is not a new tactic, but is also accomplished in many ways.

Prison overseers pretend to want a positive connection between inmates and their family/friends. Visiting hours are severely shortened, high phone cost, strict mail process and regulations, transfer prisoners to desolate and up to 400 miles away from home to other prisons.

These are just a few of the constraints prison overseers use to impede relationships that eventually destroy the ties, you would think that a healthy and loving relationship shared between prisoners and their loved ones would be wholeheartedly embraced, supported and strengthened by overseers. It’s important that you understand the harmful impact of this treatment overall not merely as a love interest, but as uniform issues that divide people all across the board. When you intentionally subdue love, caring and togetherness— you are—basically flat-lining the potential aspect of wellness, happiness and rehabilitation. Love is a word, which we all learn to understand to be a feeling/ emotion, it is related to positive and promote wellness. But rather the intentional feelings prison overseers impose on [us] is numbness, hate, provocations, [and] wants for violence. The propensity for love comes in many shades of colors; it also requires the need for social contact. It’s a must! As in life it is one that strives on its ability to develop growth and harmony, and those who have good intentions are naturally concerned and believe in promoting a union based on the importance of sharing in love for each other.

Prison is a business that imposes pain for profit solely selected for and to those who have interest vested therein to operate it. There are rules and regulations which govern/promote barbarism that a host a complexion of servants and chaos. Why does it matter that we not allow prison and its authorities/overseers to eradicate prisoner feelings as loving human beings, our love interest that directly relate to our inner most? The fact that I am in prison for wrong doing should never be used as a wedge keep one apart from loved ones, but instead it should be the motivating factor from prisoners to use to beat back the psychological effect separatism causes.

Prison authorities who are retaliatory motivated have practiced an agenda which most free people don’t know. More than half of the prisoners population have at one time or another created a victim, and the goal of these overseers is to victimize the prisoners on a personal level and by prison design which also entails putting prisoner-against-prisoner using devious methods and practices. No one want to be seen as victims, but reality is reality and victims on both side of the wall who are connected by travesty of loving someone confined and unable to freely demonstrate their affection in a meaningful and

spirited manner is brought to a halt. Top ranking prison overseers want us prisoners broken, distraught and filled with self-pity simply because it creates dysfunction and broken dysfunctional prisoners keep crime and violence at heights. It is these people who are profit to prison crates. By housing prisoners, prison rates are able to make a means for self and their families.

To allow them to disassociate one from any meaningful relationship is an abomination of any sought out understanding of heartfelt devotion of desired friendships. One which I will always resist. [The reason] why I write this is so you can imagine what type of individual I am. Getting to know me is something else to think about.

We must learn to re-engage with one another socially to eradicate this stigma and perception free people have against those in prison. To concede to this perception of their pursuit is to surrender all hope of what can possibly exist in the future. We must re-engage which one another socially, emotionally with persistence because it’s a human gesture and we must have love and respect for humanity. When we dismiss one another, we literally catapult our present and future into the dark abyss and render our self irrelevant which is the oppressor’s agenda. Let my voice [and] spirit resonate into your mind! Let my voice, your voice, her voice, his voice be joined and be heard announcing the will of righteousness. Those of you who know how to love, then share it, let it shine bright on either side of the barricade which confines me. Love doesn’t or shouldn’t stop at the gate. But it can very well begin only if together “we” forge a clear path for its emergence, fearless and devoutly against all odds. If it is love that is centered between a man/woman that is entirely different from the love of a family member or associate, yet the essence of love is still unmistakable to the point that the power is or should be unshakable and not easily relinquished.

Hakim (Kongo), CA Dear Black & Pink Extended Family,

This is my first time writing. I am a Transgender woman writing from Utah. I am 28 years old. Getting these newsletters each month has helped me to be open about myself with family and friends, and to also be more accepting about myself.

I have been working with mental health where I am at to get an evaluation for gender dysphoria. No luck so far. I would love to get this evaluation, but even if I don’t I don’t care. I don’t need an evaluation to know what I already know about myself. The only thing I need this evaluation for is so I can get the reassignment surgery and hormones so I can become a female and look exactly as I feel inside.

Good luck to all of you that are struggling with opening up about yourselves. My number one belief is to live my life for myself and not for anyone else.

With love, your sister,

Becky, UT Dear Black and Pink:

I would like to share the experience I’m going through being locked up in a Texas Penitentiary. I am bisexual, and 28 years old. A lot of people look down on being gay, especially in these Texas Penitentiaries. I’ve been locked up now for 8 years on a 20 with no support from the world. Since I been in prison I been mistreated several times. I’ve been gagged, beat up by teams, thrown in a cell naked with nothing in it I been beat up while in handcuffs and I been starved for several days, the most worst, I believe, is these COs lie on inmates and mess up a chance at parole. We can’t stop this, there s no unity in these Texas prisons, no matter how many grievances we file, and help from the outside world, we still get mistreated. I been receiving Black and Pink newspapers already for over a year now, and I feel what a lot of people going through. I know how it is, but remember one thing, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Cory, TX Hello friends & family,

I want to thank you all for reading B & P, because you are now educating yourself on the issues in our community. So, thank you, and thank you B & P for creating such a great newspaper.

My name is Mrs. Ge Ge, a transwoman currently incarcerated in PA. I am also the founder of an LGBT+ organization called L.I.G.H.T., which aims to educate fallen brothers and sisters on their rights. We teach readers of all kinds, about DOC policy, Politics, Health, and Law that affect us. We also strive to raise awareness to those individuals who do not identify as LGBT+.

Our biggest goal is to unite all LGBT+ and Human Rights organizations and to end the P.I.C.’s (prison industrial complex) for profit criteria.

We have had some success on the battle field. We have fought, and have gotten approved LGBT+ support groups here in PA. And we have lots of other things to change about the way the P.I.C. treats individuals in PA. We are trying to expand, or perhaps start a trend on a country wide level. For that we need your help.

We need sisters and brothers who are incarcerated in other states to create their own form of L.I.G.H.T. in their facilities. This is done by supporting one another and putting aside your differences. We need you to educate yourself on Policies, Law, Health, and Politics so that you can educate others.

Page 5

LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY CONTINUED

Also I want you to build relations with outside organizations. Once you have established this, it is up to you to pass the wisdom. Show people where to, and how to educate themselves. Create a newsletter if possible. I give you the key to overcome oppression, so use that key to open that door.

It is up to us to stand up against the harm imposed on us by the P.I.C. Show them you will not tolerate this injustice anymore. Do this by fighting fire with fire. Use their own policies against them. Do this by showing them we can do this without violence or violating their policies. Then once you have that, you can push for change. Then we can make a difference on a country wide scale.

We must remember that we matter and that together we can make a difference. Therefore, power be to us, the one who seeks it.

