Sunday Funday Believes in Queer Love, Even Underwater

Happy Sunday Funday! I’m just here with lots of good news that will last you a whole week, don’t mind me.

The Face(s) of Marriage Equality

It’s been fifty days since the marriage equality decision that gave us something to celebrate. In all fifty states, here’s what marriage equality looks like.

This is P!nk Singing Ellen’s New Theme Song

In case teenage you and modern-day you needed something to bond over.

Madonna to Anti-Gay Russia: F*ck You

Madonna will not perform in Russia again — like, ever again — due to their anti-gay laws. (I wish that this was Twitter so I could put an emoji of hands clapping between every word in that sentence.) In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that’s published in their August 14 issue, she says that she “[doesn’t] want to perform in places where being homosexual is tantamount to a crime.” She then probably dropped a million mics while some balloons fell in the distance and someone unfurled a banner that said “THIS IS WHAT ALLYSHIP LOOKS LIKE.”

H&M’s Sister Brand Launched a Campaign Starring and Produced by Trans Folks

& Other Stories’ fall campaign stars trans models Hari Nef and Valentijn De Hingh and was created and produced by an all-trans creative team. “We couldn’t help to ask ourselves how the traditional fashion gaze can change if we keep the same normative crew behind the camera,” the company told TIME. “So we invited five amazing creatives, all transgender, to make our latest story.”

Markie Beth Learned to Scuba Dive In Order to Propose Because Queer Love is Beautiful and Cannot Be Tamed

This is actually just everything, you guys.

“The big day was Saturday, June 13. Sarah thought she was just going on a regular dive with her brother and some friends in the Pacific off Redondo Beach, Calif. One of them brought along a camera, which isn’t so unusual. But Sarah had no idea Markie was there too; her familiar features were hidden by all the scuba gear.

Once underwater, Markie maneuvered to her girlfriend and used a series of signs to ask Sarah to marry her.”

Meet Canada’s First-Ever Out Trans Federal Candidate

Jennifer McCreath is making history in her bid for the Avalon with Strength in Democracy. “People need to see the stories of someone who’s floated between low and middle class and has struggled for acceptance,” she told BuzzFeed Canada. “I’m hoping there are voters who can relate to the struggles that I’ve faced.”

We Mourn Kandis Capri, Elisha Walker & 15 Other DMAB Trans People Lost To Transmisogynistic Violence

We must ask you once again to join us in mourning black trans women identified as the victims of murder. Kandis Capri, 35, was killed by gunshots on August 11th in Phoenix, possibly while trying to intervene in a domestic dispute. Elisha Walker, 20, of Rowan County North Carolina, went missing in October 2014. Police found Walker’s remains Thursday. They have taken Angel Arias, a known member of the Latin Kings street gang, into custody and charged him with her murder.

Media reports have provided few details about the women and their tragic deaths. In an interview with The Guardian, Capri’s mother Andria Gaines said she suspected her child’s murder might be a hate crime that occurred after Capri left a friend’s apartment to investigate whether her car had been towed. The two had a loving relationship despite Gaines’ initial resistance to accepting her daughter’s gender. Walker’s mother Rhonda Alexander said Walker was “always smiling and always had something sassy to say,” and said she is glad that Arias’s arrest brings some closure and justice for her family.

The news of these murders comes at the end of the week when we also learned of the murders of black trans woman Shade Schuler and black gender fluid trans person Ashton O’Hara. So far this year, 12 other trans women have been murdered. Almost all of them were women of color, and most were under the age of 30. They were Amber Monroe, 20; K.C. Haggard, 66; India Clarke, 25; Mercedes Williamson, 17; London Chanel, 21; Kristina Grant Infiniti, 47; Penny Proud, 21; Taja de Jesus, 36; Yazmin Vash Payne, 33; Ty Underwood, 24; Lamia Beard, 30 and Papi Edwards, age 20.

We also lift up the name of Mya Hall, a black trans woman who was shot by National Security Agency security guards after making a wrong turn into an incorrect exit, leading toward NSA headquarters in Baltimore.

This year so far, 15 dmab trans people — 16 when you include Hall, and 17 if you include Walker, whose date of death has not been confirmed by police — have been murdered, more than in all of 2014. This month alone we have learned the names of five black trans people who were murdered. Five times in two weeks, we have been confronted with the brutal reality of the violent consequences of transmisogyny and racism.

Trans activist Reina Gossett put it simply on Twitter:

How many times this week will we say stop killing black trans life? #KandisCapri #AshtonOHara #MsShade #ElishaWalker #BlackTransLivesMatter

— Reina Gossett (@reinagossett) August 15, 2015

The hashtags #SayHerName and #BlackTransLivesMatter are lifting these trans people up while national media and many activists pay little attention. The most important thing we can do as a community is listen to trans women of color and respond to their needs. They cannot bear this weight, grief and anger alone. We must repeat the names of these individuals and demand justice for them. As Mey wrote after learning of O’Hara’s death:

There is an unchecked weapon of mass destruction moving throughout America that is aimed straight at the heart of trans women and dmab trans people of color. This avalanche of murders of Black and Latina trans women don’t seem to cause mainstream society to even bat an eye. We’ve already seen two more murders this year than all of last year and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. My heart is broken, my head is weary and I’m shaking as I’m writing this.

We must work together to dismantle systems that lead to these murders. We must fight against legal, systemic and social discrimination against trans women, especially trans women of color. We should read trans women’s words, support their activism and community development work and demand accountability from those who violate their rights and lives. Earlier this month Autostraddle published an excellent list of 24 ideas from trans Latina activist Lexi Adsit that break down some of the many ways the queer community must intervene to support, protect and celebrate trans women.

Trans women are being murdered, and that must mean the entire queer community is in a state of emergency. Today, say the names of Elisha Walker, Kandis Capri, and the 15 other dmab trans people our community has lost to transmisogynistic violence this year and commit to making the list stop growing.

Ashton O’Hara, Black, Trans and Genderfluid, Has Been Murdered; I’m Running Out of Hope

Today Equality Michigan reported on the murder of Ashton O’Hara, a Black transgender and genderfluid person of color who was murdered in Detroit on July 14th. O’Hara’s murder makes him (he was using he/him pronouns at the time of his murder) the 14th confirmed murder of a trans person this year, and the 12th of a trans person of color. If we include Mya Hall, a black trans woman who was shot by NSA Security, each of those numbers goes up by one. We’re only eight months into the year and we’ve already seen more trans women murdered than all of last year.

Ashton was celebrating his genderfluidity from a young age, telling his mother “Mama, you are so pretty, I want to be just like you when I grow up,” when he was small. He loved children, dancing and performing at clubs. He was also passionate about doing hair and even taught himself how to braid extensions at the age of four. His mother, Rebecca, said that he was so talented he could “turn a frog into a princess.” She also added that she hopes speaking out about his life and death might help someone.

I know Ashton is with God, but every day is a challenge. I hope speaking about this might help save somebody – even just one person saved will be worth it. A lot of people find it hard to be themselves in this world, but Ashton was always uniquely him. It’s time for everyone to be respected.

Once again, the names of the trans people murdered so far this year include O’Hara, who was 25 years old; Shade Shuler, 22; Amber Monroe, 20; K.C. Haggard, 66; India Clarke, 25; Mercedes Williamson, 17; London Chanel, 21; Kristina Grant Infiniti, 47; Penny Proud, 21; Taja de Jesus, 36; Yazmin Vash Payne, 33; Ty Underwood, 24; Lamia Beard, 30 and Papi Edwards, age 20. Nine of these fourteen people didn’t even make it past the age of 25 and twelve of them were trans women of color.

With Ashton, there have been five — FIVE — trans people murdered in the last month alone. There is an unchecked weapon of mass destruction moving throughout America that is aimed straight at the heart of trans women and dmab trans people of color. This avalanche of murders of Black and Latina trans women don’t seem to cause mainstream society to even bat an eye. We’ve already seen two more murders this year than all of last year and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. My heart is broken, my head is weary and I’m shaking as I’m writing this.

I’m scared — no, I’m terrified for my friends and for my sisters and for my elders. I usually pass as white and I don’t have to worry about many of the other factors that often put trans women in danger of being murdered so I’m not going to sit here and pretend that all of these murders make me a more likely target. As a Latina trans woman, I might be more at risk than others, but I’m not about to co-opt the violence that Black and darker-skinned Latina trans women and dmab trans people face. That’s not what this is about. This is about all of the amazing trans women of color who have helped me, been there for me, have shown me love and have fought to give me the rights and the opportunities that I have today.

I’m terrified for all my trans sisters who are so hated by the men they encounter that they hear a catcall turn into the sound of a fist or a brick or a gun. I’m terrified for all of my trans sisters who are so hated by the men who claim to love them that they end up dead by their hands. I’m terrified for all of my trans sisters who are already not seen as human because they are Black, and have their trans womanhood used as just one more excuse for why they shouldn’t be allowed to live. I’m terrified for all my trans sisters who are afraid to go outside because they know that it’s actually not that unlikely that they’ll be next.

What is it going to take to stop this from happening? I don’t know what I should be doing. I don’t know what else I can say to convince people that society needs to change. Five trans people, four of them trans people of color, have been murdered in the last 30 days and honestly, I’m waiting for more names to be added to this list. Trans women, or rather, white trans women, are all over reality TV right now, and many people are telling the rest of us that that means that we should be happy that we’re getting a lot more visibility. Really though, what is that visibility leading to? Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but since we’ve gotten all of this visibility, violence against trans women of color hasn’t gone down, it’s actually gone up. I don’t know how many more times I can read stories like this or write stories like this. I’m so afraid that the next article I write like this will be about one of my friends.

None of what I’m saying hasn’t been said before by other trans women of color, and specifically by Black trans women. You need to go read their words and listen to them. If you have money, you should go and support them financially. If you see transmisogyny and you can call it out, you should. If you can spread education and acceptance, you should do that. Above all, you should listen to them and care about what they’re saying.

I don’t know what else to say. I’m running out of tears, I’m running out of hope and I’m running out of strength. I feel defeated. I feel like my TWOC sisters aren’t safe and aren’t going to be safe any time soon.

Amnesty International’s Policy Calling for Decriminalization of Sex Work is a Move in the Right Direction

Amnesty International has officially adopted a policy on sex work that could lift up and protect some of the most vulnerable and marginalized folks around the world — and feminists and human rights advocates alike could learn a lot from it. The only problem is that they’re too busy speaking over the sex workers and researchers who emphatically support the proposal to really do so.

The policy, which calls for the “full decriminalisation of all aspects of consensual sex work,” passed yesterday at a convening in Dublin of the noted human rights organization’s International Board. It stems from extensive and growing bodies of research by UN agencies, human rights organizations around the world, and social science studies that illuminate how the criminalization of sex work both reinforces social stigma against sex workers and puts their lives at risk. It calls on nations and states with the full weight of Amnesty’s reputation as a human rights organization to repeal laws that make sex workers vulnerable to human rights violations, take action to minimize marginalization to provide sex workers with other options should they want to capitalize on them, and protect them from discriminatory policies and laws.

This policy will be used to demand that nations and states around the world work to eradicate discrimination against sex workers, develop policies and programs that support them, and actively work to protect them from institutional and individual acts of violence. “Human rights belong to everyone inherently by virtue of being human,” Amnesty International wrote on their blog yesterday, “and that includes sex workers.”

Sex workers have long held that criminalizing sex work exacerbates the risks of their work — if a client refuses payment or assaults a sex worker, the worker can be at risk for incarceration or violence from the hands of the police if she attempts to report it or seek legal redress. Sex workers are often also at risk from the police themselves as a result of criminalization, who can freely seek services from sex workers or sexually assault them knowing that if the worker refuses or resists, they can arrest them. A 2012 study found that 42% of Latina transgender sex workers in Los Angeles reported being solicited for sex by police. Criminalization provides an incentive for the state to try to identify potential sex workers by their behaviors; this leads to situations like the one in NYC, where police used the presence of condoms on a woman’s person as evidence of of sex work and reason for arrest. Obviously, this powerfully dissuades both sex workers and non sex workers from carrying condoms, which can put them at great risk. In fact, under the criminalization of sex work, sex workers are often at risk for incarceration and state violence even when the ostensible targets of the police are their clients. Former sex worker Maggie McNeill explains how sex workers are often harmed by law enforcement supposedly meant to either punish johns or rescue trafficking victims:

“…despite the hype, the truth is that even operations framed as “john stings” or “child sex slave rescues” end up with the arrest and conviction of huge numbers of women; for example, 97% of prostitution-related felony convictions in Chicago are of women, and 93% of women arrested in the FBI’s “Innocence Lost” initiatives are consensual adult sex workers rather than the coerced underage ones the program pretends to target.”

