Far-right campaigns aim to ban sex and LGBTQ+ themed books from children’s and teen’s sections in public and school libraries. Nevertheless, resistance finds multiple paths to defend the freedom to read.

Far-right campaigns aim to ban sex and LGBTQ+ themed books from children’s and teen’s sections in public and school libraries. Nevertheless, resistance finds multiple paths to defend the freedom to read.
Takes up: Colombian paramilitary groups kill LGBTQI+ people; the Borough of State College, Penn., declares itself a refuge for Transgender and nonbinary youth; Giggle for Girls, a female-only social network, discriminated against Trans woman Roxanne Tickle; and LGBTQ+ people and supporters protest Bulgaria’s new anti-LGBTQ+ bill.
Queer Notes columnist Elise presents a bird’s-eye view of the advances and retrogressions in the struggle for freedom of LGBTQI+people worldwide, from Uganda and South Africa to Indonesia, from Poland and Czech Republic to the U.S. and Canada.
Part II of the 2024-2025 Draft Perspectives. Takes up: the global retrogression that a second Trump period would mean.
Readers’ Views on: Israel/Palestine; Revolt in Iran; in Canada for 2SLGBTQIA+; Trump, Biden too old to run; Racism in Tennessee; Prisoners miss ‘N&L’; Memorial for Paul Geist and Dan Bremer; Texas targets pregnant women & refugees; Ohio targets women and democracy; Revolutionary history; and Raining on those with disabilities.
San Diegans defended books about sexual orientation and gender identity when queerphobic Amy Vance and Martha Martin removed almost all the books from Rancho Penasquitos library.
Readers’ Views on: Violence and Racism Still Put U.S. in the Dock; American Civilization on Trial; Critical Race Theory; Critical Thinking and Education; 2SLGBTQIA+ Good and Bad News; Is Covid Over?; Remembering the Vietnam War; Syria Genocide Whitewashed; Fanaticism of Reactionaries
Supporters of a Winnipeg cafe opposed threats made against a drag story hour; Granbury, Texas, school district is investigated after ordering librarians to remove all LGBTQ+ books; Indian photographer Nishat Fatima’s exhibition seeks to raise awareness of the various dimensions within the LGBTQ+ community.
Readers’ 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
Revolutionary Thinkers’ Dialogue; Trans and Queer Solidarity; U.S. Slavery Today; Prison Kangaroo Courts; Guilty Police and State; FBI’s Aretha Files; Why Read N&L?; Voices from Behind Bars
Readers’ Views on: Iran: Woman, Life, Freedom; Election Threats and Battles; Women’s Marches and Enemies; Sexist Supreme Court; Ukrainians Fight for Freedom; Para-Transit Disservice; Mike Davis; Labor Struggles, from Amazon…to the Bank.
This letter expands on the reason for writing Philosophy and Revolution, and on the concepts of “woman as revolutionary reason as well as force” and “new forces and new passions” of revolution. It illuminates Dunayevskaya’s view of multilinearity in Marx’s late writings as a dimension of his concept of revolution in permanence concerning not only class but all social relations, and speaks to the question of method in today’s debates about sexuality, women’s liberation and new subjects of revolution.
Readers’ Views on: Supreme Court’s Attack on Women’s Freedom; Abortion, Healthcare and Women’s Movement; Abortion Unseparated from All Freedom Struggles; Gay Pride: Whose Bodies? Ours!; Colonizers Past and Present; Let Them Eat Rockets; Oppression of Homeless; Only 14 More Mass Shootings!; Church, State and Football
In San Francisco on May 14 over 10,000 people marched for the right to abortion and against the U.S. Supreme Court which has now lost all legitimacy. A million people marched in over 450 events across the U.S. to show their anger at the Supreme Court’s impending reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized women’s right to abortion.
Texas, Florida and Oklahoma have recently passed laws that threaten Queer kids and can be directed against any marginalized group. No matter which politician is in power or what political party is dominant, they will do little to protect oppressed groups or benefit the lives of regular people in any significant way.
Queer Notes on Nobody’s Darling, a new Queer bar in Chicago; the death of Rebecca Juro, radio host and advocate for Trans rights; LGBTQ+ reaction to the election of Gabriel Boric in Chile; and LGBTQ+ discrimination in South Korea.
Trans people in Puerto Rico; a counter-protest led by Rainbow Coalition, protector of Trans children in Canada; and a protest at Chicago’s Benet Academy against the firing of soccer coach Amanda Kammes.
Queer Notes takes up a Queer rights rally in Madrid, Spain, to call for stronger laws to protect LGBTQ+ people; LGBTQ+ people and their supporters in New York City protested the homophobic assault against Abimbola Adelaja and his friend; and Parents in Tennessee and the Human Rights Campaign are suing the state to overturn its anti-Trans law that allows schools to be sued if they allow a Trans student in a cisgender bathroom.
Susan Van Gelder reviews the book “The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart” by Alicia Garza.
Pro-LGBTQ+ Solidarity Workouts in Poland; Transgender girl Kai Shappley testifies to the Texas Senate; Queer-Art hosts “Response to Anti-Asian Shootings in Atlanta” exhibit; International Transgender Day of Visibility.