I end this article by saying this. I vow to turn the other cheek, and show others that love defeats hate. I vow to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I also vow to educate myself so that I can educate others, and make the world a better place one step at a time.

If all that I do amounts to one drop of water in an endless ocean, then I ask, Is not an ocean but a multitude of water drops.

Peace & Solidarity,

From Mrs. Ge Ge & L.I.G.H.T., PA SPREAD LOVE AND WISDOM not hate and ignorance

Crazy how it’s been 4 1/2 years that have passed since I got my first B&P newsletter and it’s crazy how I still have every copy sent since and even crazier how this is my first time writing in what seem like forever. Well, I want to thank y’all out there who have really been keeping me company. I’ve been really happy with myself and even happier reading the happy letters and sad when I read the “downers.” I got my Delestrogen 40 mg shot today (2/3/16) and when I got back I got my B&P issue and also my “Stiletto” Frisco, which was very cool because, I’m always reading all my collected issues and damn I really get very ego “^ and v.” But I do want to thank you all very much and also, I read a lot about CDCR “Cali” Prisoners and I’m in CA and been in prison for 7 years and only met 6 other transgenders and none of them ever write to B&P for “input.”

I’m Leina Diamond G and I’m 25 years old, raised and lived as a girl since 3, and I’m Puerto Rican born in Ponce “Cerro de Punto.” And I’m GP and have been only on GP yards having to deal with Politics as a Transgender.

And that has been the reason why I only met 6 transgenders in CA, all here at my prison. But now I’m getting transferred and am refusing to go another facility and am going to a 4 yard. I really would’ve loved to meet other transgenders in and out of the system, on the streets I only knew my M2F sisters and my F2M uncle and none other. So all my 25 years I’ve honestly only met 8 other transgenders. I would read and hear every tear, frown, and hurt, and dang, I would really get pissed that C/Os and other cons would do such harm to humans. I earned my spot in a gang related family as a trusted - get it done shoot first no questions - transgender - soloist drug trafficking. Our smuggling - caring - loving - honest - kind hearted - funny - lovable killer. And only half of these labels are really unbelievable but really true. Plus I’m more of a lady lover type “lesbian,” women are my sexual preference, and I’m transgender going 100% forward with my SRS/GRS as soon as I get out in 2020.

I would read these articles about LGBTQI inmates and free worlders and my first reaction is maternal and it always has been. 3 out of the 6 transgenders I met in prison used to always ask me, why do I always care for those like me “trans,” and why do I seem so hurt; I just say because other transgenders care about life and happiness also, I’m alive and happy always so why can’t I do something for them like CARE and LOVE and PROTECT and even WORRY about them when I have my family who does that for me? Look, I really wish I can meet others and do to my part by keeping them smiling and safe. I really do care for all LGBTQI people and I’ve really learnt to push those up when those are down. GP is a place where I have to do my time and if my family let me rest after 12 years of war then I hope all my time left in prison (I get out in 2020) I can help impact my sisters and brothers — free and locked up — to really understand that as long as we are breathing, we are winning.

B&P “gente,” I thank you for much love and much insight into what’s been going on out there and in here. Much respect. I’m ver antisocial to most (99%) of humanity and very social to my LGBTQI family (100%), and I hope to meet others. Crazy how I’ve lived as I am — “me” — a girl and been in prison 7 years as a girl — “me” — and only know 6 transgenders plus 2 out “free.”

Well much love and Respect. And a very Happy [Month] :) :)

Love,

Leina Diamond

Greetings to ALL of our family

This is my first time writing to the Black & Pink family. I go by Catarina Brünhilda Dukes and I’m a 33yr old M to F transgender locked away in the CA State Prisons. I want to thank the Family & God for all of the moral, emotional & spiritual support you have given me over the years. I was at a dark time in my life thinking of suicide when a member of the Black & Pink Family tried to give me support & handed me a newsletter telling me to read it, so I did. I realized that there is a lot more people going through what I was and that people do care. It saved my life at that time and I thank you all and wish for you to keep up the good fight!

Mad Love and Respect,

Catarina Brünhilda Dukes, CA Dear family,

I am currently housed in solitary confinement going on twenty months.

Texas is the most homophobic/xenophobic environment I’ve ever lived in. I can imagine its founding fathers turning in their graves when same-sex marriage became legal.

I am a transgender but have not transitioned to male as of yet. I can’t even get the medical department here to assess me for gender dysphoria to even get a hormone therapy. Last year I had to file sexual harassment on an inmate who began harassing me often viewing me naked during a strip search conducted on the outside recreation yard. The ensuing investigation was a travesty of justice and my claim was ruled unsubstantiated due to lack of witnesses. No one in here is going to get involved as a witness so I’ve had to endure the ongoing harassment of this person.

Being gay is hard enough in this prison. others’ perceptions of who they think I should be rarely lines up with who I am. Guards and inmates alike show disdain and often outright hatred towards gay people Those officers who are themselves openly gay offer no support, their loyalty being to the system that signs their paycheck. Too few organizations help people in this state. Texas has a hardline reputation which not many want to tangle with. We are routinely subjected to retaliation tactics by officers which include, but are not limited to, refusal of meals and bogus disciplinary reports.

I would like to acknowledge all Black and Pink family members who may be experiencing like or worse situations. We must bon together to end mass incarcerations and solitary confinement. We must holt the building of more prisons and elect officials with truer insight to the real criminal problem in this country. It is not those of us behind bars.

I love all of you in the LGBQ community. I honor those who have gone before and paved the way. I mourn those who’s only option seemed to be suicide and those brutalized and murdered by our so-called “”police”” organizations.I join in our many struggls for better equality and improved quality of life. We have made some important strides but we have so much further to go. Let there be love and support for each other among us in these trying times. May the God who created and loves us all be on our side as we demand our basic human rights to be honored.

Thank you Black and Pink for giving me a venue by which to be heard. I look forward to my next issue of the newspaper and send my love to all my brothers and sisters free and confined. one say we’ll all be free at last.

“”Jack””, TX Dear B&P family

Hello to ALL the Black & Pink family near and far. I hope that were ever you are in your time of life you are making the best out of it. I know times get hard and we battle to stay afloat and a head in life on top of things. I know also we all battle with all our own enemys cause I myself battle with anger...

Anger is so bad for me that’s what brought me to prison in the first place. I struggle everyday just like everyone else does but what make us stronger and what worked/works for me is to admit that I have this anger problem and learn like I have how to deal with it, however I still at times want to lash out but I don’t. I didn’t get the opportunity to send you Christmas card and New Years Greatings so I do hope you all had a good one for were ever you are. I want to thank B&P staff for the Christmas card and thank Nick from Vermont for the kind words I actly got the card New Years eve. Well, I hope to get a pen-pal soon after all the application and pen-pal forms I signned and filled out and sent back that would be great.