Marginalized populations are frequently at risk for violence in interactions with police, and sex workers are no exception. As a highly stigmatized population, sex workers can face violence, whether it’s arrest or sexual assault, from police officers with little legal recourse; criminalization of sex work provides law enforcement a reason to come into contact with sex workers. The experience of Monica Jones, a black transgender sex worker, in 2014 is an example of this system at work. Jones wasn’t engaging in sex work at the time, but accepted a ride home from men who turned out to be undercover police officers; she was then charged with “manifesting prostitution” and was “rescued” into a program called Project ROSE, which required her to spend eight hours a day in programming with no food and no way to compensate for the income she was losing by being there. Although Project ROSE was ostensibly designed to rescue people from trafficking, Jones gained no resources or strategies for leaving sex work from it, even if that’s what she had desired; and if she didn’t complete the programming, she faced jail time. In fact, one doesn’t even need to be a sex worker to face state violence as a result of criminalization; anyone profiled by the police as a sex worker, regardless of whether or not they are, faces the risk of theoretical rescue with the potential of very real incarceration and violence. Jones, who has since gone on to address the United Nations about the rights of sex workers, says that “As long as the police can target my community using these anti-sex-work laws, we will never be safe from violence, including the violence of incarceration.”

Although the policy’s passage doesn’t have an immediate effect, and won’t directly shift any policy — since Amnesty is a social justice organization and not a legal governing body — it does signify a way forward for the sex workers’ rights movement, and it symbolizes a growing consensus that sex workers deserve to live free from violence, harassment, and discrimination. Amnesty’s work has led to a string of victories around the world in the arenas of women’s rights, economic justice, immigrant rights, corporate accountability, and LGBT rights, and certainly their ability to drive change is a huge boon to the collective movement sex workers have built for their own justice. But their endorsement of decriminalization alone is also proof that sex workers have, above all, finally been heard – and truly listened to – in that very push for justice.

This policy is a case study in policy work that is done the right way — with marginalized groups not only in mind, but at the forefront. It’s a policy that echoes the demands sex workers themselves have outlined for years as they organized collectively or separately around the world, and it’s a policy that prioritizes, above all, the safety and well-being of sex workers who live at the intersections of oppression. Amnesty created the policy recommendation after conversations with sex workers from around the world, and hundreds of organizations representing sex workers, individual sex workers, and human rights organizations came forward to support the policy in its infancy, including the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe and the Global Network of Sex Worker Projects.

But many women’s rights organizations and feminist celebrities won’t stand for it.

An open letter from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women about Amnesty’s policy predicts “catastrophic effects” for sex workers worldwide and accuses the organization of supporting “a system of gender apartheid.” Signatories on the letter included Lena Dunham, Eve Ensler, Gloria Steinem, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and senior staff at organizations like Equality Now, the Women’s Human Rights Education Institute, and Women’s Aid. The signatories are pushing for expansion of the “Swedish model,” in which laws criminalizing the purchase of sex work but not sex work directly are put into place. The only problem is that Amnesty did consider that model before drafting their own policy and recommendations — and decided to scrap supporting it in the face of hard evidence.

The Swedish National National Board for Health and Welfare has be unable to provide evidence that their laws reduce the number of sex workers or the number of trafficking victims. Instead, police have found that massage parlors operating as covers for sexual service sales increased threefold, and sex workers have been pushed underground and deterred from reporting violence or demanding fair labor conditions. In other countries attempting to police sex work, like France, social stigma against sex workers encouraged by criminalization has led to a widespread lack of access to resources, support services, and safety. In Norway, a sex worker told Amnesty researchers that they didn’t report an assault by one of their clients to police because laws make them vulnerable to eviction from their homes if they come forward. Escort Samantha Acosta told Broadly the police straight-up refused to help her when she reported that she was being cyber-stalked and threatened by a man because of the nature of her work.

“As long as sex work is criminalized — directly or indirectly through laws and practices targeting sex workers, clients, or third parties,” ICRSE wrote in a letter to Amnesty supporting the policy, “sex workers will be at risk of police violence, arrests, rape, blackmail and deportations, and will be unable to report abuse committed by clients, third parties, and members of the public.”

For Erika, a Latina sex worker who is queer and trans, criminalization causes her to fear both police action and police inaction. “Without criminalization, survival sex workers would be able to engage in sex work without fear of police arresting us and creating a record that would bar employment in the future in careers and jobs that offer more financial security,” she told me, adding later that criminalization has fed stigmas against sex workers that impede her ability to live free from harassment and violence. “[Clients] assume control over me,” she told me, “knowing that the [laws] support them more than they do me.”

CATW and their allies also muddle the lines between consensual sex work — defined in Amnesty’s policy as work done without coercion or force by someone who is over 18 — and human trafficking (which Amnesty has long opposed) in their work and, more directly, in the arguments they presented to Amnesty. In the eyes of CATW and their signatories, all sex work is gender-based violence. But policies that fail to differentiate between sex work and sex trafficking also put the actual victims of sex trafficking at greater risk of being made invisible and without support by customs and legal practice, and they strip agency from sex workers who — like many other laborers engaging in work that isn’t criminalized — do what they do for a variety of reasons, including survival as well as free choice. Critics of laws that criminalize sex work as an attempt at curbing human trafficking point out that the violent acts inherent in trafficking — like sexual assault and kidnapping — are already illegal, and can already be prosecuted under the law if victims can be found and come forward, but criminalizing sex work and putting those same victims (as well as voluntary sex workers) at risk for incarceration prevents that outcome.

“Conflating consensual sex work and sex trafficking is comparing two completely separate forms of intimate labor,” Erika told me, “[and] criminalization conflates these two intimate labors and has left little room for actual workers and survivors of trafficking to voice their needs and desires. Decriminalization requires having conversations about sex work for consensual and survival workers and their specific needs, and a separate conversation for survivors or current sex trafficked individuals to talk about their needs.”

“When you use trafficking to silence talk about decriminalization, you are using it as a smokescreen for bigger problems to do with borders, police violence,  racism, and capitalism,” J, who is a genderqueer femme bisexual disabled neuroatypical and does escorting and BDSM switch work in several countries, pointed out to me. “Decriminalization would massively help in the fight against trafficking for so, so many reasons. Clients are usually the best resource to help find trafficking victims but when they are criminalized, they don’t report. When agents are criminalized,  their activities go underground. When sex workers are criminalized,  they stay away from all services,  healthcare and victim support and the people in abusive situations just can’t be found.“

Melissa Gira Grant covered Amnesty’s proposal for The Nation prior to its passage today and explored the failure of criminalization policies to improve sex workers’ lives. “Criminal laws,” she wrote, “only add to the challenges — poverty, marginalization, access to health care — that many sex workers already face.” She also spotlighted the “intentional danger” government officials advocate when they put these laws in place:

At a 2014 hearing on whether or not Canada should adopt something like Norway’s sex work law, Senator Donald Plett remarked, “We don’t want to make life safe for prostitutes, we want to do away with prostitution.” Sweden’s trafficking unit head Ann Martin has defended their anti-sex work law, from which Norway’s and Canada’s were drawn, telling the London Review of Books, “Of course the law has negative consequences for women in prostitution but that’s also some of the effect that we want to achieve with the law.”

Amnesty’s sex work proposal has drawn the ire of campaigners who support the anti-sex work laws in Sweden, Norway, and Canada precisely because it illustrates how these laws, marketed as compassionate towards sex workers, have exposed them to danger. They argue for more criminalization at a time when on most other issues, the public is turning away from using the police and prisons as a solution.

J sees decriminalization as key in balancing out those power dynamics. “Decriminalization means that we can choose the best and safest ways we want to work depending on our on situations and not be dictated to by people who don’t understand our lives,” J told me. “I can tantalizingly imagine my life under decriminalization. It would change everything, especially as you edge towards the more marginalized edge of sex work. We could work together for safety when we want or need to. We could employ security guards, cleaners or admin people without those people being prosecuted for pimping.”

Ironically, nations that have decriminalized sex work have also produced some of the results women’s groups and feminist celebrities who signed on the CATW’s letter appear to be seeking out. In Germany, where sex work has been legal since 1927, human trafficking is at a record low. In New Zealand, where prostitution was decriminalized in 2003, 70 percent of sex workers say they are more likely to report violence to the police. A sex worker named Kimberlee Cline, who is currently based in California, told ThinkProgress that working in Australia, where prostitution is decriminalized, was her “most ideal scenario,” and that in California she’s been unable to access the free medical screenings, health and safety information relevant to her line of work, protection of her identity, and ease of screening and setting up appointments with clients that she had while she was working in Australia.

But Amnesty’s support of decriminalization is only the first step, and even now as sex workers ring in this huge victory, they know there is a long road ahead. “Decriminalizing doesn’t mean all of our problems disappear,” Erika told me. “It simply means one of the more permanent legal barriers is lifted.” Other barriers, including winning fights for labor rights and anti-discrimination protections, will take longer to lift. And winning the culture war will take even more time.

“Changing cultural values and norms so that sex workers are less stigmatised will take decades or centuries,” Luca Stevenson and Dr. Agata Dziuban oif ICRSE wrote in The Guardian, “but decriminalization can be achieved in our lifetime.”

For sex workers, the bottom line in pushing for decriminalization is that it would allow them more protection and more access to their human rights. Their health and safety would improve, as would their relationships with police and their employers. They could access support resources and find community. Their lives would change. And their opponents are actively, knowingly, advocating against them.

“The current debate is interesting,” Thierry Schaffauser of ICRSE told me, “because it brings more attention to the actual existing evidence and people are more and more seeing how sex workers’ voices are silenced.”

“The only people qualified to explain how best to protect sex workers are sex workers ourselves, and globally we want decriminalization, for exactly that reason — to best protect ourselves,” J told me, mentioning also that having Amnesty support this widely-held goal by sex workers is a “huge deal” that could change the game. “It helps us all to lobby in our own countries for our rights and helps us ideologically fight those who would prefer us dead,” J explained. “Because that’s what criminalization is: preferring dead sex workers.”

It’s time for all of us who are invested in the ability for women to live equitably and free from violence, abuse, and harassment to aid sex workers in their fight for liberation by doing so on their terms. By adopting this policy today, Amnesty showed the world exactly what that looks like.

#SayHerName: Shade Schuler Is The 13th Trans Woman Murdered This Year In The U.S.

(Ed. Note: Sources are telling us that K.C. Haggard was white and therefore shouldn’t be counted among the twoc murdered this year. However, that still makes 12 out of the 13 trans women murdered up to this point twoc.)

Dallas police have identified a body found July 29 as Shade Schuler, a 22-year-old black trans woman. She is the 13th transgender woman of color to be murdered in the U.S. this year, meaning more TWOC have been murdered so far this year than in all of 2014. Almost all the women were under 30.

Nell Gaither of the Dallas-based Trans Pride Initiative, confirmed to Lonestar Q that the victim was transgender.

“Several of us spent time verifying she was trans and trying to learn more this afternoon and evening,” Gaither wrote on Facebook Tuesday night. “Her name was Ms. Shade, and she was only 22 years old. … Our hearts and thoughts are with her family and friends who now must confront this unfortunate taking of life. May we find space in our hearts to celebrate her time with us and the lives she touched. May we find inspiration in this loss to work together, trans and cis alike, to end the violence that has taken so many of our trans siblings from us far too soon.”

There will be a vigil in her honor in Dallas on Monday.

Activists and LGBT leaders in Dallas have called on Dallas police to find Shade’s killer. After it took nearly two weeks to identify her body, police report they have little additional information. Police have confirmed she died of gunshot wounds.

In a statement, Cece Cox, CEO of the Dallas LGBT community center Resource Center, called for community awareness and action:

“Our hearts are saddened by the loss of Shade Schuler, a Dallas transgender woman whose life was taken too soon. Our sincere condolences go out to her family and friends. For transgender women, safety is a real and warranted concern. We must be aware-this is the 13th reported murder of a transgender woman in the U.S. this year. We encourage the Dallas Police Department to investigate and seek out the killer.”

As we mourn Shade and #SayHerName, we must continue to be aware of the systemic violence happening against trans women of color. Last week, 20-year-old black trans woman Amber Monroe was found murdered, and details are still forthcoming. Shade is the second black trans woman of color murdered in Texas this year. Ty Underwood, 24, was murdered in Tyler in January.

Other reported trans women of color murdered this year are Mercedes Williamson, 17; India Clarke, 25; K.C. Haggard, 66; Papi Edwards, 20; Lamia Beard, 30; Yazmin Vash Payne, 33; Taja de Jesus, 36; Penny Proud, 21; Kristina Grant Infiniti, 47; and London Kiki Chanel, 21.

Monica Roberts, a Houston-based transgender advocate, launched a petition on Monday calling on the Obama Administration to formally investigate this horrifying wave of violence against trans women of color.

For Transgender women of color, safety is a real and warranted concern. We are asking the administration to raise awareness and take action to keep this community safe, by conducting a formal investigation of these deaths occurring across the county to the targeted community of Transgender women, particularly women of color.

Please take action to ensure this community does not have to live in fear of losing their lives to hate and violence.

As we continue to say their names, it is crucial to investigate and combat the violent systems that mean people are murdering trans women of color without consequence.

