Mills Matters We Are the Voices hosts Chelsea Manning On April 13, the Mills College Trans
the guards who were the most violent
studies, and oppositional scholarship.
Studies Speaker Series welcomed inter-
people—there were never any repercus-
The project sponsors a number of pro-
nationally-known technologist and net-
sions for them or accountability.”
grams and projects, including the Mills
During that time, she also began
College Trans Studies Speaker Series,
for a talk show-styled event at Lisser
her gender transition, which led to
multiple digital multimedia journals,
Hall with Barbara Lee Distinguished
her fighting for a year and a half to
and the podcast We Are The Voices
Chair in Women’s Leadership Susan
gain access to hormone therapy. Even
Radio. WATV takes proactive steps to
Stryker. Co-sponsored by We Are
though she won that case, Manning was
support and nurture the next activ-
the Voices and the President’s Office,
still kept in a prison for men until her
ists of our time, namely through its
“Volatile Contexts: Identity, Technology
eventual release in 2017, when President
Community Collaborators program.
and Politics in a Moment of Danger”
Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
addressed issues ranging from national
From there, Manning went on
Stephanie Young, graduate students
security and surveillance, artificial intel-
to become an outspoken activist
in the program design and implement
ligence, trans rights, critiques of the car-
in politics and the tech world.
public projects that explore the trans-
work security expert Chelsea Manning
Supervised by faculty advisor
ceral complex, and prison abolitionism.
“I don’t focus on one thing [for
formative power of literature in East Bay
Manning, a former Army intelligence
activism]—I try to dabble,” she told
communities and beyond. One 2021–22
analyst who was convicted in 2013 after
Stryker. During the talk, not only did
collaborator, Caroline Gasparini, MFA
leaking thousands of classified docu-
she touch on trans rights—such as for
’22, a poetry candidate in the English
ments to media website WikiLeaks, began
gender-nonconforming prisoners in the
MFA program, created the digital liter-
the conversation describing her back-
prison-industrial complex and for trans-
ary journal OUT!spoken, which features
ground and time in the military before
gender refugees fleeing the Ukraine
works by Bay Area LGBTQIA+ writ-
her eventual arrest and prison sentence.
War but she also addressed ethics and
ers and activists in conversation with
“One of the key takeaways [from prison]
accountability for tech companies today.
the fight to end mass incarceration.
for me personally was the solidarity and
Moreover, one of her biggest points
“Ultimately, my work seeks to fur-
was how social media feeds online
ther catalyze discussion around mass
on to survive in this environment,” she
political discourse, preventing real
incarceration, LGBTQIA+ rights, and
recalled. “But time and time again, it was
activism. “It’s so easy to get caught up
the transformative social change that
in that ‘thing’—that ‘thing’ trending on
occurs when centering the voices and
Twitter, that ‘thing’ your friends are
stories of those most impacted by the
arguing about,” she argued. “Because I
issues at hand,” Gasparini wrote in her
feel like that ‘thing’ is the distraction
community collaborator bio. Another
machine, distracting us from the reality
graduate poetry student and 2021–22
of what we really need to do over the
collaborator, Tovah Strong, MFA ’22,
next few decades.
runs Perforations, a digital multimedia
ROBBIE S WEEN Y
the network of people I’ve depended
“We don’t have an awareness
peels away borders—particularly the
Manning added. “How do we get our
US-Mexico border.
power back? How do we live as humans in this world?” These are questions that We Are The
8
M I L L S Q U A R T E R LY
journal seeking work that examines and
problem; we have an action problem,”
Gasparini and Strong are a few examples of the collaborations WATV supports, working in tandem with activ-
Voices (WATV) continuously tackles.
ists to promote their creative projects
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon
on a public platform. These students
Foundation, WATV connects Mills stu-
take action through transformative
dents with local and national writers,
art and writing, uplifting the voices
performers, and scholars, collaborat-
of marginalized communities—just as
ing around transformative art, critical
Manning called for.
