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.
Queer people
Queer Notes: November-December 2015
December 11, 2015Roundup 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.
Philosophic basis of News & Letters
November 20, 2015On the 60th anniversary of News & Letters we discuss its philosophic basis and invite readers to participate.
Queer Notes, September-October 2015
September 3, 2015A 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.
LGBTQ gains in Africa
A roundup of progressive legislation and legal victories involving LGBTQ people in Mozambique, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia.
Debates on Gay Marriage and Queer Liberation (Readers’ Views)
August 31, 2015Readers debate Gay marriage, Queer liberation and Caitlyn Jenner.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2015
July 4, 2015Black lives as Subject; Russia in crisis; Nothing about us without us; Homelessness in L.A.; Central Canada Alliance; Perspectives and philosophy; Elderly to the streets?; Women and Yemen half-peace; Labor and climate justice; Dialectic and women’s liberation; Voices from behind the bars
Queer Notes, July-August 2015
July 3, 2015A roundup of news on queer rights including: The naming of The Up Stairs Lounge Arson as the 2015 Book of the Year; the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that Turkey cannot force Transgender people to receive any Transgender-related medical treatment; and other actions in North Carolina, Michigan, Vietnam, and Oregon.
Transgender liberation at the Left Forum
A report of two workshops on Trans liberation at the Left Forum, one that was affirming and one that provided no way forward for Trans people except a very narrow view of both gender and the Trans liberation struggle.”
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia
A report of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, observed around the world each year on May 17 to raise awareness of human rights violations against LGBTI people and to advocate for our full human rights.
What is Transgender solidarity?
June 29, 2015Is Caitlyn Jenner who is for taking away access to birth control, locking up our children and friends in prisons, denying full equality and autonomy to other LGBTQ people, supports war, deportation raids and all kinds of other evil stuff somebody who we should support?
Women WorldWide, July-August 2015
June 28, 2015A roundup of women’s actions and events worldwide; this one taking up the film “India’s Daughter,” an update on the five feminists jailed in China, and the opening of the All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Ind.
30 Years Later: AIDS activism and ACT UP Chicago
May 9, 2015ACT UP Chicago grew out of an organization that began in 1984 of Dykes and Gay Men Against Racism and Repression. We became an AIDS activism organization, first called Chicago For Our Rights, then by spring Chicago for AIDS Rights. We pushed for lowering the prices of AIDS drugs, and the release of more of them. By October and the national action in Washington, D.C., we had become ACT UP Chicago. AIDS is a global issue today. This time around, I’d like to see an AIDS activist movement that’s organized by poor, working-class, mostly people of color.
Queer Notes, May-June 2015
May 7, 2015Malta protects Intersex infants from “normalizing” surgery; Richard Hedger exhibits National Treasures collection of elderly LGBT people; Russia refused drivers’ licenses to Transgender and Transvestite people; Gay-straight alliance at Andrews University banned from holding a bake sale for homeless LGBT youth.
University of Minnesota homophobia
From the May-June 2015 issue of News & Letters
Duluth, Minn.—Shannon Miller, the only women’s hockey head coach the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD) has ever known, has been fired after 16 seasons. “Discrimination rears its ugly head in many forms, and I feel I have been discriminated against because I’m a woman. [=>]
Things fall apart
May 6, 2015In the absence of successful social revolution, today’s total crisis is shown in a world capitalist order that is falling apart economically, politically, environmentally, and in thought. That does not mean that we can wait for capitalism to collapse and step aside for a new society. On the contrary. Its desperation makes it that much more vicious, and it threatens to doom all of humanity with it.
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.
Marx and Transgender
March 11, 2015Leelah Alcorn’s last words, making her suicide an appeal for Transgender people to be “treated like humans” and to “fix society” if her death is to “mean something,” were stunning.
Queer Notes, March-April 2015
Jessie Hernandez; China LGBT Awareness Campaign; Tennessee Trans Justice Project; Michael Mason
Transgender women murdered
March 7, 2015This year is setting a horrible record for the number of Transgender women killed across the U.S.
Queer Notes, January-February 2015
January 31, 2015From the January-February 2015 issue of News & Letters
by Dee Perkins
The late December suicide of 17-year-old Transgender youth Leelah Alcorn has shaken the public with an intimate glimpse into the torment of gender dysphoria in a too frequently uncomprehending world. In the suicide note she posted to Tumblr, the [=>]
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 2
January 30, 2015Dunayevskaya’s letters on Hegel’s Absolutes; Bhopal toxic disaster; Voices from behind the bars
Essay: ‘We all can’t breathe’–Reflections on Marx’s Humanism and Fanon
January 29, 2015As a Black man, I asked myself: Why—through the dialectical crises of the social relations of production and the subsequent implosion of multiple outlived modes of production—has racism persisted? Why, despite the relations of property literally bursting asunder, does racism survive? How and why does racism, sexism, homophobia survive revolution after revolution? Will we again be left behind after the next revolution?
