The Transgenerational Theatre Project puts on an evening of skits in New York City making visible the lives of Transgender people in the past and today along with a humorous vision of the future, to their first ever sold-out audience!
Transgender non-conforming and non-binary people
In-person report: North Carolinians protest extreme anti-LGBTQ law
March 31, 2016Thousands 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.
Queer Notes: March-April 2016
March 12, 2016The 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
Trans Victims Honored
January 25, 2016A report on several Transgender Day of Remembrance events held in New York City in November 2015.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2015, Part 1
December 16, 2015readers views nov dec 2015 part 1
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.
Rally against murders of Trans people of color
Murdered Trans people of color remembered in Brooklyn, New York.
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.
Debates on Gay Marriage and Queer Liberation (Readers’ Views)
August 31, 2015Readers debate Gay marriage, Queer liberation and Caitlyn Jenner.
200 at Trans meeting in New York
August 30, 2015Report of a meeting of over 200 Transgender people, their allies and a handful of elected officials who came together at Hostos College in the Bronx in late July for a city- wide conference on the status and situation of Transgender people in New York City.
Women prisoners and allies create health fair
July 8, 2015Prisoner-advocates in Central California Women’s Facility initiated a health information exchange, not just sharing information about health, but acknowledging people taking care of each other under the worst conditions. Such care does exist in the prison and it needs support to strengthen and reinforce it.
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?
Editorial: Black Lives Matter NOW!
June 28, 2015The video of Cpl. Eric Casebolt’s June 5 attack on Dejerria Becton and other kids at a pool party in McKinney, Texas, went viral because it was simultaneously shocking and commonplace. In 2015 USA, protests were inevitable and were heard around the world.
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.
Transgender women must fight for rights
April 30, 2015New York—Police here have been told to halt stop-and-frisk policies because they unfairly target Black and Latino youth. But the Transgender community in Jackson Heights, New York, is undergoing its own particular form of stop and frisk. Trans women, especially Trans women of color, are stopped on a daily basis, told that they have to submit to a search (which they don’t) and if they are found in possession of a condom (which is legal) they are arrested for loitering or prostitution.
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.
Youth in Action, March-April 2015
Justice for Jane; Syrian refugee children in Turkey; Howard University Middle School walkout; University of California Student Association call for divestment
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 [=>]
Transgender Day of Remembrance
In cities across the world, the names of Transgender people who were murdered or committed suicide were read out at rallies on or around Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
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.
Queer Notes, July-August 2014
July 7, 2014Namibia documentary “It’s All about Love”; sex-reassignment surgery coverage on Medicare; Laverne Cox.
‘Say NO to KXL!’
March 20, 2014Chicago–“Say NO to KXL!” was the message of 100 protesters outside the local State Department offices on the bitter cold night of Feb. 3, demanding that President Obama reject the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry extra-dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. It was one of 283 actions across the U.S. and Canada organized in three days after the State Department released its fake environmental report on the pipeline–a report crafted by cronies of TransCanada, Keystone’s owner, with the imprimatur of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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
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 [=>]
Climate chaos and capitalism
September 17, 2012Climate chaos takes an ever increasing toll. In this year of extremes: the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at a record low; July was the hottest month on record for the U.S.; almost 80% of U.S. agricultural land is in a drought comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl; this year is on track [=>]
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 [=>]
Women Worldwide, July-August 2012
July 25, 2012by Artemis
In May, delegations of Japanese officials came to Palisades Park, N.J., where more than half the community is of Korean descent, to request the removal of a memorial to the Korean “comfort women.” They shockingly claimed that the more than 200 women, who were forced to be sex slaves for the Japanese military [=>]
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 [=>]
Tar sands pipeline vs. human future
November 6, 2011Tar sands pipeline vs. human future
The battle over the Keystone XL pipeline reveals two opposite futures. The push to complete the pipeline, which is to carry tar sands oil 1,980 miles from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, represents capital’s drive to keep expanding production for production’s sake, no matter how disastrous it may be [=>]
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 [=>]
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.
* * *
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:
The panel of [=>]
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.
* * [=>]
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 [=>]
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 [=>]