Takes up: Transgender Awareness Week 2023 worldwide; Intersex people’s rights; a LGBTQ+ art exhibit in Sao Paulo; the aftermath of the murder of nonbinary Mexican Justice Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo; and the Lynchburg, Va., City School Board rejecting a grant awarded by the “It Gets Better Project” to high school students to create a safe space.
lgbt
Woman as Reason: The practicality of revolution
December 28, 2023Reporter Sonia Sodha asked: “Women in revolt achieved so much. Why are decades of progress now being reversed?” The struggle for freedom of all those who have been pronounced as less than human may seem impossible, but as Irish revolutionary James Connolly said: “Revolution is never practical—until the hour of the revolution strikes.”
Women WorldWide: March-April 2022
March 15, 2022Demonstrations in Mexico City against legislation recognizing surrogacy; decriminalization of abortion in Colombia; organizations assisting survivors of domestic violence and other traumas oppose the truck convoy in Ottawa, Canada, as re-traumatizing women; FiLiA began their “Kakuma Campaign” in Kenya on behalf of the residents of Block 13, an LGB&T+ refugee camp.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2022
February 27, 2022FiLiA began their “Kakuma Campaign” in Kenya on behalf of the residents of Block 13, the LGB&T+ area of the Kakuma refugee camp; demonstrations in Mexico City against legislation on surrogacy; the decriminalization of abortion in Colombia; and people in organizations assisting survivors of domestic violence, war, homelessness and other traumas came out against the truck convoy in Ottawa, Canada, as traumatizing women.
Queer Notes
February 15, 2021The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland decries Ireland’s denial of asylum for a Zimbabwean Lesbian and for several other LGBTQ+ refugees; and U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced a bill to block funding from state and local sports organizations that allow Transgender females to participate in girls’ or women’s sports.
World in view: Massive student-led protests cover Thailand
November 24, 2020Tens of thousands of Thai students, many from high schools, have been carrying on massive demonstrations for months demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha; rewriting the Constitution that Prayut foisted on the country, including a Senate appointed by the military; and reining in the vast privileges and protections of the monarchy.
Polish women’s revolutionary moment
October 30, 2020While what is happening in Poland may not be a revolution, it is revolutionary. Women are leading a movement protesting the Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom, and mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Readers’ views: September-October 2020, part two
August 29, 2020Readers’ Views takes up: Queer safety is a human right; fake green politics; women in India; women in the U.S.; shameless evictions; voices from behind bars.
The Power of Women’s Liberation in Mexico
March 10, 2020Participant report of women’s strike in Mexico City, March 9, 2020.
LGBT: ‘Lives in Transition’
June 26, 2019The photographs and captions in Slobodan Randjelovic’s “Lives in Transition” exhibit show a Queer community that hopes, fears, desires, loves and struggles.
Women Worldwide: May-June 2018
May 2, 2018A roundup of women’s news including: the Boston Women’s Health Collective will no longer update the iconic Our Bodies Ourselves; Maxine Hammond is fundraising to preserve the Suppressed History of Archives of women resisting oppression; protests against the murder of Black Lesbian Brazilian feminist Marielle Franco; and Belfast Feminist Network’s protest outside an Ulster Rugby team match after players were acquitted of rape.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 1
July 2, 2017Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolt vs. Trumpism; Trump and the Left; Injustice to Immigrants; Anti-Woman, Anti-Labor Uber; ACT UP; From Iran; To Mexico; Why Read News & Letters?
Queer Notes, July-August 2017
June 30, 2017Queer notes on rejection of the Darlington Statement in Australia; first Pride celebration in Beirut, Lebanon, and one year mark of the Pulse Nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2017
May 1, 2017Reader’s Views on Women vs. Reaction; Women and Philosophy; Syria and Humanity; Support Trans Children!; Animals and Us; Repression vs. Justice; Why Read “N&L”; Voices from Behind the Bars
Queer Notes: May-June 2017
April 30, 2017Lesbian feminist Azza Sultan’s Bedayaa and Mesahat Foundation for Sexual and Gender Diversity fights for Queer rights in Egypt and Sudan; LGBT federal workers and senior citizens face rollback of their rights by President Trump; straight male politicians of The Netherlands solidarize with a Gay couple who were assaulted; Chechnya is arresting, detaining in concentration camps and killing men who are suspected of having a “nontraditional sexual orientation.”
Trans Victims Honored
January 25, 2016A report on several Transgender Day of Remembrance events held in New York City in November 2015.
Review: Out In The Union: A Labor History of Queer America
January 24, 2016Review of Review: Out In The Union: A Labor History of Queer America, by feminist anti-religious right activist Adele who writes an appreciative look at Miriam Frank’s important book.
Editorial: Syriza’s many challenges
March 7, 2015The electoral victory of Greece’s Syriza party was an important first step in resisting austerity imposed on the Greek and European working classes as capitalism’s response to its own intractable crisis. Nothing could be in greater contradiction to the movement that lifted Syriza to prominence than the parliamentary alliance with the racist, theocratic Independent Greeks party.