How Dare They Do This Again: Stonewall Veteran Miss Major on the “Stonewall” Movie

Several months ago, we became aware of an upcoming film by out director Roland Emmerich about the legendary Stonewall Riots. Back then all we had was an IMDB page, but looking at it, we could see that there was a white, cis main character; Marsha P. Johnson as played by a male actor; and a complete lack of many of the legendary women of color who played integral roles including Sylvia Rivera, Stormé DeLarverie and Miss Major Griffen-Gracy. Then, last week, we finally saw a preview for it and all of our worst fears were realized. Here was our history, a history made real by Black and Brown trans women and lesbians, but it was a false, whitewashed and ciswashed version, a version that the establishment could find respectable enough to be a mainstream story. This was an insult.

It’s an especially deep cut because there are still people alive today who were there, and people alive who were close with people who were there. We know what really happened and who really did the work, but this movie is spitting in the truth’s face. Emmerich’s version of Stonewall, with its sanitized cis, white male main character, is an insult to both the legends who are still here and the ones who died in the fight for not just trans rights, but for the rights of the entire LGBTQ community. I reached out to one of those legends, Miss Major, to talk to her about what Stonewall was really like and why this new movie dishonors her and all the women of color, both trans and cis, who worked so hard to get us where we are today. Because if you’re making a movie about a real moment in history involving real people, you might want to talk to someone who was actually there.

Miss Major is a Black trans woman, activist and elder. She’s a former sex worker and community leader, she survived being incarcerated and participated in the Stonewall Riots. She’s a legend and has helped countless trans women of color over the last 40 years.

Mey: It’s great to talk to you, first of all, have you heard about the new Stonewall movie?

Miss Major: It’s so disappointing. They keep doing this! My first thought is: how dare they attempt to do this again? A few years ago they did another Stonewall movie, and I swear if I saw a black person, it had to be a shadow running against the face of somebody who was white!

It’s absolutely absurd — you know, young people today aren’t stupid. They can read the history, they know that this is not the way it happened. These people can’t let it go! Everybody can’t be white! This is a country of different colors and people and thoughts and attitudes and feelings, and they try to make all of those the same for some reason.

Not like it’s going to work, but damn if they don’t stop trying. It’s bad enough that across the street from Stonewall, they have statues up to commemorate that night. That’s cute, but there’s not a black statue there! The statues look like they’re made from flour and sugar! What is this? Why can’t one of the girls go up and throw up a little makeup on one of these bitches? And I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, the only gay people I saw hanging around there were across the street cheering. They were not the ones getting slugged or having stones thrown at them. It’s just aggravating. And hurtful! For all the girls who are no longer here who can’t say anything, this movie just acts like they didn’t exist.

And these were wonderful, marvelous, smart, intelligent girls. Yeah, we couldn’t get jobs making sixty thousand dollars a year, oh well. But we lived our true selves. We enjoyed our lives. We did what we had to do to survive. And we did! And now they’re acting like, “we’re so grateful that you did this and we’re going to take it from here because you stupid bitches don’t know how to do this.” Yeah, okay. Because I’m not white, I didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, and my parents don’t have money. What does any of that have to do with the facts? Nothing.

Can you tell me a little bit about what you remember happening leading up to the riots and the community that was there?

The thing about that is — I’m seventy-three. So of course my memory is full of whatever is going on in my head, but the thing that’s important is that this was a club the girls went to when we would do prostituting in the street uptown or over in the East Village. It was somewhere where we could sit with friends, talk about what had happened, celebrate the good things, work on the bad shit until we went home. It was the place where girls who did shows would come to after they did their show at some local club, where they would go and sit afterwards and have some peace of mind. To be around like-minded people. You know, people who are from your area, know who you are, share your same thoughts and feelings. A sense of belonging. We had that there.

It’s amazing that they wanted to take that away from us. And of course, authority and the government always want to do that. But they want to do it to everybody. We were just picked on more because even amongst the people who were on the outskirts of the legitimacy of the law, even with them we were at the bottom of that drudge of people. Because we were that one faction of folks that you could make fun of and abuse and ridicule and hurt and no one said a damn thing. Today that is still happening, but the degree to that is a little less because people are more aware of us now. They know that we didn’t start with Laverne Cox and Janet Mock. They know that for years we have been here. And we’re in the Bible, since they put so much credence in that. We are a being, a culture of people, and they can’t just override us like that. We’re not in the middle of a field like they can just ride through and trample us through the ground and go to the next village and rape and pillage all over again. It’s like that’s what they’re trying to do.

It was a matter of the police — as always — at that time. They used to go to whatever clubs they would work on at night, stick their sticks against the door jamb and the lights came on like it was last call, but you couldn’t get a drink! [laughter] Lights came on and you had to let go of Miss Thang and then parade out of the bar. And it was just one of those things that simply happened to happen.

You know, at this time in the 1960s, everybody was fighting for their own identity. Everyone was fighting for their sense of self-worth. Women wanted their piece, black people wanted their piece, it was supposed to be this “American dream” of sorts. And we weren’t any different. There were people trying to help gay and lesbian people assimilate into the real world. Okay, that’s fine, if that’s what you want to do. But I’m six feet and two inches tall, wearing three inch heels and platinum blonde hair and the lowest-cut blouse and the shortest skirt I can find, I’m not assimilating into anything! No one is saying: “look at that woman over there.” [laughter] So that was out of the question for most of us. We’re not exactly the most passable bunch of people, but we’ve got good hearts and we’re strong characters and we’re courageous people and we have a right to live and be here like everybody else does.

The best thing I can remember about that night is that when the girls decided, “no, we ain’t doing this,” some of the girls got out of the paddy wagon and came back, the police got so scared they backed into the club and locked the doors! I mean, if nothing else,that was the funniest thing to have in your mind watching it happen. And meanwhile across the street there are all these cute little white boys cheering us on, and saying “don’t hurt the girls!” and all this blah blah. They weren’t in the fight.

I learned years ago from being raised in Chicago that when you get in those kind of situations, the first thing you want to do is piss off whatever guard you’re fighting so much that they knock you completely out, then you’ll live another day. They won’t keep beating on you until you don’t live. So I got knocked out early, and the next thing I knew I woke up in the cell and we were let out the next day. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not a part of what’s going on.

A lot of stuff that went on about that simply amazes me because they don’t talk to the people who were involved, they don’t talk to Martha or Sylvia’s friends who might still be alive. I don’t know for sure who is still living because after that, it was so disappointing for me to watch the first gay parade because most of us don’t think of ourselves as gay. A lot of the community, the trans community, even within that there are degrees of colors and things that go on. And in those degrees, there’s the opportunity to flower and become your true self, with a deep, deep rich color, or something light and pastel and soft and demure — but they kept snatching that up and not allowing them to exist or acknowledge that they existed.

The fact that they’re doing this again. It’s just so hurtful. What about the lives of all these people, women and trans men and stuff. Who aren’t here to censor this? You know? For me, since I’m still here, I’m bitching and complaining about it at every opportunity I get. I will let these motherfuckers know in a heartbeat as far as I’m concerned that T should have been first. No way in the world we should have had to vote on whether to not to put the T in the GLBQT. Oh yeah I’m a part of that group,what group? The group with 27,000 letters up there, where are you? That’s so annoying.

They did this before. There was another movie out a few years ago about Stonewall that was whitewashed. They showed it here in San Francisco and I went to the theater and wanted to see the people who put it together. I sent them a note, who I was, I wanted to talk to them for a minute. No one even acknowledged the fact that I came. I know they just didn’t want to hear what I had to say. That’s fine. If you’re going to have the balls to lie like that then you need to have the balls to stand there and listen to someone call you out on it. This shit is bullshit. At least hear it! And they are not doing a damn thing about it, but you can at least hear it!

Now, you know there are more people who know what the hell happened. People are bitching about it. I am so ecstatic about that. This isn’t about me, this is about the younger people who are coming behind me. About the trans folks who don’t know that we have a culture. That we deserve to exist. That this bullying shit is wrong. We can’t live our lives the way somebody else thinks that we should. I’m sorry most of us trans women are not between 5’2 and 5’7, whoops. Most of us don’t wear a size 5/6 shoe. Darn. I’m sorry all of us don’t sound like we spit rose petals out of our mouths as we talk. This shit ain’t easy. You know, if they want to do something or want to make it better than you put on a dress and shit, go out and make money where you gotta pay rent and buy food to feed your children. Then you come talk to me how difficult it is. Until you do, you don’t know what the hell I’ve gone through to get here.

We can tell what they (the Mainstream Gay Communnity) have gone through because their shit is on TV and media, and paper, in magazines, in color. I’m so sick of seeing that. You see this everyday. People are trying to live in their authentic self. Figure out who they are. To be the best human being they can be. Not the obnoxious caricature what someone else thinks we should be because of what their concepts are about who we are, why we exist and what we should be doing. I know what we should be doing. Out there they even look at us and go, we are an abomination. You can’t even spell that bullshit. If I’m gonna be one, you need to spell it out for me. [laughter] I’m sorry I just go off. I just rant and rave. I hope I answered your question.

No, that was amazing! One final question. Instead of supporting this movie, what are some issues people should be paying attention to and some actions people should be taking?

See, you just warm my little heart up. What I would love to see happen not just not go see this thing. But you know that white people want to support white, and some people will go look at the cute little white actor! I want people to realize what actually happened and to do something about it. Let’s get together a group of people to redo those god damn statues across from the original Stonewall. Let’s have the building at least claim who the people were that were there, not these white people that they had on in the plaque in there. None of my girls were mentioned on that plaque, none of us. I went to New York three or four months ago and none of us are on that plaque. Okay, these people are the people you claim were at Stonewall? They must have been in the basement popping open beer bottles. I don’t know them! Even though most of us had different names then, still, something would have been recognizable. Two fags, two lesbians and some random person looking like they were walking into the Park are the statues that are there. Someone should smash those motherfuckers up and turn them into the white dust that they are and put a couple of statues of people of color and at least make one of them an overly obnoxious transgender woman 6’5″, three inch heels, blond/red hair, lashes, beads, feathers and put one of those fine white boys next to her, now that I can handle! [laughter] And let’s have two lesbians at the end with luggage because they’re moving in together! [laughter]

Let’s wake up, I mean, gosh, I know this is a serious thing but let’s keep some humor here. These people need to be acknowledged for the role they played. And that they existed! It’s so important that they at least realized that Marsha and Sylvia existed and that they did so much to help the community. And they tried to work with the [mainstream LGBTQ Community]. For me and the girls who lived Uptown, they did so much.

I hope a lot of people read this and get their heads out of their ass.

---

There are some other things that I would suggest people do if they want to support trans women of color like those who were the real heroes of the Stonewall Riots. People are talking about boycotting Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall film, and while that’s a good idea, you can do more. Instead of just not going, why not donate that $10 you would have spent on the movie ticket supporting TWOC? You can find trans fundraisers by searching tumblr or by reading articles written by trans women of color here on Autostraddle that focus on ways to help TWOC while we’re alive. You can also support films about TWOC history that are actually featuring and being made by trans women, such as Major! a documentary about Miss Major’s life, and Happy Birthday Marsha, a film about Marsha P. Johnson, that is currently in post-production and is raising money. We need to make sure that we not only remember names like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, but we also honor the work they’ve done by making sure that we pick up where they left off and support trans women of color who are struggling to live today.

Amber Monroe Becomes the 12th TWOC Murdered in the US This Year, We Must #SayHerName

(Ed. Note: Sources are telling us that K.C. Haggard was white and should not be counted among the twoc who have been murdered. Still, that makes 11 out of the 12 trans women murdered up to this point twoc.)

Early this morning in Detroit, Amber Monroe, a Black trans woman, became the 12th trans woman of color murdered in the US this year. Monroe was just 20 years old.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cherno Biko (@chernobiko)

Few details are available right now, but I talked to Cherno Biko, a trans rights advocate who has been talking to friends of Monroe and other people on the ground in Detroit. Biko told me that Amber “was 20 years old and full of life and such a fighter. This was actually her third time being shot, but she wasn’t comfortable going to the police the first two times because of the relationship Black trans women in Detriot have with the police.” This broken relationship is shown in Dream Hampton’s documentary Treasure, about 19-year-old trans woman of color Shelly “Treasure” Hilliard, who was brutally murdered after working with the police in Detroit.

These past two weeks have started to seem frighteningly similar to the first two months of the year when a trans woman of color was murdered every week. Since July 22, just 17 days ago, three trans women of color have been murdered. When I talked to Biko, she told me that she was scared, that it felt like she could be next. She said that “after the first eight weeks, we hit the ground running and we launched all these campaigns” aimed at bringing awareness to the violence that twoc face, and that things looked hopeful. Then “something happened this summer with India Clarke. In the last two weeks, we’ve had three (murders)… we have to do something to stop this because it’s only going to get worse.”

As Janet Mock said: “The names of our sisters shouldn’t only make headlines when we walk a red carpet or lay in a casket.” But that’s what seems to be happening. If you glance at trans women in the media, it may seem like we’re being embraced. Biko told me that if you actually take a closer look, it really seems like they just want to “worship you or (want you) dead, so that they can save you or fund raise off of your legacy.” Trans women of color are constantly asking for donations or help or places to sleep in posts on Tumblr, and usually barely receive any attention. Trans women of color often try to get money for films or books or other projects and are barely able to raise half the money that they need. Yet stories of their murders go viral. It’s long past time that trans women of color’s lives were valued while they are still happening.