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 1
November 23, 2014From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 1
WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not “interrupt” a person, nor “harass” nor even speak about your political views. [=>]
Queer Notes, September-October 2014
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
by Dee Perkins
With the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories, going nowhere, President Obama signed an executive order July 21 prohibiting such discrimination by federal contractors, which employ some 28 million workers, and, further, [=>]
Let Intersex children decide for themselves
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
South Carolina parents Mark and Pam Crawford, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Advocates for Choice filed federal and state lawsuits against South Carolina’s Department of Social Services and the healthcare workers responsible for the genital normalizing surgery performed on the Crawfords’ adopted child, known [=>]
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.
Godless Americana
May 15, 2014Review by Adele of “Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels,” by Sikivu Hutchinson (Infidel Books, 2013).
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.
‘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.
Call for News and Letters Committees Convention, 2014
March 11, 2014News and Letters Committees has posted its
OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2014-2015
February 23, 2014
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The sharpness of revolution and counter-revolution contending now, while the prolonged global capitalist economic crisis refuses to end, cries out for a philosophical [=>]
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
Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part II
October 12, 2013Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part II
Queer Notes, September-October 2013
October 7, 2013Chicago: pediatric gender-identity clinic; Bisexual men more anxious and depressed; United for Marriage Coalition apologize to Transgender and undocumented immigrant supporters of marriage equality
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.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2013, Part 2
March 10, 2013ARCHIVES AS LIVING
I have been following the readings for the 2012-2013 Marxist-Humanist discussions with great enthusiasm. I was especially energized by the “Women as force and reason of revolution” selections. Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1970 piece “The Women’s Liberation Movement as Reason and as Revolutionary Force” was fresh and relevant to today. This is no surprise [=>]
Queer Notes, January-February 2013
February 26, 2013by Elise
The newly signed law that would have protected all California Queer youth from “ex-gay” therapies and therapies to change gender expression has been suspended. Federal Appeals Court judges ruled that there must be a full review of the legality of the Bill (SB 1172). The therapists who administer “ex-gay” therapies claim the law [=>]
Women Worldwide, January-February 2013
February 16, 2013by Artemis
On Jan. 2, Gerda Lerner, a founding member of the National Organization for Women and history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died at the age of 92. She founded the first national graduate program in women’s history and a women’s studies program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. She wrote The [=>]
Queer Notes, November-December 2012
December 13, 2012by Elise
On National Coming Out Day this year, youth in particular showed the way. Texas Tech University’s Gay-Straight Alliance members told coming out stories. People wrote their sexual orientation or gender identity on a door provided by the University of Florida’s Pride Student Union. Virginia’s George Mason University held an ice cream social, a [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2012, Part 1
October 15, 2012CAPITALIST CRISIS AND REVOLT
I appreciated Franklin Dmitryev’s Lead article in the July-August N&L, on “Spain, Greece, Europe: Capitalist crisis and revolt,” for showing how the so-called “radical Left” is not really so radical. They think they can solve things through managing the economy and redistributing wealth, and channel energy into politics.
The boldfaced paragraph in the [=>]
Queer Notes, September-October 2012
October 10, 2012by Suzanne Rose
Yaounde, Cameroon—Human rights leaders from Africa united to denounce “Gay Hate Day,” which took place on Aug. 21 in Cameroon, and the ongoing arrests of people suspected of being Gay. The Archbishop of Yaounde contributed to this homophobic backlash calling homosexuality “shameful” and “an affront to the family, enemy of women and [=>]
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 [=>]
Boycott Chick-fil-A
October 8, 2012Photo by Bob McGuire for News & Letters
Chicago—Picketers gathered in front of the only Chick-fil-A in Chicago to protest the company CEO using his chicken joint as a bullhorn to attack marriage and other civil rights for Gays. We were outnumbered by the customers who had streamed in for Chick-fil-A “Customer Appreciation Day,” [=>]
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, July-August 2012
August 8, 2012by Elise
Brave were the marchers in this year’s Pride Parades in Warsaw, Poland; Riga, Latvia; and Split, Croatia. Heavy police protection was required at each march. While the Roman Catholic Church’s anti-Queer stand remains strong, an openly Gay man and a Transsexual person were voted into Poland’s Parliament in 2011 and a number of [=>]
Radical feminism redux
July 24, 2012In blogs and podcasts, feminists have been discussing the perennial problem of having to explain that feminism means the struggle for gender equality, not female supremacy. Now many third wave and younger feminists have found the courage to reclaim not only the original meaning of “feminism,” but “radical feminism.” During the 1960s and early 1970s, [=>]
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 [=>]
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 [=>]
Pariah and Brother to Brother fire up Queer film
February 26, 2012Wherever the bird with no feet flew she found trees with no limbs. —Audre Lorde
It is audacious for Dee Rees to begin Pariah with an image of Black women that today’s film is all too comfortable with, a scantily-clad pole dancer, and then cut to her film’s protagonist, Alike, a character that has little precedent [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2011
October 7, 2011From the September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Readers’ Views
Contents:
- REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: ARAB SPRING AS CROSSROADS IN HISTORY
- KARL MARX AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
- REMEMBERING CHRISTINA SANTIAGO
- THELONIOUS MONK
- CANADA AS ‘CONTESTATAIRE’ SOCIETY
- MAN-MADE DISASTERS: NUCLEAR POWER AND WORLD WAR
- LABOR STRUGGLES IN 2011
- WHY WRITE FOR N&L?
- VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS
REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: ARAB SPRING AS CROSSROADS IN HISTORY
The West supports any revolution where they [=>]