Do please send back good news on where I am at on the pen-pal list cause I’m not as forantent as others to have family or friends write them, or anything else. I look forward for some good news and much more thank you.

Take care in this world without these cages we fight for. Be safe your loved.

from a lost soldier of the Rainbow,

Animal, CA

Page 6

POETRY FROM THE HEART The Men Behind the Wall

Some men live for others and make their presence known Some men live in seclusion and choose to live alone Some men stand for justice and walk inside the law But of these men the group I'm in are men behind the wall...

They given up their freedom, they sacrificed their rights By day they walk in darkness and sorrow fills their nights They have learned to hide their teardrops, but still the teardrops fall They cry alone and hope seems gone, for men behind the wall.

Some have lost their family, most have lost their friends, Today will bring a heartache, tomorrow cannot mend.

Where letters are not answered, where no one takes their call, They count their cost and much is lost for men behind the wall.

If there is one who's righteous, then let him cast the stone, and if you've known perfection, then let him die alone The one man who was perfect was judged in Pilate's hall He knows best their debts and love them yet these men behind the wall.

C.D.

Love is like a Rose Love is like a rose with gentle tender parts Slowly it unfolds and develops in our hearts It's beauty can't be tamed It's as wild as the wind You shouldn't feel ashamed of the feelings held within You may be cut by a thorn and you will tend to bleed but please don't be torn because inside is always a new seed There will always be pain and yet it grows and grows so although it may seem strange Love is like a rose Shawn, KS

Clarity Come a little bit closer, and look into my eyes.

Then tell me what it is you see.

Will it be passion and longing?

A want to be loved?

Or do they look like slaves longing it to be free.

Now look a little bit deeper.

To the depths that's in my soul.

Can you see the tears drop down from its eyes?

Capture ME! In eternity, Eternally.

The sky past the limits of oceans and plains Released By empty emotions.

To gain true knowledge of self preservations, that travels deeper to the depth of my soul.

To the pitt of my stomach I feel A pressure of love that seems obtainable and real.

Like a movie reel flashed across the screen, Of life that remains to be seen.

From the pitt of my stomach!

To the depth of my soul!

Looking closer into my eyes tell me ""what do you see""!

Doniyah, PA

Distant Star

I feel my soul, the pain from the sword Time has me caught, the web full of thorns I can't keep a smile, my heart is in sorrow Sleepless nights, I feel so alone In circles I roam, losing control My mind is a storm, you can adore Your eyes are beautiful, my sight is so lost My love ""so deep"", the passion in my heart This cloud is hell but in heaven I'll dwell Your beauty I will hold I'm in your powerful spell I can't never reach for you, You're a distant star so far apart I love and cherish the beautiful rainbow.

Cherrie Bomb, CA

-Understand WhyFor us to never believe or ever trust.

To never love again, to never gain is a must.

To open our eye from fear of what's behind us.

To blink or be afraid of what's ahead of us.

Sharing dreams of our future, past, or present.

Maybe the next time before we think we'll be more hesitant.

As time has to & leaves starts to die.

We'll have to know the answer to the question & ""Understand why"".

So in the court room, we've seen were our action brought us.

There is a lesson to be learned by the verdict the, judge & jury gave us.

Out there is the audience filled with our children & loved ones.

Holding back anger, tears & mixed emotions of abundance.

In my mind I fear of what their thinking, of shame I've brought to them Because of the love & bond we share, them being unforgiven chances are slim.

As man, a father, a brother or a soul that will never die.

Regardless of Answer or result we'll ""understand why"".

For time will tell where life starts or ends.

From letters we receive & phone calls answered will reveal our friends.

So now we pick up our pieces of life we've broken.

No need or words for explanation just leave things unspoken.

You can never go back and erase hurt or a lie But you'll know for sure & ""Understand why"".

So-Toy, KY

PRIDE 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 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

Page 7

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS ...Continued from Page 1...What Is Marginalization? Why Start There?

The story of oppressed communities making gains in the United States is often told through the lens of the civil rights struggle. Looking at legal and civil rights as tools for change is essential, but this rarely tells the full story of what it takes to end marginalization and inequality. There is no doubt that transgender communities in the United States lack civil rights, but rights and reality are often miles apart.

The lens of marginalization is useful in addressing how transgender people experience inequality, violence, and oppression even as their legal status and legal rights change or advance. Marginalization refers to a lack of representation in society, cultural stigma, limited employment options, increased rates of homelessness, incarceration, experiences of physical violence, and lower life expectancy. Uprooting these systemic harms requires an understanding of oppression that looks beyond changing laws and toward inspiring seismic shifts in culture, systems, representations, and societal attitudes.

Nothing better exemplifies the dual marginalization and civil rights crisis faced by transgender people than the increasing epidemic of transphobic murders. Over the last seven years, more than 1,700 transgender people have been murdered worldwide.1 Despite national advancements in transgender visibility and legal rights, murder rates in the United States have been surging. The average life span of trans women of color is thirty-five years.2 In 2015 alone, there were twenty-three known killings of transgender people—and this statistic does not account for unreported murders.3 It is crucial to consider who is being targeted. Among LGBTQI people in the United States, transgender women and transgender women of color are the most targeted by hate violence.4 In the first two months of 2015, transgender women of color in the United States were being murdered at a rate of almost one per week.5 The National Coalition of Anti-Violence programs reports that “72% of hate crimes against LGBTQ people were against trans women, 90% of whom were transgender women of color.”6 Extraordinarily high murder rates certainly expose trans marginalization, but it is equally telling that state and national bodies fail to address these murders.

Killings of trans people often go uninvestigated, and perpetrators frequently get lenient treatment. In trials, “gay panic” or “trans panic” defenses are customarily used to argue that the shock and fear of discovering that someone is transgender or intersex lawfully excuses the act of killing them. Only in 2014 did California become the first and only state to ban the use of this defense.

Beyond murders, a look at who is most marginalized within transgender communities paints a vivid and chilling picture of inequality in America today.

Zoom into any one issue facing transgender people—employment, healthcare, education, housing—and you see tremendous disparities related to gender, race, immigration status, and class. From a legal rights perspective, transgender communities are one entity, so legal rights solutions often fail to explicitly dismantle harms faced by low-income transgender women and transgender women of color.

To bring the most marginalized members of our trans communities into focus, we must examine the ways oppressions and structural barriers multiply, compound each other, and magnify existing challenges. Using multiple lenses to understand inequity can help build root-cause solutions. This includes weaving together trans-justice solutions with racial justice, immigration justice, feminism, and economic justice, for example.

From Push Out to Inclusion Against all odds—facing a lack of institutional power, blocked access to philanthropy, and a long legacy of exclusion from social justice movements— transgender communities have a long history of resistance.

Transgender people have been organizing for change long before the “T” was reluctantly added to “LGB.” It is widely recognized that transgender women of color—including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera—were the first to resist the Stonewall police raid in 1969, catalyzing the early days of what we now know as the LGBTQI movement.