The full list of trans women of color murdered this year, at least as far as we know, includes Monroe, 20; Mercedes Williamson, 17; India Clarke, 25; K.C. Haggard, 66; Papi Edwards, 20; Lamia Beard, 30; Ty Underwood, 24; Yazmin Vash Payne, 33; Taja de Jesus, 36; Penny Proud, 21; Kristina Grant Infiniti, 47; and London Kiki Chanel, 21. What makes this even more shocking is that if you look at the ages of the Black trans women who have been murdered, most of them weren’t even past their mid-twenties.

There are two other deaths that could well be counted among the list of trans women murdered this year, that of 22 year old Bri Golec, whose friends have given mixed reports about whether or not she was trans, and Mya Hall, another Black trans woman who was fatally shot by NSA security forces after she and another trans woman tried to drive their car through a security cordon around Fort Meade. According to Hall’s friends, she was struggling with mental illness but could not afford to get any treatment. Police reports have also been unclear as to why exactly her vehicle was fired upon, when many people regularly accidentally turn into the area where she did.

We need to get out Amber Monroe’s name and images of her that show who she really was as soon as we can. So often the mainstream media will misgender and slander twoc in death, using mug shots and birth names, wrong pronouns and “reasons” for their murders, such as sex work, homelessness and drug use. As Cherno Biko told me, now “it’s less about individual girls and more about culture and society as this has happened 12 times this year alone.” Large parts of society still don’t seem to care about trans women of color or even view us as human beings.

“We make more sense dead than alive,” Biko told me. “This is the culture that we are dealing with, not just in Detroit or the mid-west, but in all of America.”

Rebel Girls: 10 Feminist Gal Pals Who Made This World a More Awesome Place Together

As a follow-up to the time I used “gal pals” sarcastically and taught you all about the queer suffragists, and in honor of Gal Pal Week, this week’s Rebel Girls lesson is going to be about good, old-fashioned friendship. Like, actual literal friendship for real.

Even without all this context, it makes sense for us to talk about women’s friendships with each other in this column; platonic relationships between women, after all, are tiny revolutions even still, especially in a world full of patriarchal hate and girl hate and our cultures that stigmatize and shame the way we interact and care for each other as friends. Women supporting one another, caring for one another, and prioritizing one another — be those women queer or not — rips a tiny little hole in the patriarchy, and eventually relationships like those will help unravel the whole damn thing.

These ten gal pal pairs (and one trio!) have shifted culture, sparked conversation, and brought light to this cold, dark world.

---

Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer

They brought you Broad City, the female-driven show that’s funnier than all f*ck and a complete mirror image of your actual life. They’re also “totally feminists,” and they make sure to surround themselves with feminists, like all good squad leaders are wont to do. Basically, Abbi and Ilana are goddesses and we’re all just mere mortals, and I’m okay with that.

---

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns

Alice Paul, author of the Equal Rights Amendment and totally badass suffragist, met fellow badass suffragist Lucy Burns in a police station. (They were both being arrested for demonstrating with the Women’s Social and Political Union in London, where they got wise and learned how to build mega-big, super-militant, forever-in-our-hearts movements.) The two hit it off and developed a partnership sometimes likened to that of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, eventually going on to form the National Woman’s Party and get some sh*t done when their American feminist compatriots were too caught up in respectability politics to do so. They stood by each other through thick and thin, including multiple arrests, tons of harassment, massive demonstrations, and more jail time — but ultimately, they won their huge victory and established the right for women to vote in the good ol’ US of A.

---

Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi

The #BlackLivesMatter revolution was objectively, factually built by women. In fact, the three people who coined the hashtag are Black queer women. Their friendship has literally sparked a movement, and I’m totally psyched to watch them change the world.

---

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey

There really isn’t anything I can say here that you don’t already know. This is what Abbi and Ilana will be like in a few years, probably, and in a few years we’ll all still be wondering why we’re not as cool / funny / smart as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Whether flying solo or tag-teaming, these two are always making smart stuff that makes us laugh, and because of them it’s sometimes hard for me to leave the world of Netflix and go to work.

---

Beyonce and Nicki Minaj

They’ve felt themselves and stopped the world. They’ve come together to celebrate the ***flawless bitches inside all of us and especially inside of their brains. And they’ve worked, independently and together, to redefine feminism and reclaim their rightful thrones as Queens of every single game, pretty much. Our jobs are mostly to sit back, grab a Big Mac, and watch them shift the media landscape in all the right directions.

---

Gloria Steinem and Marlo Thomas

It’s a tale as old as time: two incredible women meet and form a bond over the antics of a gross piece of shit dude, then go on to live happily ever after by one another’s side. Gloria Steinem met her “soul sister” Marlo Thomas at a meeting with her agent, in which he remarked looking at the two of them that he didn’t “know which one of you I’d like to fuck first.” Both went on to leave him in their collective dust, forging ahead in the decades to better people and things, like, oh I dunno, building the feminist movement and challenging patriarchy everywhere and all the time. NBD.

---

Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep

Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep have known each other for years, and have often found themselves pushing for the same feminist causes. Both are outspoken, intelligent, and beloved by many — and together, they’re a duo I have no doubt could maintain a popular Instagram account full of only selfies for years before it got old.

---

Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah

I mean, how could you not become best friends with someone who helped bring Set It Off into this world? It’s a question none of us can answer, least of all BFFs Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett. Whether they’re catching up on live television, walking the red carpet, or presenting awards to one another, the two know they can count on each other for support. They’re also both completely amazing women who constantly push and break the boundaries set for them by Hollywood, just as a bonus.

---

Margaret Cho and Selene Luna

Margaret Cho and Selena Luna have done a lot of work together. Before Cho moved in with Luna on Season 4 of “Wife Swap,” they’d already toured together, filmed a television show together, and spent probably countless hours discussing the complexities of intersectional oppression with one another. Their friendship is also visibly compassionate and loving: Margaret Cho, for example, once got really pissed about how Virgin Airlines treated Luna during the pre-boarding process and spoke out about it publicly to shame their asses, and she’s also hosted benefits to fund Luna’s medical care. There’s probably a lot of laughs when Cho and Luna get together, but it’s clear there’s lots of love, too. I dunno guys, it just really melts my heart.

---

Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera

When you think of the Stonewall Inn, you might not think of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. You’d be sadly and sorely mistaken in failing to do so. These two trans women were on the front lines during the fateful Stonewall Riot, and their activism didn’t end there. Together, they founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries in New York City, and Rivera was also a leading force in the founding of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. The work they did laid the foundation for the modern LGBT rights movement, and thus, to them we should be eternally grateful. I mean, I know I am.

---

Rebel Girls is a column about women’s studies, the feminist movement, and the historical intersections of both of them. It’s kind of like taking a class, but better – because you don’t have to wear pan

Daily Fix: Officer Pepper Sprayed Black Lives Matter Activists After Their National Conference and More News Stories

This is the week’s news so far!

+ More than a thousand Black Lives Matter activists met in Cleveland, Ohio this weekend for The Movement for Black Lives National Convening, an inaugural national conference about systemic racism, police brutality and violence and intersecting issues like immigration, economic justice and LGBT issues. It took place at Cleveland State University.

As the conference ended on Sunday, a white transit police officer pepper-sprayed a crowd of Black Lives Matter activists who were protesting the arrest of a black 14-year-old. According to the Greater Cleveland regional transit authority, officers were taking the teen to the police station because he was drunk on a bus. After seeing the boy in the squad car, a large crowd of activists blocked the car and tried to get him out of it. The crowd was also chanting and demanding the boy be released. One of the officers began pepper spraying the crowd.  Law enforcement agencies responded, including the Cleveland Police, who are not affiliated with the transit officers. No arrests were made.

+ Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis announced that a committee of outside lawyers will investigate Sandra Bland’s death. The committee will be led by former prosecutors and defense attorneys Lewis White and Darrell Jordan. They’ll make recommendations on possible criminal charges to Mathis and if Mathis disagrees, the committee of lawyers has the authority to present their findings to the grand jury reviewing Bland’s death.

+ Sandra Bland’s autopsy and custodial death reports are now available to the public. The autopsy findings match the police’s story that she hung herself.

---

+ Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco will be the first to offer a LGBT high school history class. It will cover pivotal moments in LGBT history including the Stonewall riots, the AIDS crisis and the legal battle for marriage equality. The college prep class was approved by the University of California, qualifying it for the UC system.

+ The Boy Scouts of America made it official and lifted the ban on gay and bisexual adult leaders and volunteers, but will allow local chapters to set their own policies for adult leaders and volunteers. The BSA’s national executive board ratified the resolution yesterday after it received unanimous support from the executive committee when they met on July 10. The decision is a baby step in the right direction but not enough, since local troops — of which 70% are sponsored by faith-based organizations, many with anti-gay beliefs, according to The Advocate — can refuse to let gay people work with them.

---

+ Meagan Taylor, a black trans woman who was profiled by hotel staff and police as a sex worker, was released from Polk County Jail in Des Moines last Wednesday.

+ Rexdale Henry, a 53-year-old Native activist was found dead in the Neshoba County Jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a day after Sandra Bland was found dead in hers. He was arrested for failure to pay a traffic citation. Officials haven’t publicly released his cause of death but Henry’s friends and family sought an independent autopsy. His body was flown to Florida for a private autopsy that was funded by anonymous donors.

+ Ralkina Jones, a 37-year-old Cleveland woman, died in a Cleveland Heights jail cell on Sunday. She was arrested on Friday and charged with assault, domestic violence, endangering a child and criminal mischief. According to police, she broke her ex-husband’s car window and tried to break his windshield with a tire iron. Jones hit her ex-husband on his arm before getting into her car and almost running him and his friend over, while her 12-year-old son was in the backseat of the car. Police say she was “lethargic” when they checked on her in jail. She was taken to the hospital Saturday evening and was given medication for a prior health condition and later returned to the jail. She was found dead early Sunday morning. An autopsy was scheduled to happen yesterday.

---

+ KC Haggard, a 66-year-old trans woman, was stabbed to death on the street in Fresno, California last Friday, making her the 11th trans woman murdered this year. The news comes a few short days after India Clarke, a young black trans woman, was found dead in Florida. KC was fatally stabbed in the neck early Thursday morning by someone in the front passenger seat in a light-colored Saturn SUV. The stabbing was captured by a local tattoo shop’s security camera and in it you can see the passenger beckoning KC to the window and striking her as soon as she leaned into the window. The SUV quickly sped off after they struck KC. She was left on the street for 2o minutes before someone called paramedics. Police are investigating this as a homicide and are still looking for the suspects. Karen Adell Scot, executive director of TransCare organized a vigil for KC last week at the spot where she was killed. A second vigil to memorialize KC is tentatively scheduled for Thursday at the Fresno LGBT Community Center.

---

+ On Friday, a federal judge in California ruled that the detention of undocumented mothers and children is a violation of a 1997 court settlement and they should be released immediately. The 1997 Flores agreement set guidelines for holding minors in immigrant detention and mandates for them to be held in the “least restrictive setting” possible and to adopt a “general policy favoring release.” Immigration judges have begun to release women and their children without bond who were detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

Spread This Far and Wide: It’s Almost Time for the U.S. Trans Survey

If you’ve read pretty much any article here on Autostraddle that talks about trans women or trans people in general, or even if you’ve read articles elsewhere, there’s a good chance you’ve seen plenty of links to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. It’s pretty much the survey to end all surveys for transgender statistics and simple descriptions of transgender experiences in the United States. Now, the US Trans Survey is looking to take that idea and go twice as far. That’s where you come in.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey was a survey of 6,436 transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States that was taken in 2008-2009 and compiled in the 2011 report Injustice at Every Turn. This report is full of what is currently the most accurate and up-to-date data that we have on demographics like ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, income and education level; discrimination faced in education, incarceration, employment and housing; rates of violence; family acceptance and steps taken to transition. I cite this report pretty much any time I have to write something where I’m talking about rates of discrimination or homelessness or poverty. And now, the U.S. Trans Survey is looking to at least double the number of respondents.

In order to do that, the US Trans Survey is hoping to get 20,000 people to pledge to take the survey, which will become available on August 19th. You can make a post on twitter or facebook, you can write about it on your tumblr or other blog, you can even change your facebook cover photo. You can even host a meetup where you provide computers for people to take the survey. Whatever you do, just make sure that you spread this to as many trans people as you know.

We all know that transgender visibility is at an all-time high. However, despite Laverne Cox’s magazine covers and Emmy nominations, the growing number of trans characters on TV and of course, Caitlyn Jenner, most of America still doesn’t really know how many transgender people there are, where we live, what we look like or what kind of struggles we face. The increase in visibility hasn’t necessarily led to an increase in quality of life for trans people either, especially black and brown trans women. This is a way to help change all of that.

It’s precisely because of that increased visibility that this is the perfect time for this survey. With the information and statistics that we get from this survey, we’ll be better able to show just how diverse the trans population is and just how much discrimination, transphobia and transmisogyny we face. I cannot begin to tell you how important that will be for trans advocacy work over the next few years.