Review — ‘Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers’
August 29, 2014Review of the book “Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers” by Anne Balay.
Same-sex marriage
May 20, 2014Roundup on advances and resistance on same-sex marriage in churches and states.
Queer Notes, May-June 2014
Mississippi pro-discrimination law; Gay rights in India’s election; sexual and gender diversity classes in Nepal.
Queer Notes, March-April 2014
April 2, 2014CeCe McDonald; Arizona’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act; Global Day of Action called by Solidarity Alliance in Nigeria.
Women Worldwide, March-April 2014
March 25, 2014Women worldwide, March-April 2014: Sexism in chemistry profession; Shulamit Aloni; Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot.
‘Sex Workers Unite’
March 23, 2014“Sex Workers Unite: A History of the Movement from Stonewall to SlutWalk,” by Melinda Chateauvert, is a valuable history of the Sex Workers’ Rights Movement in the U.S. from its start in the 1960s to the present and its intersection with other social justice movements.
Ukraine and Bosnia: historic uprisings
March 16, 2014In Ukraine, an unexpected eruption of mass struggle led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s corrupt, oligarchic, and ultimately murderous President Viktor Yanukovych. In Bosnia, at the same time, massive, nationwide discontent with the corrupt system left in place when the 1995 Dayton Accords partitioned the country has led to the equally unexpected creation of new forms of democratic organization.
Queer Notes, Jan.-Feb. 2014
March 6, 2014Opposition to Russia’s renewed oppression of LGBT people; India’s Supreme Court upholds British colonial-era anti-sodomy law
Queer Notes, Nov.-Dec. 2013
November 30, 2013Queer Notes: Discrimination in Russia; Intersex in Germany; no prison for rape in Iowa; transition surgery in Iran; Lembembe murdered in Cameroon.
Christian Nation
November 26, 2013Review of “Christian Nation: a Novel” by Frederic C. Rich, a work of speculative fiction in which the religious Right takes over the U.S., turning it into a brutally totalitarian state.
Anti-LGBT bigot sued in human rights trial
September 22, 2013U.S. preacher and bigot Scott Lively will have to face charges of human rights violations in a Massachusetts courtroom. Lively is best known as promoter of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill. His homophobic preaching has led to persecution and death among African Gays.
The Left and Malala Yousafzai
December 1, 2012Woman as Reason
Meredith Tax, a women’s liberationist and political activist since the late 1960s, author of The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880–1917, and now U.S. Director of the Centre for Secular Space, a think tank formed to oppose fundamentalism and promote universality in human rights, has recently written an important and [=>]
Review: The Conflict… debating motherhood
October 11, 2012The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, by Elisabeth Badinter
The Conflict is a brief overview of its subject that occasionally makes poorly supported generalizations, but it has sparked an important debate within feminism. Badinter criticizes not motherhood itself, but the new trend of “attachment parenting” (AP) which involves spending as much time [=>]
Shameful lack of services for Trans seniors
October 9, 2012Chicago—The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently banned discrimination based on gender identity or expression. All healthcare facilities which accept federal money, including Medicaid and Medicare, cannot discriminate against Transgender nor gender-variant patients.
This only underlines how pervasive discrimination remains. The Services and Advocacy for LGBT Elders’ (SAGE) report, “Improving the Lives of Transgender [=>]
Readers’ Views, July-August 2012, Part 2
August 15, 2012RICH AND DUNAYEVSKAYA: A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
Thanks for your In Memoriam to Adrienne Rich. It revealed a dimension that many who were appreciative of her poetry and feminism may not have known—Rich’s exploration of Marx’s ideas through her reading of Raya Dunayevskaya. One piece Rich wrote was titled “Dunayevskaya’s Marx.” It was crucial how you [=>]
Queer Notes, March-April 2012
April 18, 2012From the March-April 2012 issue of News & Letters:
Queer Notes
by Elise
A California Girl Scout put out a YouTube video asking the public to boycott Girl Scout cookies because she objects to a troop admitting a Transgender girl. While three Louisiana troops disbanded over the issue, a national Girl Scouts spokeswoman for the 100-year-old organization [=>]
News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2012
March 5, 2012OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2012-2013
February 26, 2012
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
Where we must begin is with the world in upheaval, from Occupy Wall Street to Arab Spring, still going after more than a year.
Nothing better shows the old order’s bloody desperation to prevent a [=>]
Queer Notes, January-February 2012
February 27, 2012by Suzanne Rose
After six days of 24-hour-a-day activism, LGBT occupiers, activists, and human rights groups in Seoul, South Korea, won the Seoul Student Rights Ordinance, with all clauses in the original draft included. The draft that calls for non-discrimination against LGBT students as well as their active protection passed the council with a vote [=>]
Homeless Queer Youth
February 25, 2012Chicago—About 30% of homeless youth in the U.S. are Queer. Many become homeless after being thrown out of their homes by families who reject them. And Queer youth are outing themselves at younger ages.
