Celebrating the life of Abraham Bassford (1936-2025), Freedom Rider and member of the Student Peace Union in the 1960s, who died in December 2025.
Kaitlin
Queer Notes: May-June 2023
June 8, 2023Takes up: Uganda’s President Museveni who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, which includes the death penalty; That supporters of drag story time at Middlesex County Library in Parkhill, Ontario, Canada, protected the storytellers and attendees from 40 anti-gay protesters; and Namibia’s Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry’s lack of recognition of same-sex marriages conducted in other countries undermines the dignity and equality of the appellants.
Transphobic and misogynist USA
April 25, 2023Across the U.S., many Republican lawmakers are proposing and passing transphobic legislation. This year alone, 498 such laws have been proposed, and 46 passed, compared to 149 proposed and 17 becoming law in 2022. Utah began its year by passing a law that denies hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries to people under 18, even when [=>]
Readers’ Views: January-February 2023, Part One
January 24, 2023Readers’ Views on: Women’s Struggles for Freedom; Open Season on Lgbtq+ ; Healthcare Workers on Strike; Lois Curtis; Immigrant Solidarity Needed; Putin vs. Ukraine; U.S. Right vs. Ukraine; Water and Humanity’s Future
Readers’ Views, September-October 2022: Kei Utsumi (Basho), 1935-2022
September 13, 2022What a loss we feel with the passing of Kei Utsumi. Several readers and writers share their remembrances.
Handicap This!: July-August 2022
July 20, 2022The difficulties people with disabilities are experiencing in Ukraine as it is being attacked by Russia; the newly formed Marion County (Oregon) Advisory Group will help the disability community connect with emergency management during emergencies; and the Australian Disability Enterprises refused to raise their sub-minimum wage for disabled workers.
Queer Notes: June 2022
June 3, 2022Takes up: UK waffling on protecting LGBTQI+ people from so-called conversion therapy; reviewers are calling ‘Badhaai Do,’ Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s Indian dramedy film about Lesbians and Gay men, bold and refreshing; Gay man Venton Jones won the Democratic runoff primary for Texas’s 10th House district against queerphobe Sandra Crenshaw; and a teacher in Florida created a template letter that cleverly works around Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hate-filled Don’t Say Gay Bill, HB 1557.
LGBTQ+ are under fire in Ukraine
May 20, 2022LGBTQ+ Ukrainians are reacting in a variety of ways to the Russian invasion. Some are fleeing, others have enlisted or been drafted to fight; and others are staying to help their country in other ways.
Handicap This!: May-June 2022
May 19, 2022Takes up: Difficulty for a disabled raped women in Kyrgyzstan to get justice; Mexican women marching on International Women’s Day for disabled women’s rights; the Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia hailing a victory; and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ ad seeking psychologists boasted of all the mentally ill people in U.S. prisons.
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.
Review of ‘55 Steps’
January 31, 2019A review of the movie, “55 Steps,” directed by Bille August, which tells the story of Eleanor Riese, a mental health patient, and her court case, which won the right for California’s acute, competent mentally ill patients to have informed consent about their medications.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 2
July 14, 2016Readers’ Views on Needed New Beginnings in Philosophy and Revolution; Making One Year Count; Subjugated Knowledge; Free Syria/May Day; and Voices From Behind the Bars.
Review of ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’
April 30, 2015She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a documentary of the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in the U.S., from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Filmmaker Mary Dore used a wealth of historical news coverage to give a sense of the breadth of organizations and depth of demands in the explosive growth of the WLM. Activists, identified within archival footage—including women like Fran Beal of the Civil Rights Movement’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lesbian rights activist Karla Jay, and Judith Arcana of the abortion underground organization Jane—gave contemporary interviews interspersed in the film.