The unfortunate truth is that some people just won’t be convinced by first person accounts of transphobia. They need to see hard data in order to be convinced. I know that when I testified at the Idaho Capitol Building asking The State Affairs Committee to add the words “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the state Human Rights Act, trans people would come up, one after another, telling moving personal stories from their lives about the discrimination they’ve faced, only to have a board member ask, “yes, but do you have statistics on how often this kind of discrimination happens?” This survey will give us an accurate answer.

This survey is for all trans people 18 years and older. So whether you’re a trans woman or trans man, genderqueer, agender or non-binary, whether you’re out to everyone or out to only yourself, as long as you have a trans identity, you’re perfect for the job. If you still have questions, the National Center for Transgender Equality has answers. The survey wants to be able to provide an accurate picture of the demographics of trans people in the US and an accurate representation of the kind of discrimination, harassment and violence that those trans people face, and if enough people don’t fill it out, it won’t be as accurate or as useful. All of us can help make this survey be an invaluable tool for years to come that will undoubtedly aid in the fight for trans rights across the country. If you want to add your voice and let the world know what it’s like being trans, sign up today to pledge to take the survey this August.

You Should Go or Help Other Humans Go to #QI2: the Queering Immigration Conference

The second Queering Immigration Conference is coming up on August 28th-30th in New York City! I will be there, reporting and learning. You can be there too, but even if you can’t come, you can still support it by donating to the solidarity travel fund to help get undocumented and formerly detained people there!

Queering Immigration is run by the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP), which provides all types of support to queer, trans and otherwise identifying LGBTQI folks coming out of immigration detention. The conference will create space for formerly detained and undocumented people to learn about legal issues, detention and survival strategies, as well as provide education to social workers, other social service providers and allies so they can better understand the lived experiences of undocumented LGBTQI people. Sessions will include workshops on detention, immigration law, case management, health justice and movement building. They will be led by community members, organization leaders, and representatives from government agencies like the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Office of NYC Council Member Daniel Dromm.

“A lot of folks have their own opinions and viewpoints of what immigration looks like,” QDEP Executive Director Jamila Hammami told Autostraddle. “I think if they came to this event they’d be able to see what trans and queer migration really looks like.”

Hammami also says that an important goal of the conference is to make connections between the LGBTQI immigrant rights movement and other movements. “We’re working really hard to unite the prison abolition movement and the immigration rights movement together. Black and Pink will be coming this year, and I’m really pumped about that,” she said, continuing,

“It’s so important to be linking our two movements… they are essentially the same thing: people profit from putting people in prison and from putting people in detention. It’s all racist and it’s all classist and it’s all transphobic and homophobic, so why don’t we work together? I’m really pumped to have those discussions with people who have maybe never even thought about that within the immigration movement. It’s going to be a very interesting introduction.”

Hammami also said the faith community will have a big role the conference:

“At QDEP, we’ve really included the faith-based community in our work. We’re very connected with it, and I know that that’s something that’s been really difficult for a lot of LGBTQI folks to wrap their head around. But we have several sessions being led by different faith leaders that are LGBTQI identified, themselves, or that are focused on providing services or helping other organizations move into being accepting of trans and queer folks.”

The state of things for trans and queer undocumented immigrants in the US has been in the news a lot lately. In the past month, Jennicet Gutierrez called on President Obama to release trans women from detention centers, calling attention to the sexual abuse trans women face when detained in men’s detention centers. Shortly after, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a new memo saying that trans women can now be detained in women’s facilities.

These are the most recent developments in years of organizing by trans and queer immigrant communities that have been impacted by the violence of the detention and deportation system. This violence, Hammami pointed out, has been identified by the UN High Commissioner on Refugees as an international issue. This conference will bring together people organizing and connected to the queer and trans undocumented community around the US and the world.

I am SO excited to be reporting at this conference, and I hope you will join me there and follow along at the hashtag #QI2!

When: 9AM on August 28th to 4PM on August 30th
Where: The New School in New York City

To register, click HERE. Scholarships and reduced rates are available for impacted community members and students.

If you can’t go but you want to support other people in going so that the conference is as amazing as possible and as accessible as possible to the communities most directly impacted by the issues that will be discussed, YOU CAN. Just go to the registration page, scroll down and put your donation in the additional contribution box, or follow the instructions on the page to contact Jamila.

India Clarke is the 10th Trans Woman Murdered This Year

For the tenth time this year, that we know, a trans woman of color has been murdered in the United States. Twenty-five-year-old India Clarke was a black trans woman who lived in Tampa, Florida and was studying cosmetology. Her mother said that she “was a good-hearted person, a very loving person.” Her murdered body was found this morning in a park in her hometown.

This news comes the same week when another black trans woman, Ashley Diamond, is reported being raped in the same prison she’s been trying to escape due to safe housing concerns and another black trans woman, Megan Taylor was arrested for being black and trans. These stories have been a harsh reminder of just how little society values the lives of black trans women, even at a time when trans people are experiencing more coverage and supposedly, more acceptance, than ever before.

Clarke joins 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson, 20-year-old Papi Edwards, 30-year-old Lamia Beard, 24-year-old Ty Underwood, 33-year-old Yazmin Vash Payne, 36-year-old Taja de Jesus, 21-year-old Penny Proud, 47-year-old Kristina Grant Infiniti and 21-year-old London Kiki Chanel on the list of trans women murdered so far this year. Twenty-two-year-old Bri Golec might also be on the list, but there have been mixed reports from friends on whether or not they were trans. More than half of these women have been black. Last year there was a total of twelve trans women reported murdered in the US, just two more than those murdered in the first seven months of this year.

Police are asking that anyone with information call the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at 813-247-8200.

News Fix: Sandra Bland’s Death is Being Thoroughly Investigated Says Prosecutor and More News Stories

Hey seasonal fruits! I hope your Monday was grand and your Tuesday will be filled with tacos. Here’s some news for you!

Sandra Bland Updates and #IfIDieInPoliceCustody

+ The FBI joins the Texas Rangers in investigating the death of Sandra Bland, who was arrested in Texas on July 10 after failing to properly signal a lane change and was found dead three days later in a jail cell of an apparent hanging. Waller County District Attorney, Elton Mathis asked the investigators to do extensive scientific testing for fingerprints, DNA and other techniques. Mathis says the investigation is being treated as a murder investigation and will be very thorough. Bland’s family has requested an independent autopsy into her death; Harris County’s medical examiner said her death was caused by suicide.

Mathis says that there were no cameras in the cell where Bland was found dead and cameras monitoring the hall outside her cell show no one entering or leaving it between the time she last spoke to officers through an intercom and when she was found dead.

According to Bland’s family attorney, Cannon Lambert, Bland was threatened with a taser to get out of her car. Lambert says in not-yet-released dash cam footage shows the officer told Bland to put out a cigarette and she refused. The officer then reached for Bland’s door at which point Bland reached for a cell phone to record the encounter. The trooper who pulled over and later arrested Bland was put on desk duty on Friday for violating procedures, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

Bland was looking forward to a new job at Prairie View A&M University, from which she graduated in 2009. In some Facebook videos that have resurfaced in the wake of her death, Bland talks about suffering from depression and PTSD. Over at For Harriet, Evan Seymour points out she uploaded a lot of other videos talking about race in America and shares some of Bland’s wisdom from her “Sandy Speaks” videos.

+ Kindra Darnell Chapman, an 18-year-old black Alabama woman was also found dead in a jail cell last Wednesday. Chapman was booked in the jail at 6:22 pm for robbing someone’s cell phone. She was found unresponsive at 7:50 p.m. in an apparent hanging. The police say she died by suicide.

+ In the wake of Sandra Bland and Kindra Chapman’s mysterious deaths at the hands of police, many Black people took to Twitter to tell the public if they were to die at the hands of police that they did not harm themselves. They used the hashtag #IfIDieInPoliceCustody and their tweets ranged from heartbreaking to revolutionary.

---

Police Violence and the Prison Industrial System

+ Stephanie Dorceant, 29, was arrested on July 11 in Brooklyn after allegedly assaulting off-duty NYPD officer Salvator Aquino. She’s facing felony charges of assault as well as charges for menacing, resisting arrest and harassment. However since last Thursday, Aquino is under a hate crime investigation because Dorceant says she was actually attacked by the off-duty officer and called homophobic slurs. The incident occurred at around 2 a.m. on July 11 when Dorceant and her girlfriend Nandi Allman were walking home after a concert and Aquino, dressed in plain clothes, bumped into Dorceant from behind. Dorceant asked him if he was ok and he replied “mind your own business you fucking dyke.” Dorceant said he then attacked her, punched her in the face, choked her, all while calling her anti-gay slurs.

“When he had his hands around my neck I truly thought I was going to die” Dorceant said in a statement published by the Huffington Post. “I could not breathe. The only way I could get him to stop attacking me and my girlfriend was to bite him.”

Other police officers showed up and when Aquino identified himself as a police officer, the other police officers proceeded to pile on top of Dorceant and handcuffed her and her girlfriend. Dorceant was arrested, taken to the hospital and spent a day at Riker’s Island before Allman posted her $1,000 bail. Aquino alleges Dorceant was the one who started the attack. Both women are small and wouldn’t have posed a threat to the officer, Dorceant lawyer says. The women’s friends have started a crowdfunding page to help pay for legal and medical fees, so far they’ve raised over $4,800 out of their $8,000 goal.

“Even though I am well aware of the many stories about police brutality, especially against blacks, Hispanics, and the LGBT community, I never really thought that this could happen to me,” Dorceant said. “I want to share my story and say that police brutality is a real thing. Hate crimes are a real thing.”

+ Meagan Taylor, a 22-year-old black trans woman, was wrongfully profiled by hotel staff and police as a sex worker and then placed in an isolated jail cell last Monday. Hundreds of supporters came out to see her be released over the weekend.

Taylor was arrested at the Drury Inn in West Des Moines while visiting from Illinois with a trans friend. Taylor and her friend were accused of prostitution by the hotel staff and the police were called to investigate on July 13. When the police found the pair weren’t involved with sex work, they still arrested Taylor because she was in possession of her transition-related medication without a prescription and “malicious prosecution,” which may be related to outstanding probation from Illinois for credit card fraud. Taylor, who is a cosmetology student and who works at a salon, told the The Des Moines Register that she had already served her time for credit card fraud at 17 but couldn’t pay a related $500 fine that has grown to $1,700. Taylor also has a prescription for her medication but didn’t have it with her while she was traveling. Taylor said she believes she was profiled for being a black trans woman:

“It seemed like they were trying to find something to charge me with. I lied about my name [but] I was not doing any illegal activity. The lady called police because I was transgender and was with a transgender friend.”

Since her arrest, Taylor was held in a segregated medical cell at Polk County Jail because the facility didn’t have a policy on how to detain trans women who haven’t undergone gender affirming surgery. Taylor wasn’t able to pay her $2,000 bail and had a court date set to August 10. Word spread of Taylor’s arrest through an op-ed in the Register and local Black Lives Matter activists sprang into action. They held a protest outside the Drury Inn on Saturday and on social media under #FreeMeaganTaylor and #EvenDesMoines. They demanded the hotel apologize to Taylor and for staff to receive training on trans and gender non-conforming guests. Meanwhile San Francisco-based pastor, Megan Rohrer, raised funds for Taylor’s bail and fees. They raised over $4,500 for Taylor’s bail and the overdue warrant in Illinois. It’s still unclear if Taylor will be released soon.

---

Presidential Candidates and #BlackLivesMatter

+ On Saturday, Black Lives Matter protestors took the stage during the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix where they demanded that the candidates address police violence and structural racism. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley was in mid-speech when Arizona-based activist Tia Oso took the stage and expressed her frustration with white supremacy and asked O’Malley what he would do to “dismantle, not reform, not make progress, but begin to dismantle structural racism in the United States.” He really didn’t answer the question and ended with saying “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter.” Lots of people booed him. When Bernie Sanders took the stage right after O’Malley, he skirted the issue as well and talked about economic inequality and how if we fix that, then social justice will naturally follow. However it’s still not acknowledging the root of the problem, which is racism.

+ Bernie Sanders spoke in Dallas on Sunday and I kinda regret not going to listen to him. Here’s a rundown of what he talked about in Dallas and in Houston. The Texas Tribune reports: 

“At each stop, Sanders railed against a ‘billionaire class’ and called for a ‘political revolution’ while pitching a host of proposals on liberals’ wish lists. He touted his support, often in conjunction with shots at his Republican rivals, for a $15 minimum wage, a massive federal jobs program, free tuition for public colleges and universities, a single-payer health care system, a pathway to citizenship for people in the country illegally and campaign finance reform including a rollback of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Acknowledging some of his plans would be pricey, Sanders assured supporters that the wealthiest members of society would foot the bill with high taxes.”

Although he f*cked up at the Netroots conference, he hopefully learned from it because he acknowledged Sandra Bland when talking about other Black people who’ve died at the hands of police.

“It is unacceptable that police officers beat up people or kill people,” Sanders said in Houston. “If they do that, they have got to be held accountable.”

---

An Interview with Rachel Dolezal

+ Vanity Fair profiled Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP Spokane, Washington, chapter president who pretended to be black. In the interview, she stands by her view of herself as black and says she doesn’t feel she lied to anyone.