As homeless Queer youth Jeremiah Beaverly, who grew up in Wisconsin and Illinois, told NPR: “The day after my 18th birthday this [=>]
‘A Survivor’s Story’
February 14, 2012‘A Survivor’s Story’
Reform at Victory: a Survivor’s Story by Michele Ulriksen (Pizan Media, 2008, 300 pages)
Reform at Victory is the memoir that sparked the creation of Survivors of Institutional Abuse (SIA), an organization of adult survivors of abuse at facilities that purport to help troubled teens. The organization’s main focus is fundamentalist Christian “treatment” programs. [=>]
Queer Notes, September-October 2011
September 27, 2011by Suzanne Rose
While returning from a bar last month in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, three men were detained by the police because they thought two of them looked feminine. The three were jailed for a week and two were tortured and abused by the police. One man was released, but the other two were [=>]
Expose demonization of Black Gay youth
September 25, 2011Chicago—Editor’s note: News and Letters Committees hosted a forum in our Chicago office on Aug. 8 on the response within the Gay community to the Facebook page Take Back Boystown posting videos of Blacks fighting as a way to demonize “outsiders” coming to Gay institutions and bars. Below is part of the discussion among panelists [=>]
July-August 2011 Queer Notes
August 21, 2011by Elise
Students at Mona Shores High School in Muskegon, Mich., won gender-neutral proms. After Oak Reed, a Transgender boy, was nominated prom King and school administrators threw out the ballots saying Reed is technically a girl, students protested by creating a Facebook page, “Oak is my king,” and passed out petitions.
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The International [=>]
News and Letters panel on “Boystown: Class, Race and Public Space”
August 20, 2011Here are links to some local news coverage of a recent meeting of the Chicago Local of News and Letters Committees:
Windy City Times: Community groups continue to focus on Lakeview
Gay Chicago: Panel addresses Lake View’s summer turmoil
Here’s the flyer for the meeting:
News and Letters Committees invites you to a forum on:
Queer Notes, May-June 2011
June 4, 2011Middle school student Noah Hornik of Palo Alto, Cal., is organizing the “It Gets Indie” benefit concert in San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall to raise awareness and support prevention of Queer youth suicide. Noah was motivated by suicides of Queer youth, witnessing numerous incidents of harassment, and the passage of Proposition 8.
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May-June 2011 issue of News & Letters is available online
May 6, 2011News & Letters, Vol. 56, No. 3
May-June 2011
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2011
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage
Revolution and counter-revolution have forced their way to the center stage of history. In Tunisia and Egypt, revolutions have opened tremendous possibilities and spread the fire of their passion all across the Arab world and from China to the [=>]
Queer Notes, March-April 2011
April 17, 2011by Elise
Transphobia is alive and well. Transgender woman Chrissie Bates was found stabbed to death Jan. 10 in her apartment in Minneapolis, Minn. She’s identified as Christopher P. Bates by the police investigating the crime. A vigil was held for her Jan. 21 by Queer rights group OutFront Minnesota. And, in Honduras, officials are being called [=>]
Ex-Gay ‘therapy’ lies
April 15, 2011From the March-April 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Ex-Gay ‘therapy’ lies
Memphis, Tenn.–On Feb. 21, Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out (TWO), gave a multimedia lecture at Rhodes College here. Besen, author of Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth, founded the organization in 2006 to alert the public to [=>]
Queer Notes, Jan.-Feb. 2011
March 4, 2011by Elise
The Bisexual Queer Alliance of Chicago (BQAC) was formed in autumn 2010, to raise visibility of the Bisexual community there—where we’re virtually unknown—to erase Bi-phobia and to work towards Bi civil rights. BQAC applauds the Center on Halsted, a Chicago LGBT resource center, for holding a space for us for years and now we’ve [=>]
Readers’ Views (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
February 28, 2011THE OPPOSITE OF WAR IS NOT PEACE BUT REVOLUTION
Your Statement, War threat over Korea,” issued on your website on Dec. 9 had it just right! “The continuing threat of war on the Korean Peninsula underscores the urgency of the Marxist-Humanist perspective that the opposite of war is not peace but revolution.”
And you had it right [=>]
Women Worldwide, Jan.-Feb. 2011
February 22, 2011by Artemis
On Dec. 17, 2010, the Eighth International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was observed in 15 cities in the U.S., seven cities in Canada and six cities in other countries. In candlelight vigils, the names were read of 60 sex workers murdered in 2010. The speeches, discussions and video showings made statements [=>]
Queer Notes, Nov.-Dec. 2010
December 5, 2010Queer Notes
by Elise
Marco Melgoza, seventh-grade student, protested anti-Gay bullies. With his dad Jerry Watson at his side, Melgoza carried the sign “Bullying Is a Weapon” outside his Middle School, Desmond, in Madera, California. He has been called names and been physically attacked. Melgoza joins people from San Francisco, to Utah, to New York City, from [=>]