Sylvia Rivera kicking ass on stage after some radfems & transphobes tried to refuse her the right to speak at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day rally. Said radfems then had their own march in part protesting trans participation in Pride. A precursor to today’s Dyke March.
40 years later in the very same park trans women are still fighting for space within Pride as this year’s Dyke March fiasco demonstrated. I’m feeling challenged and troubled by the narrative that trans women’s response to transphobia must take the “form of serious, calm, point by point analyses of why radfems are wrong” as Stephen Ira pointed out.
What strikes me about this video is that she isn’t trying to be calm and collected after being attacked. She’s not internalizing the notion that fighting transphobia has to take on the oppressive notion of “respectability.”
These conversations have left me wondering: has the non profit industrial complex and professionalized activism gentrified our political activity?
So within all of that, I say: nothing but love and power to trans women creating space for ourselves in queer community! Special shout out to Voz who inspired this post!
“You all tell me go! And hide my tail between my legs! I will not any longer put up with this shit!” —Sylvia Rivera
We are not going anywhere!
oh jesus
chills down my spine
THIS is what MOTHERING looks like to us.
Call me when trying to keep your babies alive involves facing down rabid hoards telling you to die.
tell me agin about fearlessness.
Oh and when you got to bed tonight and chat with your ” best gay” over brunch in some super gentrified area of town
Thank this woman you aren’t both in jail praying for your safety.
That is what MOTHERING had to look like
tell me some more shit about work life balance….
12:02 PM
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TODAY: 3pm-7pm
8th Annual NYC Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice
Friday June 22, 2012
We call on our Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) community and on all of our allies from many movements to join us for the 8th Annual Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice. We as TGNC People of Color (POC) recognize the importance of working together alongside other movements to change the world we want to see. We live in a time when oppressed peoples including people of color, immigrants, youth and elders, people with disabilities, women and TGNC people, and poor people are underserved, face higher levels of discrimination, heightened surveillance and experience increased violence at the hands of the state. We must unite and work together towards dismantling the transphobia, racism, classism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia and xenophobia that permeates our movements for social justice. Let’s come together to let the world know that TGNC rights will not be undermined and together we will not be silenced!
http://alp.org/8th-annual-trans-day-action
To endorse the Trans Day of Action 2012,please send an e-mail to endorsetdoa@alp.org
To organize a contingent to march with us, please send an e-mail to Egyptt at jegyptt@alp.org or call (212) 463-0342
For more information about the March, please send an e-mail to info4tdoa@alp.org or contact TransJustice at (212) 463-0342 Ext. 15
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
June 5, 2012
Leslie Feinberg Arrested in Solidarity with Chrishaun McDonald
Hundreds Take to Street in Protest
Contact: Katie Burgess, Executive Director, Trans Youth Support Network, transyouthsupportnetwork@gmail.com, (612) 363-7574; and Billy Navarro, Jr., MN Transgender Health Coalition, mntranspr@gmail.com, (612) 823-1152
Leslie Feinberg was arrested last night amidst hundreds of Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald supporters protesting outside of the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility. Feinberg is being held at the Public Safety Facility in downtown Minneapolis and is facing charges of property damage. The protest was held on the eve of McDonald’s transfer to the state prison system, where she will serve out a sentence of 41 months for defending herself against racist and transphobic attackers. Although McDonald initially faced two charges of second degree murder, earlier this month she accepted a plea agreement to a reduced charge of second degree manslaughter due to negligence. Outraged supporters took to the streets, blocking traffic for over an hour in protest of the violent abuses McDonald has faced at the hands of our legal system. Feinberg joined demonstrators in making noise loud enough to be heard within the facility McDonald is currently being held at, and marching through the streets in a show of love and solidarity with CeCe McDonald and with all incarcerated individuals. Feinberg was the only person arrested, and is excited to draw more attention to McDonald’s story and to the prevalent racism and transphobia within the criminal system.
Feinberg has given the following statement:
Many people across the United States and around the world are watching, and history will record what happens on June 4, 2012. CeCe McDonald survived a fascist hate crime; now she’s sentenced as she struggles to survive an ongoing state hate crime. As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded: “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
As a white, working-class, Jewish, transgender lesbian revolutionary I will not be silent as this injustice continues! I know from the lessons of histories what is means when the state—in a period of capitalist economic crisis—enacts apartheid passbook laws, bounds up and deports immigrant works, and gives a green light to e white supremacists, fascist attacks on Black peoples—from Sanford, Florida, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a courtroom in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The prosecutor and the judge are upholding the intent of the infamous white supremacist Dred Scott ruling of 1857.
The same year Fredrick Douglass concluded: “Without struggle, there is no progress!”
CeCe McDonald is being sent to prison during the month of Juneteeth: celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation—the formal Abolitionist of “legal” enslavement of peoples of African descent. The Emancipation Proclamation specifically spelled out the right of Black people to self-defense against racist violence.
Yet, the judge, the prosecutor, and the jailers are continuing the violent and bigoted hate crimes begun by the group of white supremacists who carried out a fascist attack on CeCe McDonald and her friends.
CeCe McDonald is being sent to prison in June—the month when the Stonewall Rebellion ignited in the streets of Greenwich Village in 1969. From the Compton’s Uprising to the Stonewall Rebellion, defense against oppression is a law of survival.
This is Pride month, and will be bringing the demand: “Free CeCe—now!” to the regional Pride march where I live. I believe many other individuals, groups, and contingents will thunder that demand in Pride marches and rallies all over the world—informing millions who take part, and millions more who support.
The prosecution hopes this struggle is over. But it is not over: Free CeCe—now! An injury to one is an injury to all! Come out against racist, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and sexist wars at home and abroad!
Feinberg’s arrest is symptomatic of growing anger and frustration at the disproportionate targeting and abuse of young transgender women of color in our society. The actions Feinberg took last night were in solidarity with McDonald and all prisoners to let them know they are not alone. Feinberg is excited to garner attention to how McDonald is treated today as McDonald is transferred to the prison intake facility in St. Cloud, MN.McDonald’s case does not reflect an isolated aberration in the functioning of the U.S. legal system, but rather business as usual within a society that has, for hundreds of years, profited from the incarceration and exploitation of people of color and trans/gender non-conforming people. McDonald’s sentencing sends a very clear message to all those following her case across the country: transphobia and racism are alive and well, both in the violent verbal and physical attacks on trans youth of color in the night as well as in the legal system which makes surviving this violence a crime punishable by years of incarceration. Nevertheless, we look forward to joining all of McDonald’s supporters in continuing to fight against these systems of power, for CeCe and for all transgender women of color targeted by the prison-industrial complex.
With love and rage,
The CeCe McDonald Support Committee
For more information on McDonald’s case, visit supportcece.wordpress.com.
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Petition to move CeCe to a women's facility
please take a moment to sign this petition and to pass it on.
It asks that CeCe serve her time in a women’s prison rather than a men’s facility, where she is currently set to serve her time.supportcece.wordpress.com
freececemcdonald.tumblr.com
Breaking News! Argentina adopts historic gender identity bill
way to set an example, Argentina! thanks!!