“I just feel like I didn’t mislead anybody; I didn’t deceive anybody. If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.”

She hopes to write a book soon so she can be done with explaining herself and get back into social justice work. For now, she continues to do hair (braids and weaves) since she resigned from the NAACP and lost her position at the Eastern Washington University where she taught in the Africana Studies program.

“Tangerine” is Hilarious, Beautiful, Authentic, Casts Trans Women to Play Trans Women Leads

Tangerine is a movie that looks and feels like it takes place on a hotplate and is infused with white hot lightning, which at first seems a little strange given the film’s Christmas Eve setting and its holiday themes. But honestly, if the movie had been made any other way it wouldn’t have been as fun, as moving or as effective. And that’s not the only thing that makes it stand out. A huge part of what makes this movie so powerful and amazing is that its two main characters, both trans women, are actually played by trans women who are also incredibly talented actors. Because of that, and their involvement in crafting the film’s story and dialogue, the movie has an authenticity that is rarely found in films with trans characters.

As a trans woman, I’m pretty willing to watch most movies about or featuring trans women, and I’ve been waiting to fall in love with one of them for a long, long time. I came close when I saw Gun Hill Road, but in the end, I was really just enamored with Harmony Santana’s performance. It wasn’t until I saw Tangerine that I really felt butterflies.

This movie is, above all else, sweltering and electric. Most of the movie’s slow-burning heat comes from Mya Taylor’s amazingly deep and deliberate — and often uproariously comedic — performance as Alexandra, one of the film’s two transgender main characters. The film’s crackling and bubbling energy comes from Alexandra’s best friend and partner-in-crime Sin-Dee, played with energetic hilarity by fellow newcomer Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. Together their characters are an unstoppable force of nature moving through the streets of Hollywood. They inject so much life and vibrancy into the movie that you’ll feel like you’ll live till you’re 150.

If you break it down, Tangerine (which was shot entirely on iPhone 5s phones and ends up being intimate and gorgeous because of it) is a story of one day in the life of two friends. Sin-Dee and Alexandra both work as sex workers in LA. Sin-Dee’s recently been released from a four-week stint in jail, and when she meets up with Alexandra at Donut Time on Christmas Eve, she finds out that her boyfriend and pimp, Chester, cheated on her with a cis girl. The film follows Sin-Dee as she tries to track down the “fish” and find her Chester, and Alexandra as she hands out flyers for her singing performance that night. But really, the film is so much more than that. I wasn’t joking when I said it’s a great Christmas movie. In the end, Tangerine is all about the importance of chosen family and being there for the ones you love when they most need you. What could be more Christmas-y than that? The film’s finale is honestly one of the most touching and beautiful moments of true friendship I’ve seen on film in years.

While the two stars give off completely different energies, both have perfect comedic timing and the movie has a sense of humor unlike any other. They’re also a terrific comedic team. Sin-Dee’s humor comes from her over-the-top and out there personality, while Alexandra has the deadest deadpan sense of humor I’ve ever seen. Director and co-writer Sean Baker said that in crafting the film and dialogue, both Rodriguez and Taylor had a lot of input, and Rodriguez even brought the idea of Sin-Dee chasing down the “fish” after being inspired by one of their friends. Baker also said many of the film’s funniest lines were improvised by Rodriguez and Taylor.

Both Rodriguez and Taylor were brilliant. Rodriguez should be getting “funny sidekick” or even “funny main character” roles left and right. I’d watch her in anything. Taylor should have her door being knocked down by producers looking to cast the lead in their next big dramatic comedy. She has a real power and magnetism to her, the kind that makes stars. These two were able to deftly make the entire theater burst out in laughter over and over again, and then move the entire theater to tears fifteen minutes later.

It’s also true that this movie is harsh. It’s rough, it’s sometimes violent and the transphobia in it is very, very real. It doesn’t pretend that these women are perfect people or that trans women of color have it easy. Baker said that when he first got Taylor to sign on, she said that she’d be in the movie if he promised her two things. She told him, “Number one, I want you to show how brutal it is, how tough it is for the women out here, the hardship and what they put up with every single day. And number two, I want you to make this hilarious.”

There was something else I noticed while watching this movie. It was exciting, and not just because of the Mercury-flying-through-the-solar-system-at-one-hundred-thousand-miles-per-hour speed that it moves at, but because this might be first major motion picture I’ve ever seen that didn’t make me feel like it’s trans characters were being othered. Even in movies like Gun Hill Road and Boy Meets Girl, which both have trans women in major roles, and Paris Is Burning, which was full of trans people, I always felt like the intended audience was cis people and they almost didn’t expect someone like me to be watching. With Tangerine, I finally felt like I was a part of the intended audience. There were inside jokes, it wasn’t overly male- or cis-gazey, the characters seemed familiar. It was familiar. It was also downright wonderful, seeing such a huge number of trans women in a single movie. This was a world where trans women don’t exist in a vacuum, where they have other friends who are trans, it was just like the real world.

I’m not saying this movie was perfect. It focuses too much on another character, the taxi driver and regular customer of Alexandra and Sin-Dee, Razmik, played with skill by Karren Karagulian. He’s clearly meant to be a familiar face for all the cis people watching and an entry point into the world of transgender sex workers, so I do understand that his storyline makes the movie more accessible to a wider audience. Still, I would have rather seen more screen time for Sin-Dee and Alexandra. There were also a few times where I felt like maybe the audience was laughing at the characters because of who they were, and I’m specifically talking about them being trans women of color and sex workers, but that’s maybe more on the audience than on the filmmakers. Some of the violence is also fairly disturbing for a film that’s largely a comedy, but again, I feel like that was a part of the film’s goal in accurately portraying this world. None of these problems took me out of the the movie for long, though.

Other cis filmmakers should pay attention to how Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch made this film. They did it the right way, finding actual trans women and asking them to help tell the story. Not only that, but according to Baker, even though the film is an independent movie and therefore isn’t making huge profits, “some of the proceeds are going to the (Los Angeles LGBT) center on McCadden… and that’s through our very generous and wonderful executive producers Mark and Jay Duplass and Marcus and Karrie Cox at Through Film.” You may remember Jay Duplass from his role as the almost always terrible Josh on Amazon Prime’s Transparent. Tangerine should be setting the new bar for what a movie about trans people is.

Eddie Redmayne will almost definitely get Oscar buzz for his performance as a trans woman in his upcoming film The Danish Girl, and Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall will probably get nationwide distribution. But if you’re looking for a film that accurately portrays the lives of trans women, has amazing performances by trans women of color and tells a great story about trans women, this is the one you should go to. It really is a shame that those movies will get the attention and praise that this one deserves. Things don’t necessarily have to be that way, though; people need to get out and see this movie. If it’s popular in LA and New York and Toronto, it will move to more cities. If it’s popular in those cities, it will move to even more. Tangerine is the type of movie that is going to be talked about for the rest of the summer, the rest of the year and probably for a while to come, so the smart move would be to go and see it now.

Tangerine is currently playing in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto, but will open in more cities in the coming weeks. To find out more about the movie, you can like it on Facebook or check its website to see where it will be playing near you.

Rebel Girls: 20 Autostraddle Community Members Who Are Changing the World

It’s Tell Us Everything week on Autostraddle, and to join the celebration I wanted to take a break from our class schedule to spotlight some of the amazing community members we have right here reading this very website every day who are revolutionaries, activists, and advocates. We heard from so many people that we weren’t able to include all of them in this post, which is really just even more evidence of how many of y’all there are and how amazing your work is. If you’re also an activist, tell us a little about your work in the comments! We’ve included people’s Autostraddle usernames in the list so that you can get to know them here even better. Let’s do this thing!

---

Aida / @neuronbomb

In Her Own Words: I’m a bilingual sexuality educator, speaker, and budding therapist with roots in LGBTQ activism who is currently pursuing her Master’s of Social Work at Boston University with a focus on aging populations. I have a BA in Gender & Sexuality Studies from Brown University.

About Her Activism: While in college in the states from Puerto Rico, my activism exploded — I worked with other students of color on diversity issues, basically spearheaded all the Gender and Sexuality Things (most notably the Queer Alliance and the Sexual Health Education & Empowerment Council, including Sex Week and the infamous SexPowerGod). I endured controversy and angry emails from conservatives and won multiple University Awards, once involving a full rainbow outfit and a megaphone.

My past projects include years of sexual health and LGBTQ work at Sojourner House, digital literacy instruction and board of directors leadership at the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, crisis-response with victims of sexual assault at Day One RI, and leadership on a number of national and regional coalitions on HIV prevention, comprehensive sexuality education, and LGBTQ anti-violence. I’ve also been with The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health since 2010, where I now work on a consultant basis on educational initiatives, and I currently serve on the Executive Committee for the Women of Color Sexual Health Network, a badass group of women working to uplift women of color and address our sexual and reproductive needs while also kicking White supremacy right in the face. My biggest focus right now is on school and various LGBTQ and racial justice initiatives at Boston University, including the Social Workers for Racial Justice Coalition I co-founded this year.

Connect with Her: Website | Newsletter | Twitter

---

Aria & Clare / @clarejkenny

In Clare’s Own Words: I’m an Academic Council Representative and member of the Women’s Volleyball Team. I graduated with Honors in Gender Studies from Skidmore College. and plan to work as an LGBTQ advocate and activist in the fields of development, fundraising, outreach, and education in New York City.

In Aria’s Own Words: I’m a native of Olympia, Washington who captained the Women’s volleyball team while studying photography and graphic design at Skidmore College. I work as a graphic designer and live with my girlfriend, Emily, in Seattle.

About Their Activism: As senior members of the Skidmore College Women’s Volleyball Team and Student Athlete Advisory Committee, we created a media campaign and campus movement to build awareness of and compassion for Skidmore’s LGBTQ athletes and allies. The Show Your Sport Campaign had two parts: First, Clare led a lecture to all interested student athletes regarding queer issues and the importance of allyship in sports; afterwards, Aria photographed the over 130 participants, allowing them to contribute their own feelings about the project. Their quotes were included on campaign posters on campus and a Facebook Page that now has over 500+ “Likes” and thousands of hits.

In addition, Clare organized a coalition meeting between Skidmore’s Pride and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. Although the campaign was primarily meant to affect the athletic community, one non-athlete mentioned at the meeting that seeing the posters made her feel safer and more accepted as well.

We were able to receive both financial and community support from our Athletics Department, so the campaign will continue next year with new directors we intend to advise, and we hope to carry the campaign forward to other institutions. Our plan is for student-athlete representatives to collectively decide on a social issue of national and/or personal concern to address as a community each calendar year. Although the topic will change, the message and legacy will remain the same: The Show Your Sport Campaign believes in the power of student-athletes to create positive change.

Connect With Aria: Instagram

---

Asher Targaryen / @Asher-Jak

In Her Own Words: I’m a 26-year-old queer squiggle trying to figure out how to navigate through the world. I enjoy spending time playing video games and tabletop games with my partner and can usually can be found in one of St. Louis’ many coffee shop drinking tea and plotting with my best friend about ways to crush patriarchy, white supremacy, and cis supremacy. Big parts of my identity include being a skeptical atheist, feminist, queer, activist, humanist, Nigerian, black lesbian who is anxious and frequently femmey.

About Her Activism: I guess I’ve always been an activist to some extent. When I was a junior in high school I started a Gay Straight Alliance in my school; in college I got my degree in a Women and Gender Studies field, and after college I started taking my activism beyond my schooling.

I started out with internet activism on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. I did a bit of volunteering at the local LGBT center, but it wasn’t until Mike Brown was murdered twenty minutes from my home that I got involved with protesting and doing more work on the ground. In the months following Mike Brown’s murder and for a while after Darren Wilson’s acquittal, most of my activism involved being in protests in Ferguson and other areas of St. Louis and doing education work online when I was not doing that. I got burn out pretty badly, and for a while my activism looked like giving myself self-care. After taking a much needed break, I got back into the local Black Lives Matter movement and began working with a local trans advocacy group, Metro Trans Umbrella Group (MTUG). The most recent action I took part in was the crashing of Pride to hold a funeral for Black Trans people who have died. 

Connect With Her: Facebook | Tumblr

---

Ava / @conradkcat

In Her Own Words: I’m a queer teen in one of Sydney’s hippiest suburbs. I like art, cooking and becoming a better person. I run a couple of tumblrs but most of my time is spent on fashion or feminism – or ideally combining both.

About Her Activism: In 2014 I became involved with Wear It Purple, an Australian organization that aims to create safe and supportive environments for young LGBTQ+ people. It started originally with a focus on preventing youth suicide, and works in the place where young people reported the most bullying – school.

I’m helping to organise Wear It Purple day, where we encourage schools all over the country to wear purple and show their support for queer young people. I help run stalls at fairs, march in Mardi Gras, and was part of a panel speaking about the experiences of queer young people. As well as showing support for queer young people, we also raise awareness of issues within the LGBTQ+ community and show others how they can show support for their peers in a meaningful way. We look at school curriculums, anti-bullying policies and staff responses to bullying so that we can unsure every student feels comfortable and safe at school.