Despite Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera’s brave resistance to police violence, the emergent gay liberation movement wanted nothing to do with them, and it literally pushed transgender people out of its vision of liberation.

Trans sisters of color were quickly erased from history, as was their inclusive vision of liberating all LGBTQI people from poverty, homelessness, racism, sexism, police violence, hate crime murders, and the mental illnesses caused by stigmatization and discrimination. These women were marginalized by society at large, only to then be sidelined again by the gay liberation movement.

The indelible consequences of their double-edged marginalization continue to impact trans people of color today.

Exclusion of transgender people from the gay liberation movement and from later social movements barred their access to civil rights, institutional power, and economic resources, including the funding streams that now power LGBTQI

organizations. According to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, .015 percent—or a mere one penny for every one hundred dollars—of philanthropic spending went to transgender issues between 2005 and 2015.

Despite the exclusion that transgender people faced during the waves of activism since the 1960s, transgender people managed to organize—often with very little or no funding and support. While many people assume that the transgender movement is new or came after the gay movement, in 1970, one year after the Stonewall riots, Marsha and Sylvia cofounded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), later named Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries—which was led by and for transgender people.7 STAR advocated for homeless drag queens, transvestites, and runaway queer youth, and eventually created a shelter to provide the community with housing. Sylvia was representing STAR when she was almost pushed off the stage of the Gay Liberation Rally in 1973. Tragically, Sylvia continued to be pushed to the margins of the movement, and her exclusion can be seen as much as a rejection of her as a transgender person as it was a rejection of her political analysis and her belief that gay liberation should center on the needs of people within the community who were homeless, low income, drug users, drag queens, and transvestites.8 Sylvia attempted suicide after the Pride incident in 1973, devastated by being forcibly pushed out of the movement she helped to build.9 After that, STAR more or less stopped functioning. Sylvia Rivera nonetheless continued her commitment to a trans-inclusive LGBTQI movement. She even petitioned the Empire State Pride Agenda for trans inclusion on her deathbed, in 2002.10 That same year, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) was founded in New York City to carry on Rivera’s legacy.11 STAR’s leaders did not want transgender people merely included in mainstream gay organizations. Their vision was for a movement with diverse leadership and core values of anti-oppression. This tension lives on today. Beyond token representation, anti-oppression work stems from seeing the communities who are the worst off as the natural leaders of justice movements. Sylvia was pushed out of the Gay Liberation Movement because she was seen to represent the most marginal of the marginalized. Many LGB organizations treated trans rights as something to get to, but only after gay and lesbian rights were won. The project of trans inclusion calls for a paradigm shift toward understanding social issues from the perspective of the communities that bear the brunt of their impact.

Case Studies of Transgender Leadership and Inclusion within Social Movements There is much to be said for the vital work of trans-autonomous movements pushing for the rights, inclusion, and equity of trans people. Here, we will focus on the rich history of trans inclusion work driven by LGBTQI, feminist, racial justice, and immigrant justice organizations. Vibrant recent examples include Black Lives Matter, immigrant rights, and reproductive justice organizers, who are, for the first time, attempting to incorporate the challenges of trans people and uplift trans leadership.

While still works in progress, these movements attempt to steer clear of tokenization and shallow acknowledgment of trans struggles. Instead, they highlight how trans people are targeted by police, are subject to state violence, and face poverty, barriers to reproductive health, and a multitude of other injustices.

Trans-Inclusive Racial Justice Organizations A strong, recent wave of trans-inclusive racial justice organizing has stemmed from visionary young Black leaders, many of whom are queer and trans, who are creating a new model of Black liberation premised on leaving no one behind. The three founders of Black Lives Matter—Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, all black women, two queer—set the tone for inclusivity through their committed vision that all Black lives matter. This belief has spurred a historically unprecedented trans-inclusive national movement for racial justice.

The strong ties between national racial justice and LGBTQI movement building became widely visible with a 2010 report by Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, titled “Better Together: Research Findings on the Relationship Between Racial Justice Organizations and LGBT Communities,” which shed light on ongoing movement building between organizers working against racism and toward LGBTQI rights. Two years later came a report titled “Better Together in Action: Organizations Working to Integrate Racial Justice and LGBT Issues,” which offered models for integrative organizing based on case studies of several organizations.12 Just a few weeks later, the Black Lives Matter movement emerged around the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin, and rocked the country, breaking national silence around anti-Black state violence. Included in the Black Lives Matter network are many new racial justice organizations that boldly analyze how police and state violence specifically impact queer and transgender Black Americans.

Continued on Page 8...

Page 8

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS ...Continued from Page 7...When news broke in August 2015 of the discovery of three murdered trans women of color within a twenty-four-hour period,13 Black Lives Matter declared August 25th Trans Liberation Tuesday, and responsive actions sprouted up across the country in twenty different cities.

Black transgender organizer Elle Hearns, a leader at Get Equal and Black Lives Matter, attests to the urgency of amplifying news of transphobic anti-Black violence amid the national conversation about Black boys and men being killed at the hands of police. At a rally in Washington, D.C., Hearns said, “When you talk about ‘Black Lives Matter,’ you do not think of Black trans people. You do not think of the Black trans women who are being murdered….We learned about the murders of five [sic] Black trans women in one day. And there was no outrage. There was no shutting down in the streets.”14 The commitment to trans inclusivity by Black Lives Matter leaders is, in fact, undoubtedly clear, even as national conversation lags. Black Lives Matter cofounder Garza makes the widely inclusive framework explicit when she says, “Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black [sic]-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.” Beyond simple affirmation, Garza names the centering of these marginalized groups as “a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement” where it formerly left them out.15 Another prime example of trans-inclusive racial justice organizing is the youngpeople-led, member-based organization Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), founded in 2013. BYP100 has shed crucial light on how Black women, cisgender and transgender, are targeted by police violence. BYP100’s #SayHerName campaign, launched in 2015, has been a beacon of Black trans- and cis-womenfocused antiviolence organizing.16 The campaign drew Black women to the streets in protest, breaking open conversation about police killings of Black cis and trans women at a time when national focus remained centered on young Black men and boys.

In May of 2015, the African American Policy Forum, the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, and Soros Justice Fellow Andrea Ritchie published a report (updated in July 2015) to raise awareness about police violence against Black women. The report, titled “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,” sets forth a clear trans-inclusive mission, stating, “The frameworks and stories presented in ‘Say Her Name’ point to specific actions community organizers, policy makers, researchers, and the media can take to build a comprehensive approach to fighting state-sanctioned violence—one that is inclusive of non-transgender, transgender, and gender-nonconforming Black women.”17 National Director of BYP100 Charlene Carruthers made the commitment to queer and trans safety clear when she stated in an interview, “This is about centering the narrative and political demands around black women and girls, making sure we lift up black queer and transgender people.”18 Similarly, civic engagement organization Rise Up Georgia works to empower what organizers call “the new majority—which includes people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, working people, immigrants, and young people.”19 Rise Up Georgia, founded in 2014, foregrounds participatory democracy that advances racial and economic justice on a pillar of inclusion. Their model of representation spans a wide cross section of communities most disproportionately impacted by civic exclusion.