Lenn Keller, a Black Lesbian feminist activist, historian, and documentary photographer, remembered; women sue MindGeek/Pornhub and pressure credit card companies; Chile women win demand for half the seats in constitutional convention; women win reinstatement in First Nation bands in Canada.
Murders of Trans and Gender Nonconforming people; vigil for Avril, a Trans student harassed at a French high school; New Orleans’ underserved and at-risk communities, including LGBTQ+ people, and the homeless and poor living with HIV/AIDS; swell of support for Trevor Wilkinson, suspended in Texas high school for nail polish.
Stabbing of a Palestinian Transgender teenager; vandalization of the Women and Children First bookstore in Chicago; a Shoreline, Wash. Christian school’s new policy stating the Bible is inerrant, and rainbow crosswalks in Ames, Iowa.
On the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, Elise reflects on the situation of LGBTQ rights today.
The photographs and captions in Slobodan Randjelovic’s “Lives in Transition” exhibit show a Queer community that hopes, fears, desires, loves and struggles.
Participants at Detroit’s Motor City Pride March were shocked and horrified to confront 15 armed Nazis protected by a cordon of mostly Black police officers.
Queer notes on Delaware’s anti-Transgender legislation; Gay asylum seeker and detainee Udoka Nweke; Lesbian activist Constance Kurt; Aryman Menem, founder of Tea and Talk for Syrian LGBT; and Baltic Pride’s Pride Parade in Riga, Latvia.
Readers’ Views on: Fighting Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Hysteria; Women’s Liberation; Attacks on Gays; Support Restaurant Workers; Swords into Plowshares; Human Rights Struggles in Iraq…; …And in Russia; Arthur Gursch in Memoriam
Marxist-Humanist analysis of the nature of President Donald Trump’s inhuman immigration policy, the damage it is causing and the outcry against it, including from his own base.
Readers’ Views on Women’s Marches; Iran in Revolt; Around the Globe; Race and Freedom; Queer Oppression; Why Read N&L?
Students and others rally in support of an immigrant former staff member of Christian college Azusa Pacific University, after he suffered retaliation for reporting sexual harassment.
Queer 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.
Reader’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
Adele’s review of Bonnie Morris’ “The Disappearing L,” which takes up why the Lesbian culture of the 1970s through the 1990s is disappearing and what was worthwhile in it.
Readers’ Views on Trumpism and the many facets of resistance; Fear of immigrants; Specters of internment; War on Queers; Women Fight Back; Women´s Liberation Debates.
Domestic terrorist Omar Mateen’s killing and injuring of Queer people in Orlando exposes racist and anti-Muslim sentiments but also, in reaction to his act, solidarity with the Queer community worldwide. The challenge is whether humanity will create a truly human society where Queer people are considered human.
In light of the Orlando massacre, LGBTQ people and supporters in New York City spontaneously demonstrate against Queerphobia, on and then one day after the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which started the modern Queer liberation movement.
We stand in solidarity with those murdered and wounded in the attack on a Gay Florida nightclub, and their families and communities. The struggle for LGBTQI freedom must continue unabated. A response requires developing, practically and philosophically, the uncompromising assertion of human freedom and dignity common to the Black Lives Matter movement, the Arab Spring and the Syrian Revolution, which has long struggled against ISIS and its related ideologies. It means uncompromising solidarity with the LGBTQI community, the target of reactionary attacks across the world, from Trump’s America to Putin’s Russia to ISIS’s “caliphate.”
Readers’ Views on Women as Reason; Harriet Tubman; Racism and Internationalism; Bisexual Health; Trans Liberation and Feminism; Chinese State vs. Workers; Nuclear Arms Threaten All; Ireland’s Red Banner; Remembering Olga Domanski; Haggard but Not Tired; Voices from Behind the Bars.
Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Thousands take part in a wave of protests against North Carolina’s House Bill 2, one of the most anti-LGBTQ laws to ever hit the books in our country.
Readers’ Views on: Environment, Labor, Race and Philosophy; Queer Liberation; Black Lives Matter; Bolivian Social Movements; Trumpery’s Fascism & Racism.
The Pride Parade celebration in Mumbai, India; Transgender Girl Scout Stormi’s victorious sales of Girl Scout cookies despite those who would discriminate against her; and human rights group Observatorio de Derechos Humanos y Legislacion inspiring the Chilean Ministry of Health to grant healthcare autonomy to Intersex and Transgender children
Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2016-2017
David Bowie was unprecedented in his injection of social enlightenment into the lives of working-class youth.
Repression of Tunisia’s LGBTQ community; murders at Mexico’s Reina Gay festival; Ukraine bans employment discrimination against GLBT people; fundraising failure for U.S. opponents of same-sex marriage.
Review 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.
Roundup of actions by LGBTQ people including: protests of the movie “Stonewall”; fighting to decriminalize homosexuality in Tunisia; a domestic violence awareness campaign in Boston; high membership in LGBTQ youth group in Russia; and the fight to rename a street in Salt Lake City after Harvey Milk.
On the 60th anniversary of News & Letters we discuss its philosophic basis and invite readers to participate.
A roundup of struggle of LGBTQ people including around immigration, prison, sports, as well as examples of forward movement in the fight for equality and freedom.