---

Carolyn / @theknockturnalproject

In Her Own Words: I was born in Oakland, California. I was raised in DeRidder, Lousiana and later Richmond, California. I graduated with my BA in English from California State University, Long Beach. I received my MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University-Los Angeles. I currently live in Oakland where I’m trying to make it in one of the most expensive areas in the country as a writer. I’ve contributed to Autostraddle, Black Girl Dangerous and Everyday Feminism.

About Her Activism: I started working in the LGBT community just promoting events. I started with a one of LA’s best open mics, “The Indigo Lounge,” in 2008. (I also promoted NFL Sunday Funday, which was an event for women that love women and also FOOTBALL!) I started attending and later volunteering for the Black Lesbians United retreat, which is like A-Camp for black lesbians. I led workshops at the BUTCHVoices National Conference and later joined their Steering Committee. I also went through the Leadership Long Beach training program, which sat me next to the top civic, community and non-profit leaders in the city of Long Beach, became an Executive Board Member of the Long Beach Lambda Democratic club, and trained as a community organizer under the California Endowment’s Advanced Organizer Institute.

When I moved to the Bay Area, I was appointed to the Human Rights & Human Relations Commission of the City of Richmond, worked as a staff adviser for the QPOC Youth Group at El Cerrito High School, and became a member of the San Francisco LGBT Speakers Bureau.

Oh, and somewhere in there I wrote a book.

Connect With Her: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr

---

Cleo / @AbbyCadaver

In Her Own Words: I’m a glitterloving pusher of buttons, a queer woman of color, teaching artist, feminist, poet and general rabble rouser. I got my start in feminism from a book of feminist nursery rhymes when I was six, and my start in pop culture analysis came from nine years of homeschooling (translation: TV and movie watching). A firm believer in queering the collective consciousness, I strive to inspire people to redesign their idea of normal and step out of their comfort zone. I takes inspiration from Gertrude Stein, Angela Davis, Faith Lehane, Audre Lorde and bell hooks. My words to live by are: “Have no filter, give no fucks.” Also, someone once described me as “the love child of Angela Davis and Ru-Paul.”

About Her Activism: I teach applied theater to middle school students. Each semester I take students from never having spoken in front of people to writing, costuming and performing their own original plays. The topics range from the power of laughter to rape and self-harm. I teach the next generation of activist how to speak their own truth to their own power. And I was also an intern at GLAAD for 10 months! I helped sort through tons of media for diverse imagery as well as problematic imagery. I help compile data for the Studio Responsibility Index as well as the Where We Are On TV report, both of which are used by major news sources when writing about LGBTQIA issues.

---

Creatrix Tiara / @Creatrix Tiara

In Her Own Words: I’m a creative producer, media maker, artist, writer, activist, digital native, life-long traveller, rabble-rouser, and fangirl.

About Her Activism: I kinda figure that my existence as a queer sex-positive migrant minority woman is in itself a feminist statement. But more specifically: I produced and performed a number of burlesque performances that dealt with race, gender, and sexuality, and I also wrote a great deal about how racism plays into burlesque and sex-related arts and media; I was VERY active with Slutwalk — I spoke at SW Brisbane 2011, marched in SW Sydney 2011, helped out with SW San Francisco Bay Area 2011, and then organized SW Brisbane 2012; from 2010 to 2012 I co-produced and co-presented Megaherzzz, a weekly community feminist radio show on 4zzz Brisbane (another Straddler, Rae/ @wingshummings is on Megaherzzz too!).

I have lately been very involved with Yoni Ki Baat, a theater production inspired by the Vagina Monologues but everything is written, produced, and performed by South Asian women about their lives. It started in the Bay Area in 2003-ish and it’s now across the US, though I’ve mainly been involved with the Bay Area show — as a writer in 2012, performer in 2013 and 2014, and producer/performer/writer in 2015. I’m also trying to launch a feminist startup, which you may or may not have heard of righty here on Autostraddle!

Connect With Her: Website | Vimeo | Writi

---

Devlin / @amber-mccrey

In Her Own Words: I’m a trans woman who began her transition at 30. As a child, I knew that I was different, but quickly learned to suppress that. I joined the Navy right out of high school, not really having a frame of reference for who I was. I learned about being transgender from Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There. My original plan was to finish my time in the Navy and start transition when I got out, but it took another eight or nine years got that to happen. I’m 31 now, still in transition, but trying to help others. Amber is the name I thought I was going to change to before deciding to keep my birth name, Devlin.

About Her Activism: I facilitate a support group for my local LGBT resource center, The Uniting Pride Center of Champaign County. I also handle questions from people who reach out to the UP Center with trans specific questions. For our local Pride Celebration last year, I organized and ran a clothing drive and clothing swap for transgender people. I’ve given interviews and spoken on panels here in central Illinois helping to spread awareness and understanding of transgender people.

I often hesitate to call myself an activist. I feel like I haven’t done enough. Struggling with depression sometimes holds me back, but I know for certain that I have helped some people, and that is where I find fulfillment.

Connect with Her: Facebook

---

Dominique / @domo

In Her Own Words: I’m a nursing student and secret musician of all kinds of string instruments. I’ve lived in many corners of these United States, but St. Louis has been a good home for the past eight years.

About Her Activism: I was involved in the movement that started in Ferguson, first as a protester, then as a street medic. I went to the protests during those two weeks of turmoil and love in August. The conversations I had about racism, classism, sexism, systemic oppression, lost social history, the power of the Internet, violence and nonviolence — they made me feel so many things. Anger, guilt, ignorance, but then enlightenment, solidarity, and pride too. I went to different meetings of various activist organizations, and eventually I met the street medics — a group of radical healthcare workers. They march with the marches, chant with the chants, and, when shit goes down (police start using violent/intimidation tactics), are there for emergency first aid. I was treating lacerations from broken glass, burn wounds from throwing back tear gas canisters, aiding asthma slash panic slash heart attacks, wrapping sprained ankles, cleaning off the chemical agents of pepper spray.

Then, this year at PRIDE parade STL, there was a group of queer and trans people of color who were directly involved with the Black Lives Matter movement who decided to march — unofficially — in the parade with signs that said “BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER,” “BLACK QUEER LIVES MATTER,” “WE DO THIS FOR LONDON CHANEL,” and, my favorite: “MY PREFERRED GENDER PRONOUN IS FUCK THE POLICE.” The Pride board was not happy with us, the police were not happy with us, the big company sponsors were not happy with us — but the people on the sides who saw us march past were very moved. Many people applauded, cheered — some just flat out cried.

I don’t see what I do as bold, but as necessary. I am one small part of a whole living breathing creature of a movement that involves all of the aspects of intersectionality and the oppressions that follow. I’m queer, Latina, Indigenous. I can’t ignore how fucked the system is, it enrages me and depresses me all the time. But! Getting involved with like minded folks who decide to disrupt society for a demonstration has cracked my world open to a whole other dimension of optimism and light that I didn’t even know existed. That dimension doesn’t yet exist, actually, but one day it might. That’s what I’m fighting to create, I suppose.

Connect with Her: Facebook | Instagram

---

Elayne / @elaynewylie

In Her Own Words: I make films and work on television shows in the Pacific Northwest (and sneak in road trips when no one is looking). I’ve honed my event and stage production skills, along with film production, to a point where I can work on practically anything. I am one of 7 people living in Seattle who were actually born there. I sing, but not professionally, and attend Hedwig shows, also not professionally.

About Her Activism: I’m the Gender Justice League’s Board Chair and co-founder, as well as a long-time Seattle trans and social justice activist and community fixture. I’ve served on the board’s of both Ingersoll Gender Center and Seattle Out and Proud and am a 2011 graduate of Out in Front LGBT Leadership program. Most recently, I served on the City of Seattle Mayor’s Task Force on LGBTQ Hate Crimes, and then produced Trans Pride Seattle 2015, where 4000 people showed up.

Connect with Her: Facebook | Twitter

---

Emma / @emmacaterine

In Her Own Words: I was born in Gainsville, Florida in 1990 but spent most of my childhood in Poquoson, Virginia, a somewhat infamous sundown town in the Tidewater area. I went to the College of William & Mary and after graduating there in 2012 I moved to New York City. I am starting law school at CUNY School of Law this fall.

About Her Activism: I’ve been volunteering since I was young, with groups like The Young Democrats, The Gay-Straight Alliance, Creigh Deeds’ 2005 campaign and Mike Gravel’s 2008 campaign. In college, I joined the radical labor group Tidewater Labor Support Committee, students working in solidarity with campus staff demanding a living wage. We canvassed and lobbied for the Employee Free Choice Act and held post-bailout rallies at Bank of America. I also worked with the Maggie Walker Archives Project to catalog, digitize, and preserve the thousands of documents found in Richmond, Virginia about the influential Black womanist Maggie L. Walker.

After coming to New York City, I got involved with the Red Umbrella Project, an organization led by current and former sex workers who advocate, organize and provide support to this community. I helped organize a massive call-in to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office to ensure he keeps his campaign promise to end the practice of using condoms as evidence of prostitution (a police stop-and-frisk tactic that harms public health and disproportionately targets trans women of color). The NYPD issued a directive ending the practice for misdemeanor prostitution offenses soon after.

I also founded NYC’s Black and Pink chapter, and along with a great group of people both inside and outside of prison we organized a fundraiser that put more than $1000 in the commisaries of incarcerated queer and trans people; was a temporary staff member at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project’s Prisoner Justice program, where I helped trans and gender nonconforming people in prison with issues such as accessing hormones, getting out of solitary confinement, and receiving medically appropriate care for intersex conditions; and decided to join the political party Socialist Alternative and involve myself in the 15 Now NYC campaign, which seeks a $15/ hour living wage for all New York workers.

---

Heather / @hmangione

In Her Own Words: I’m from Brooklyn NY and live in Worcester MA because I’m getting my PhD in psychology at Clark University. I’m 30 years old, have traveled many places in this world, and am an avid reader/dog lover/crazy cat lady. Bikes, dancing, feminist theory and glitter rule my world.

About Her Activism: When I moved to Worcester 5 years ago, the queer community was extremely disjointed and inaccessible to someone who didn’t know anyone. In response, I co-founded a queer community group called Airspray two years ago that runs monthly queer dance parties in addition to other queer community events, including art gallery events, and performances at local museums. Our dance parties average 200+ people every month.

All of this community work coincided and helped me to fully come out to myself, my family, and my social networks. I previously was not visibly queer and had a hard time finding people I wanted to date, and life was hard because of this confused identity. I never realized that part of the issue was the lack of a shared queer culture in the city around me. If there’s no gay bars, queer dance parties, and social events to meet people, how can we create and maintain a shared language of queer visibility for people to explore their identities in? Airspray has helped many people do that in the little city of Worcester.

I’m also involved in a group called FemSex, which is a 16-week long discussion-based group focused on exploring issues of feminism, privilege, and race. I both enrolled in and then facilitated the workshop at the Cambridge Women’s Center, and will be bringing the workshop to Worcester this Fall.

Connect with Her: Facebook

---

Jen / @JenS

In Her Own Words: I run a small film & video production company in Nashville, TN, focusing our work on the rights and experiences of LGBTQ in the South.

About Her Activism: This year I completed a short film, I Kissed a GIRL [a documentary], which has been expanded to become an online series. IKAG spotlights lesbians’ first knockout girl-kiss stories, the ones that helped us understand or confirm our sexuality. It’s been a wonderful way to record our histories for each other, and I optimistically believe it might even help foster understanding between our community and straight people who may not be in our corner yet.

I’m currently working on two projects. One is a PSA for a state advocacy group called Tennessee: Open For Business, a new initiative encouraging businesses across the state to welcome all employees & customers regardless of sexuality and/or gender ID. I’m proud to be part of this project, as we are seeing “no gays allowed” signs pop up in TN. Previously, I completed two projects for this same organization, one for National Coming Out Day and one promoting the need for same sex partner employee benefits.

I’m also in pre-production on a feature length documentary called Love, Hate, Church & State, revealing religion’s strong impact on the lives and liberties of LGBTQ in TN. I am trying to discern what, if any, separation of church and state exists in our state.

Connect with Her: Twitter

---

Jordan

In Her Own Words: I am a disabled, low-income transbian who went from doing a lot of policy/legislative activism in Pennsylvania to being a California-based writer for the Advocate on issues of the intersections of gender, gender identity, disability, and class.

About Her Activism: During my time in PA, I was a key figure in getting rid of gender stickers on SEPTA passes, mostly due to a city council resolution I helped author. I also worked on a TLGB omnibus in Philadelphia, which was passed and signed by mayor in 2013. I also worked on the first ever council resolution for Transgender awareness week in 2013, a mayoral proclamation for TDOR in 2012, was a contributing writer for the Hearts on a Wire zine which is made for trans prisoners in PA and beyond, and served on the Justice 4 Nizah committee, which worked for justice for Nizah Morris, a black trans woman who died under suspicious circumstances involving the Philly PD. I also helped a PA state representative draft the first ever transgender rights bills in PA history — HB303 and HB304 — and was the only trans and openly lesbian person to testify at a Philadelphia street harassment hearing.