While there is certainly a long way to go in terms of full adoption of gender justice and trans justice within national racial justice organizing, these recent shifts toward inclusion are incredibly significant and worthy of deep inquiry.

Mark-Anthony Johnson, a respected civil rights leader and community organizer, remarks on the importance of the Black Lives Matter founders’ visionary approach, saying, “The character of the folks that [Black Lives Matter was] bringing out I think was really important in terms of having a group that was significantly women, significantly queer, having Black transgender people in the space. And that’s possible because of them and the national team that they built up around them.”20 In his report for The Nation on the three-day July 2015 Movement for Black Lives gathering at Cleveland State University, nationally recognized civil rights activist, journalist, and thought leader Mark Winston Griffith wrote of the Black Lives Matter movement that the “most significant break from the black political status quo was the space claimed by queer, transgender, and gendernonconforming attendees.”21 Trans-Inclusive Immigrant Rights Movement The day after Jennicet Gutiérrez interrupted President Obama at the White House’s Pride Month Celebration, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he wasn’t aware if President Obama knows of any mistreatment that transgender immigrants experience while in detention. Immediately after, thirtyfive members of Congress issued a letter to the head of Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, calling for an end to “LGBT” detentions. That same week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a memo stating that

the detainees would now be detained in gendered facilities according to the detainee’s gender identity.

This measure is incomplete and doesn’t address the root causes of detention conditions in the first place—yet, it is a victory. It signals the growing power of an increasingly trans-inclusive immigrant rights movement and likewise the strong commitment of LGBTQI organizations to immigration justice.

Trans leaders have served as powerhouses of immigrant rights organizing, bringing the harsh violence that undocumented trans and queer immigrants face to national attention. Immigration poses particular challenges to trans and LGB communities, as many come to the United States to seek asylum from hate violence in their countries of origin. Trans immigrants experience extreme forms of violence in U.S. detention centers. While “only 1 in 500 detainees identifies as trans, a staggering 1 in 5 victims of sexual abuse in immigration detention is trans.”22 As a result, the immigration and Latino/a rights movement meaningfully practices trans inclusion. The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) is one of the only organizations representing Latina women and reproductive rights issues among the more large, powerful, and male-dominated immigration organizations. While taking a stance on trans inclusion and LGBTQ Latino/a rights could pose a risk for NLIRH, they took an advocacy position to include the needs of trans communities in their work. In the wake of the 2015 Supreme Court decision granting marriage equality to same-sex couples, NLIRH’s executive director Jessica González-Rojas released a statement saying, “Even as we celebrate this step forward, queer and transgender immigrants are being held in detention centers where they are subjected to isolation, assault, and the denial of healthcare; LGBTQ youth face higher rates of homelessness; and transgender women experience unconscionable violence, including at the hands of police.”23 This solidarity indicates the significant shift in elevating transgender immigration justice.

There has also been a rise in LGB and trans-specific immigration organizations that engage in service provision as well as grassroots organizing and leadership development. Immigration Equality, for example, was founded in 1994 to provide free legal services to LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants.24 Trans-specific organizations have also proliferated in the last ten years, and a significant portion, including the two largest, has engaged in immigration rights organizing and advocacy. In March of 2015, the Transgender Law Center, one of the largest trans-specific organizations in the United States, released a “Statement of U.S. Transgender Organizations on Immigration Reform.” The statement was signed by thirty-one trans-led organizations, and stated that “any vision of Comprehensive Immigration Reform…must include ensuring security and safety for trans immigrants.”25 Not long ago, thirty-one trans-specific organizations did not even exist.

The DREAMer Movement stands out as a broad grassroots immigration reform effort that prioritizes leadership and experiences of LGBQ, trans, and intersex undocumented immigrants. The DREAMer Movement originated in the mid-2000s with promotion of The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which “would provide a path to citizenship for immigrant youth brought to the U.S. as children.”26 While the act did not pass, an empowered group of undocumented youth grew a forceful movement that eventually became the organization United We Dream (UWD), in 2008. The DREAMer movement includes many queer and transgender youth who coined terms like UndocuQueer and play significant roles as movement leaders. LGBTQ youth leadership is exemplified in Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP), which formed “to transform the immigrant and LGBTQ movements, to adopt an intersectional analysis in their efforts to advance and build power for the rights of both communities.”27 Embodied in this mission is a clear desire to organize from a space of holding multiple identities, to fully belong without leaving the broader immigrant rights community.

Feminist and Reproductive Justice Movements Trans inclusion within the women’s and reproductive rights and justice movements has been fraught. There has been much media coverage that focuses on trans exclusion within the women’s movement, including Elinor Burkett’s New York Times article, “What Makes a Woman?” and Michelle Goldberg’s New Yorker article, “What Is a Woman?”28 Both articles use the transgender tipping point to give new traction to trans-exclusionary thinking within feminism.

What is perhaps more significant is how the media fixated on these old-school ideas while ignoring the newsworthy trend that speaks to more intentional trans inclusion within women’s and reproductive justice organizations.

While philanthropy can be slow to adjust to new trends in social movements, there have been promising developments of LGBQ and trans inclusion in a number of reproductive-justice and women-focused funders. In fact, the New York Women’s foundation is the tenth largest funder of trans-led organizations in the United States.29 Women’s, feminist, and reproductive-justice foundations are slowly but surely moving resources to trans-led organizations, and are changing their missions to include LGBQ and transgender communities. The earliest feminist foundation to do so in the United States is the Third Wave Fund (formerly named Third Wave Foundation, and earlier, Third Wave Direct Action

Page 9

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED Corporation).

Third Wave Fund began the process of becoming a trans-inclusive feminist organization in 2001, years before transgender was added to many LGB organization missions, and well before other feminist or women’s foundations.

However, Third Wave, though founded with queer and straight feminist leaders, had not been trans inclusive from the start. The mission was officially changed to specifically mention transgender people in 2003, and now Third Wave’s board is 30 percent transgender and gender nonconforming. The coauthor of this article, Rye Young, is their first trans executive director, and he is one of the only (if not the only) public trans leader in women’s philanthropy in the nation (if not the world). In the years following Third Wave’s change, a handful of foundations whose prior mission statements only spoke of women now serve transgender people, including Foundation for a Just Society and the Groundswell Fund. Furthering this trend, in fall of 2015, in a public-facing campaign, the Ms. Foundation reframed its definition of feminism to include “the social, economic and political equality of ALL genders.”30 Many reproductive health organizations have tackled barriers to access, including gender and trans discrimination, through a reproductive-justice framework.

Specifically, many have addressed the barriers trans people face in healthcare institutions, in order to expand and reframe practices to serve trans peoples’ medical and legal needs.

Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center (FWHC)—known for providing abortion and other women’s health services—began a sliding-scale Transgender Health Initiative in 2000. The initiative provides obstetrics and gynecology care for transgender people. FWHC’s holistic health services reach beyond direct health services, including providing legal support such as letters for transgender people to process name changes and access insurance coverage.

Also in Atlanta, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW provides an important example of how expanding a mission from a focus on pro-choice activism to a broader set of reproductive justice issues opens the door to trans inclusion.

Originally Georgians for Choice, SPARK began as a coalition with a singleissue focus: “attaining and protecting reproductive freedom.” It later grew into an organization with a multi-issue vision, committed to serving transgender communities. SPARK’s expansive and transformative mission is to “build new leadership, change culture, and advance knowledge in Georgia and the South to ensure individuals and communities have resources and power to make sustainable and liberatory decisions about our bodies, gender, sexualities, and lives.” SPARK has become a center that is focused on both reproductive justice and LGBTQ issues. They run an LGBTQ youth of color media camp and provide services such as information on how transgender people can change their names and pronouns in Georgia—all under the banner of reproductive justice.

Even when abortion remains the focal point, there has been a significant increase in organizations that seek to include trans and gender-nonconforming people.

One clear way that this is happening is through the rise of gender-inclusive language, which means framing abortion-rights language in a way that does not assume that the gender of anyone seeking an abortion is female. For instance, The New York Abortion Access Fund emphasizes the connection between trans and cisgender women’s needs: New York Abortion Access Fund’s belief in one’s right to physical autonomy links the concern for abortion access to the organization’s belief that transgender and gender-nonconforming people should have access to healthcare that is inclusive of abortion. For some a rather radical statement, New York Abortion Access Fund makes its trans-inclusive practices clear, stating, “We recognize that people who identify as men can become pregnant and seek abortions; we strive to meet the needs of all people who seek our funding.”

While not widely known for trans inclusivity, Planned Parenthood provides several health services for transgender people. For many trans people around the country, Planned Parenthood clinics are the only places where they can access hormones. This is true even in states where clinics are under attack, barred from providing abortion care to their clients. Many Planned Parenthood clinics have gender-neutral restrooms to make their offices comfortable for transgender and gender-nonconforming clients.

All of these examples of trans-inclusive movement building reveal the lessertold story of how trans inclusion allows us to fully see the true nature of social problems. Yet this struggle is ongoing. More must be done to ensure that transgender people are employed to do movement work and are respected in the workplace, and that leadership of the most marginalized among us is centered.

We want to celebrate the incremental and significant shifts, while encouraging more people working in civil society and social change organizations to take further steps toward inclusion.

Trans Inclusion Beyond the Media Moment National interest comes and goes. The current spotlight on trans issues, trans celebrities, and trans characters on television is no exception. It is crucial to widen our lenses to fully understand the contemporary challenges and systemic injustices that trans people face as the national conversation on trans rights explodes. Equally crucial is that we remember that trans justice is a centurieslong fight—and it continues, more dire than ever, as trans peoples’ lives remain on the line in the United States and abroad. Finally, it is necessary to dig deeper to consider communities, movements, and organizations that may not be getting that spotlight but are doing groundbreaking work to end the murders, abuse, and oppression of trans people.

We must remember that visibility comes with backlash. As images of trans people hit the news cycle, our television screens, and our media devices, and as federal hate crime legislation shifts toward protecting trans people, state backlash bills are on the rise. Bathroom bills and other discriminatory laws are rapidly popping up across the country, targeting trans people in more explicit ways than ever. At the time of editing this article, forty-four anti-trans bills propose anti-trans laws across sixteen states.31 This compounds with the existing violence and civil rights limitations that trans people in the United States contend with every day.

In this historic moment, we must uncover the discrepancies between policy, lived experience, and trending or celebrity representation and inclusion. We can all follow the lead of our sisters and brothers fighting to end deportation, police killings, and sexism. We all have a role to play in truly ending the marginalization of trans people.

The following three pieces are from the anthology, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown. We hope that these excerpts give some context and inspire you to think about the ways that visionary fiction is a form of collective organizing and a radical way to imagine new worlds without prisons. Next month we will be announcing the visionary fiction writing project that we will invite all of you to participate in. In the next few months we’ll share more on visionary fiction and imagining abolition, so check back next month!

Introduction

By Walidah Imarisha

Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in an exercise of speculative fiction. Organizers and activists struggle tirelessly to create and envision another world, or many other worlds, just as science fiction does... so what better venue for organizers to explore their work than through writing original science fiction stories?

That is the premise behind the collection […] Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements.

Many folks have asked us in the years we have been working on this collection what science fiction could possibly have to do with social justice organizing.

And we respond, “Everything. Everything.”

We strongly believe that all organizing is science fiction - we wanted organizers and movement builders to be able to claim that space, to be the ones writing those visionary stories. Using their every day realities and experiences changing Continued on Page 10...

Possible Transfer of Transgender People to Prisons Matching Their Identity Are you a transgender person currently incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons? Are you interested in getting moved to the gendered prison that matches your identity (for example, if you’re a transgender woman, do you want to be moved to a women’s prison)? The BOP claims that they are moving some transgender people to prisons that match their gender identity, we have never heard of any examples of this. We are working with a team of people trying to advocate for specific individuals to be transferred. We cannot promise anyone will get moved, but we do want to collect information from people who might want to be moved. If you are one of these people, please send us the following information: Name, number, address, sentence length (including likely release date), any history with disciplinary tickets, current classification level (if you know it), whether or not you have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder, what types of gender affirming recognition you already have from the BOP (such as if they allow you to get gender appropriate underwear, medical care, etc.), and any other information you think would be important to know.

Please send this information to Black and Pink - Federal Housing 614 Columbia Rd. Dorchester, MA 02125

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED ...Continued from Page 9...the world to form the foundation for the fantastic, and hopefully build a future where the fantastic becomes the mundane.

We named this collection Octavia’s Brood, in honor of Black female science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Butler explored the intersections of identity and imagination – exploring the gray areas of race, class, gender, sexuality, militarism, inequality, oppression, resistance and most importantly, hope. Her work has taught us so much about the principles of visionary fiction, and helped to lead both adrienne and I to this project. The title is a play on one of Butler’s books, Lilith’s Brood, which is about adaptation as a necessity for survival, that changes will occur we cannot even begin to imagine, and that the next generation will be both utterly familiar and wholly alien to their parents. We believe that is what it means to carry on this legacy that Butler and so many before her laid down.

Visionary fiction is a term that was developed to both distinguish the types of science fiction that have relevance towards building new freer worlds and the mainstream strain of sci fi, and also so we didn’t to spend time arguing with our beautiful nerds about the differences between speculative fiction, magical realism, fantasy, horror, alternate histories, science fiction, etc. We wanted a term that encompassed all of the fantastic.

The anthology contains 20 short stories from people who have dedicated their life to making change. It also includes essays from well-known writers like sci fi author Tananarive Due, and award-winning journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal (who writes about Star Wars and imperialism!).

The process for the creation of this anthology was unlike any either of us editors had been involved with before. The editing process was very intensive and also highly collaborative, with many rounds to pull out the visionary aspects of these incredible stories, as well as to ensure the writing and story-telling captivated and inspired. And we both feel lucky beyond words we had the support our incredible adviser Sheree Renee Thomas, who edited the groundbreaking anthology Dark Matter: 100 Years of Speculative Fiction From the African Diaspora.

Many of our contributors had never written fiction before, let alone science fiction. When we approached folks, the majority were hesitant to commit, feeling like they weren’t qualified. But overwhelmingly, they all came back a few weeks later enthusiastically with incredible ideas and some with dozens of pages already written. Because all organizing is science fiction, and we have been dreaming new worlds every time we think about the changes we want to make in the world. The writers in this collection just need a little space, and perhaps permission, to immerse themselves in it fully.

And especially for folks who are marginalized and oppressed. Art and culture themselves are time traveling, are a place where the past and the present and the future shift seamlessly in and out. And for those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction, walking around on two legs. Our ancestors dreamed us up, and then bent reality to create us. For adrienne and myself as two Black women, we think of our ancestors in chains dreaming about a day when their children’s children’s children would be free. They had not reason to believe this was a possibility, but together they dreamt of freedom, and they brought us into being. It is the legacy of these visionary sci fi creators that we want to continue forward.

One of our contributors Alexis Pauline Gumbs quotes from an interview Octavia Butler did in the 1980s, where she was asked how it felt to be THE Black female sci fi writer. And she said she never wanted that title. She wanted to be one of many Black female sci fi writers. She wanted to be one of thousands of folks writing themselves into their present and into the future. We believe that is the right that Butler claimed for each of us – the right to dream as ourselves, individually and collectively. But we also think it is a responsibility she handed down – are we brave enough to imagine beyond the boundaries of “the real,” and then do the hard work of sculpting reality from our dreams?

Outro

By adrienne maree bown We hold so many worlds inside us. So many futures. It is our radical responsibility to share these worlds, to plant them in the soil of our society as seeds for the type of justice we want and need. It has been beautiful to gather these stories, collaboratively edit them, and begin to understand not just the challenges we face, or the enemies we need to transform, but the abundance of imagination we in the social justice realm hold.

We see ourselves as part of a growing wave of folks connecting science fiction (or what we’re calling visionary fiction) with social justice. Science fiction is the perfect “exploring ground,” as it gives us the opportunity to play with different outcomes and strategies before we have to deal with the real world costs.

In the process of hearing and working these stories, we developed tools, frameworks and principles that would help us to bring the work off of the page and into our lives. We wanted to end this anthology with an offering of three of these tools:

Page 10 The first is visionary fiction, which Walidah spoke about in the introduction. The elements of visionary fiction are that it: explores current social issues through lens of sci fi; is conscious of identity and intersecting identities; centers those who have been marginalized; is aware of power inequalities; is realistic and hard, but hopeful; shows change from the bottom up rather than the top down; highlights that change is collective; and lastly, visionary fiction is not neutral, its purpose is social change and societal transformation. The stories we tell can either reflect the society we are a part of, or transform it. If we want to bring new worlds into existence, then we need to challenge the narratives that uphold current power dynamics and patterns. We call upon science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism, myth and everything in-between as we create and teach visionary fiction.

The second tool is emergent strategy. A strategy is a set of plans towards an action. Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns emerge from a series of relatively simple interactions. Instead of linear, hierarchical, outcomeoriented strategies and strategic plans that can’t adapt to changing conditions, we need ways of strategizing together based on understanding and respecting change. So far, the elements of emergent strategy are that it is intentional, interdependent/relational, adaptive, strong/resilient because it is decentralized, fractal, using transformative justice and creating more possibilities. One of the ways we’ve been reading Octavia Butler’s work is as case studies of emergent strategy. In sessions with local communities, we’re introducing people to the framework, and asking them to assess which elements of emergent strategy might be most necessary to their local work, and supporting them in generating strategies together.

One aspect of emergent strategy is that it allows you to use the resources around you, to find value in things that previously you may have dismissed as trash.

Butler’s book Parable of the Sower follows the main character Olamina, a young Black woman who lives in a slightly more dystopic future in a gated community.

She carries a radically different vision for the purpose of humanity than her Christian family, she believes our destiny is to take root amongst the stars, to see Earth as a womb rather than a permanent home. She calls her beliefs Earthseed, and cultivates it as she matures in the tiny and dangerous container of her home.

The essence of emergent strategy can be found in the central tenant of Olamina’s Earthseed: Everything you touch, you change. Everything you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. Olamina begins studying the skills needed to survive outside of the walls and packs a survival kit bag. When the community is attacked and the walls fall, she finds herself on the outside with her bag, her knowledge and her dreams. She finds people along the way, other survivors willing to dream with her new forms of community, adapting constantly to ever changing conditions. Exploring these and other examples from Octavia’s work, in addition to studying other aspects of emergence, create a solid foundation for changing the way we strategize on our path to justice.

Finally, we have our collective science/visionary fiction writing workshops. Our premise is that if we want worlds that work for more of us, we have to have more of us involved in the visioning process. One of the ways we perpetuate individualism is by ideating alone, literally coming up with ideas in solitude and then competing to bring them to life. Our workshops are designed to encourage collective, collaborative ideation - together we identify issues that are relevant to the local community, and build a world in which to explore the issue and possible solutions.

In each workshop, we start out by asking ourselves ‘what in our community needs vision?’, with the idea that we can apply our collective ideation to it like a healing salve.

We identify lead characters - often pairs or groups of lead characters to disrupt the solitary hero narrative, and we intentionally move those voices which are often marginalized in our society to the center of the world building.

We then build the setting, identifying where we are in time, creating a geography, conditions, naming any shared assumptions we have, and determining what the major conflict will be in that world. What is the change our characters seek?

Who else is seeking change?

Once these elements are laid out, we send people off to spend time writing their stories in this shared world. So far, no matter how much time we give people, they are still writing when the timer goes off. The imagination just needs a little nudge to run wild.

The writers come back together to read their work and affirm each other for being part of such a collective act of genius. Each time, participants are surprised and inspired by the ways others interpret and experiment in the world. We believe that experience helps grow the capacity to truly vision and implement together.

We are touring the country, sharing these tools for communities to use in their own local work. What we continue to experience are the kinds of groundbreaking conversations that transform how people view their present lives and work.

STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED Birth of a Revolution: Introduction to Octavia’s Brood

By Sheree Renée Thomas

“We believe it is our right and responsibility to write ourselves into the future.”

--Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha

In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. cautioned us about adding “deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” He wrote that darkness cannot drive out darkness, that hate cannot drive out hate, and reminded us that only love can do that. Thirty years later, Octavia E. Butler wrote in her novel, Parable of the Sower, that our “destiny is to take root among the stars.” Both the activist and the artist seem at first glance to be engaged in markedly different lifework, and yet they embraced a shared dream for the future. Their work is linked by a faith and fusion of spiritual teachings and social consciousness, a futuristic social gospel. In its essence, social justice work, that which King embodied and that which Butler expressed so skillfully in her novels and stories, is about love—a love that has the best hopes and wishes for humanity at its heart.

Today social justice represents one of the most serious challenges to the conscience of our world. New technology and corporate political policies make it possible to accumulate wealth and power in startling, fantastic ways, while widening the gulf between those who have and those who don’t. In America and in the big beautiful world beyond, the gulf widens perversely, making a mockery of freedom, justice, democracy, even mercy. James Baldwin said that we are not born knowing what these concepts mean, that they are neither common nor well defined. If we “individuals must make an enormous effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply,” then our communities must make a sustained and concentrated effort to create societies that reflect that same sense of respect and meaning.

The stories in Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements represent a global quest for social transformation, for justice.

They are about people from different backgrounds and worlds, expanding the notions of solidarity and community, redefining service, and exploring and rediscovering the human spirit in baffling times, under challenging circumstances. The writers collected here offer stories that explore a broad range of social justice issues, from environmentalism and urban gentrification, bioterrorism and racism, militarism and motherhood, to spiritual journeys and psychological quests. Culled from artists who in their other lives work tirelessly as community activists, educators, and organizers, these stories incite, inspire, engage. If the purpose of a writer, as Toni Cade Bambara shared, “is to make revolution irresistible,” these writers, these stories represent.

With incisive imagination and a spirited sense of wonder, editors Brown and Imarisha and their writers bridge the gap between speculative fiction and social justice, creating a space that boldly writes new voices and communities into the future.

A trickster, teacher, chaos, and clay, God, as described by Octavia E. Butler in her Parable novels is change. By spawning new conversations in our classrooms, inspiring vigorous discussion in our coffeehouses and book clubs, creating new organizing tools and “case studies” for strategizing in our community organizations, I believe Octavia’s Brood is an important resource in our journey toward positive cultural and institutional change.

Call for Council Members for National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

Dear Sisters: So yes! We are creating the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. The purpose of the Council is to support the work of each of us, as incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women and girls (cisgender and transgender alike), whether as individuals or as organizations doing criminal justice work from our OWN voices. It is a platform for providing support to each other as we do our individual work. So for example, if one of our sisters in Stonewall, Mississippi, is working on drafting legislation, or organizing, or anything else, and needs direction, she can reach out to her Council member sisters and receive guidance.

The Council is a place where members support one another by sharing the knowledge and powerful experiences of the women and girls most affected by current criminal legal policies who know the realities of incarceration, the many hurdles women face after returning home, and the harm done to families and communities by the carceral state.

The other purpose of the Council is to ensure that no policies, laws, practices, organizing and services can be made about women and girls who are or were incarcerated without including our voices and ideas. Our mantra is “Nothing about us, without us!” This is a lofty goal, however if connected and sharing information, we have better opportunity to include

Page 11 our voices. Through support, awareness and advocacy, the Council is committed to collectively building new and just policy grounded in human rights.

Most important to our organizing the Council is to have representatives from within every prison and jail in the country that incarcerates women and girls.

The American Bar Association recently published a report that supports the creation of independent review boards for every prison. We intend on creating Council members from within each women’s prison so that our incarcerated sisters’ voices, projects and grievances can receive full support from the Council and increased public awareness. We are lining up our supporters as we know we will need help with this piece and we want transparency for our incarcerated Council sisters. We want them to be able to participate and communicate as Council members without retaliation from the prison and we are working on how to begin conversations with state policy makers and prison officials about that, from state to state.

I hope that you will consider becoming a Council member (all it takes is for you to say YES!! And we will include your name and contact info (unless you prefer us not to for safety reasons). We are starting a National Council newsletter to send in to all of our sisters who want to receive it and it will provide updates on Council and member activities (including from the inside) and provide the names and contact info for the members in each state.

I also hope that you will consider being a Council representative for the prison where you are incarcerated and we can talk about what that could look like from your perspective. We also have a podcast, Real Women, Real Voices, and it’s interviews of formerly incarcerated women sharing their re-entry experiences to help create a roadmap, encouragement and support for incarcerated women and those coming home. We hope to get the podcast into women’s prisons throughout the country.

If you want to refer someone to the Council to become a member, please ask them to write us at Families for Justice as Healing. We will eventually have a mailing address for the Council, but for now it’s our office at FJAH. Our office address is: Families for Justice as Healing / 42 Seaverns Avenue /Boston, MA 02130 My direct number is (617) 905-2026. Thank you Sister! Remember that we are out here and we are fighting for our sisters to come home.

Love and Justice, Andrea James

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STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS CONTINUED Save The Date: Formerly Incarcerated Peoples’ Quest for Democracy Advocacy Day May 9th, 2016 Sacramento, California Formerly-incarcerated people, family members, and community leaders have organized a statewide advocacy day in Sacramento, which we named Quest For Democracy. This year will be the 4th Annual Quest for Democracy Day (Q4DD). We gather to show support or opposition for pending legislation that affecting the lives of people impacted by incarceration. We also take this space to assert ourselves as leaders, experts, and contributing members of our communities in a place where we are normally invisible and silenced.

Q4D lobby visit 2 One of last year’s Q4D advocacy visits We are asking all organizations, particularly those with members who have been incarcerated, to join us on May 9th, 2016.

We are working to secure support for the buses that will be rolling out of both Northern and Southern California and we are looking for sponsors. Please come out and support formerly and currently incarcerated people, and our families, in our fight for inclusion.

Please let us know if: 1. You or your organization is interested in joining us

¡Hola hermosa familia hispano-parlante de Black & Pink!

2. Your organization would like to be listed as an endorser (show physical solidarity, outreach to others in your networks, etc.)

Estamos buscando contribuciones en español para nuestras secciones de Cartas A Nuestra Familia y Poesía Del Corazón.

3. Your organization would like to have a representative in the planning committee (we have a standing planning call every Monday at 3pm).

Por favor envía tu contribución escrita en forma legible y de no más de tres páginas a:

Thank you, On Behalf of the Q4D Planning Committee Formerly Incarcerated People & Families’ Quest for Democracy Advocacy Day

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