Last December, I had to move to California, and have shifted gears to writing about the intersection of gender identity, gender, disability, and class, which have appeared in the Advocate. Two pieces — one on conversion therapy and one on the marriage equality decision and how I feel as someone on means tested benefits — have been published, and I hope to publish pieces on matters such as healthcare, gentrification, special ed, and others and how they relate to the trans community.

A common theme of my writing is investigating reporting, mixed with a challenge for LGBT people and feminists to coalition with others to address bigger structural issues that may compromise equality either way.

---

Karalyn / @kgrimes

In Her Own Words: I’m a twenty year old primarily student but also intern and also part-time employee of a six-lane bowling alley. I am a pinsetter mechanic, which means I work with the machines and make them run so your pins get set down and you can have a Magical Bowling Experience. I am the ultimate Midwesterner and was spoiled by the Great Lakes growing up. I’m also bisexual, a long-time Autostraddle reader, a survivor of intimate partner violence, a rabbit owner, and a floral femme mermaid.

About Her Activism: First and foremost, my activism always takes the form of caring for myself as a low-income queer whose family didn’t go to college trying to survive elite academia and supporting my friends who are also doing so. I don’t think community care is discussed enough when it comes to activism, so it’s important to me to include that.

In addition, I founded, with four other awesome rad queer babes, my school’s Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct team which organizes prevention and response programs around sexualized violence of all forms, fights the Administration on what they need to be fought on, and demands better for people experiencing violence having to navigate TitleIX + legal systems. My focus with them is on education around intimate partner violence within queer communities and creating healing spaces for queer people who have survived or are currently living through abusive relationships.

I am also the Accessibility Coordinator for my cooperative association of 650(ish) people. With that title I coordinate privilege and oppression trainings, work with designated safe spaces (including Third World Co-op which is an eating space for people of color and Old B which is a living space for women and trans folx) planning educational workshops, actions, and community events, I have participated in BlackLivesMatter uprisings and when I was in London marched with the LondonBlackRevs for Migrants’ Rights.

Connect with Her: Blog | Twitter | Instagram

---

Katie / @kb103

In Their Own Words: I’m a pop-culture obsessed activist and writer. I serve on the Board of Directors for Campus Pride and GO! Athletes, and while at St. Olaf College, I fell in love with policy and doing the hard work in the hard places. I’m also a retired fanfiction writer. I just wrapped up my MS in Student Affairs in Higher Education, so I’m excited to explore the country and revisit some of my favorite places — like the 55 foot Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN. When I’m not fighting the good fight, you can find me watching sports, reading a good book, or watching Rachel Maddow.

About Their Activism: I accidentally became an activist in college when I decided to move into the St. Olaf Queer Support and Outreach House. While in college, I co-led the STOQSO house for two years as well as the LGBTQ+ organization, GLOW!. In 2012, Minnesota became the first state to successfully defeat an anti-gay marriage amendment ballot measure, and I was heavily involved in that campaign at the campus level, running volunteer recruitment efforts on campus where we were the first campus to hit our shift goal for election day. St. Olaf is a school of 3,000 people, and the only campus with more bodies involved in election day organizing was the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, which has ten times as many students. That has more to do with the culture of the school than my personal accomplishment, but it is still something I am proud of. During that year, I also chaired the Minnesota OUT! College Conference at St. Olaf. For my role in the state, I was asked to be the youngest speaker at the United for Our Future Rally put on by OutFront MN the day after the election.

While pursuing a graduate degree in student affairs at Miami University (OH), I continued to volunteer for 15 hours a week with Freedom Indiana, which fought successfully to keep a similar ballot measure to the one we saw in Minnesota off the ballot altogether in Indiana, which is also my home state.

Recently, I have found an activist home in writing. I currently write for OutSports and Feministing, and have found that pushing the boundaries in thought around the intersections of queerness, feminism, and race is where I can cause the most trouble. I love what I’m doing now, and can’t wait to see what additional trouble I can get into!

Connect with Them: Facebook | Twitter

---

Leslie / @nakedinasnowsuit

In Her Own Words: I work in a science-y office job that I like a lot. I read a lot and generally try to be on top of what’s going on in social justice-type news at all times. Oh, and, during election years, I get insane, like when animals all go into heat at once and stampede, except with more crying and links to ontheissues.com.

About Her Activism: In community college, I worked along with my GSA to get the first gender-neutral bathroom for students on campus. At the time I was part of the “S” in GSA, which is a fun story. Later, after we renamed ourselves the LGBTQA, I worked with the rest of my group to get us a LGBT resource center, which was actually only the second one in existence at a community college in California. Oh, and at the dedication for that, I referred to our dean as an honorary lesbian in front of many reporters, which I’m still kind of proud of, because I’ve never seen a grown man blush that hard in a situation that didn’t involve my boobs.

As an adult I’m pretty active in the trans community in my city, but much more active in Black Lives Matter events. It’s tough right now because San Diego can be very complacent. It’s a really unique situation because we’re right there next to Mexico, and most of the violence and bullshit we see is toward Hispanics, and there’s been a real struggle getting megaphones to the voices that need to be heard.

---

Linds / @Linds

In Their Own Words: I am a genderqueer human forever searching for the Ben Wyatt to my Leslie Knope (regardless of gender) and nachos that are as good or better than the ones at the High Horse in Amherst, MA. My two Catholic Republican parents had two queer kids, and my brother is basically my twin 5 years apart. I am way too excited to be a cat parent soon.

About Their Activism: I started getting involved in activism when my very conservative Catholic father said I had to go to a Christian school when he found out I was queer. So I started organizing to get an LGBTQ student organization recognized at Pepperdine University, which was something the faculty and the student body were pretty supportive of but the administration/board of regents were THE WORST. We didn’t even get full recognition after getting 10K signatures on a change.org petition, endorsements from all the grad schools, and 20+ national media hits.

That taught me I loved organizing and also that I had a problem with top-down power structures in general, so I took a job as a campus organizer with Student PIRGs, helping students run non-partisan voter registration drives and environmental campaigns. And then I got super burned out, quit, got an easy administrative day job, discovered the money in politics movement through volunteering with the Represent.Us campaign, and realized how important it was to me that we get big money out of politics. I think our government would be a lot more responsive to/representative of all marginalized groups if corporations/lobbyists weren’t buying influence. I’m now working on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and issues of electoral accountability with People For the American Way.

---

Maggie / @MaggieMagpie

In Her Own Words: I’m Maggie, I’m 29, and I live in Tucson with my wife*, two cats, and a dog. I’m of Mexican and Nicaraguan descent, and I was born and raised in the Southwestern United States, so my Spanish is a strange mishmash of Nicaraguan, Mexican, and border dialects. I work in education, I’m left-handed, and I have a tattoo on my back that says, “A life lived in fear is a life half lived.”

*Our wedding actually isn’t until next May, but we call each other wife because we’re basically married already.

About Her Activism: I volunteer with a Tucson program called Alitas. Our program provides assistance to immigrants who are detained and then released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We provide temporary shelter, food, water, and clothing, and we assist the migrants in obtaining bus tickets for their final destination. So we work closely with both ICE and Greyhound. It feels good being able to welcome these weary migrants to America with a hug, a home-cooked meal, and fresh clean bed.

Most of the migrants we work with are from Mexico and Central America (especially Guatemala). It feels good being able to give something back to my community. My maternal grandmother came to the US from Nicaragua so she could provide a better life for her children. She worked hard and loved us fiercely. She passed away last fall, and I feel that my work is like a tribute to her memory. Each and every one of these individuals has touched my heart with their stories, their love of their families, and their quiet perseverance.

Connect With Her: Twitter

---

Riana / @riana

In Her Own Words: I’m a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a double major in Political Science and Women, Gender & Sexuality studies. I work full-time but also hold two part time jobs at a vintage shop, Flower Child, and a pet store that only sells ridiculously unnecessary items for pets, such as doggie bowties and jackets. In my free time, I hang out with my super nerdy, super cute girlfriend, Grace Ellis; take my cat, Miss Kitty Fantastico, on walks; ghost hunt; watch really bad (and sometimes good!) queer films; browse Etsy for a gross amount of time and a bunch of other stuff like that.

About Her Activism: I’m currently developing a new program with a couple of coworkers at Ohio’s largest LGBTQ non-profit, Stonewall Columbus, called InsideOUT that specifically targets LGBTQ inmates and formerly incarcerated individuals. It’s a multifaceted program that includes support groups inside and outside the walls and will expand (soon) to include re-entry support for the LGBTQ community.

After a few visits, the group shared with us that they sought to build a community inside the walls to protect one another. They were sick of being brutalized for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity and wanted to come together over their shared identities and experiences. They’ve even created their own educational program for allies inside the walls to educate others about respecting pronouns, myths, and how to be a good ally. Aside from the importance of building coalitions and affirming identities, this group is important because it stands as a connection to the outside world: something or someone they can look to after they have served their time. That’s where the reentry support comes in. (We’re working with two formerly incarcerated, lesbian, reentry specialists, Watkins & Taylor.)

This program is basically the first of its kind in the nation and the support we have seen from our groups, the community in the Free World and officials alike is overwhelming. They all express the same sentiment: this program is needed and it is time for something like this to exist. I am looking forward to seeing how much this program will build over the next year, with the implementation of reentry support, expansion of services and a robust penpal program.

Connect with Her: Tumblr | Personal Blog | Instagram

---

Rebel Girls is a column about women’s studies, the feminist movement, and the historical intersections of both of them. It’s kind of like taking a class, but better – because you don’t have to wear pants. To contact your professor privately, email carmen at autostraddle dot com. Ask questions about the lesson in the comments!

Interviews in this post were edited for clarity and length.

You Need Help Helping Your Parents: Cis People Teaching Cis Parents To Be Trans Allies

feature image via Shutterstock

Welcome to You Need Help! Where you’ve got a problem and yo, we solve it. Or we at least try.

---

Q:

Can anyone give me advice for talking to my mother about trans issues? I personally am not trans, so I feel awkward being put in a position to try to speak for a community that I am not part of. My mother is a self-proclaimed liberal, and when it comes to gay rights or women’s rights, she really does walk the talk. She certainly has been very supportive of me in terms of my sexuality my whole life. But anytime transgender issues come up, it turns out she is incredibly closed minded about that particular issue. She’ll say things like, “I just don’t understand transgender people.” To which I just end up responding, “Transgender people don’t owe you an explanation of their lives.”

With Caitlyn Jenner coming out as trans, the conversation has come up again between the two of us. She sent me the “What Makes a Woman?” article by Elinor Burkett in the New York Times with the caption, “this is part of what I have been thinking in regard to Caitlyn Jenner.”

This article is off-base to me. Are there any resources that you all can suggest for me to point my mother to so that I can bring her out of the dark ages with this particular issue?

A:

Never underestimate the power of the New York Times to screw with our liberal families’ ideas about gender, amirite?

Really, though – this is an important question, and I’m glad you asked it! I think so hard about how I, as a cis person, can help my family of cis people be better trans allies. It can be hard, because being allies is about letting go of the desire to want to make it about us, the allies, but it’s still a deeply personal process, because it can mean letting go of ideas that are deeply entwined in how we see the world, and that can feel uncomfortable. Our culture doesn’t endorse discomfort as a positive thing. But in cases of allyship, it really can be.

These conversations with family members are also hard because our relationships with our families are inevitably fraught by one thing or another. When we have discussions about politics, there are guaranteed to be undercurrents that have absolutely nothing to do with the political issues at hand, but that have everything to do with how we navigate the simultaneous tension and softness of familial love. And I think this is true of family no matter what that family looks like or how it was made.

So, I’m going to link some articles at the end of this that help break down why that Times piece is way off base, but first I’m going to more generally address your question of how you, as a cis person, can talk to your mom, another cis person, about trans issues. I’m going to start with an extended metaphor about a road.

Imagine a road. It’s a trans allyship road, moving towards the best form of allyship anyone could ever fucking imagine. (This is a flawed metaphor. There isn’t actually a singular road to allyship, and there are many ways to practice allyship and also a lot of ways to do it wrong, and it’s inevitable that the road is infinite and impossible to reach the end of, but stick with me for a second.) Picture the different places where you and your mother are on this road, imagining you further along on the road from where your mother is. Do you see it?

You’re right that transgender people don’t owe your mother explanations of their lives. It’s important to remind her of this. But I also worry that if that’s your only conversation with her, then all that happens is that you feel self-righteous, and she feels peeved, which shuts off any opportunity for her to learn or grow when it comes to trans issues. That doesn’t make you a better ally or help her become one. When you tell her that trans people don’t owe her any explanations, you’re basically leaving her on the road without a map or a car, crossing your fingers, and hoping she finds you. There are other people who could help her, but she doesn’t know who they are, and she’s not guaranteed to find them. She has to figure it out on her own, and maybe she’ll walk towards you, but it’s also possible she’ll walk backwards or veer off course entirely.

What you need to do is turn yourself around, put a pin in the place where you are, and walk back to go meet her where she’s at. Don’t badger her for not being further along. Figure out where she’s coming from and what is informing her ideas (which you already have at least some idea about). Then try to show her the way — patiently and calmly. I am going to venture a guess that you had to learn about trans issues and trans allyship yourself at one point. I’m guessing you have more to learn. Help her learn what you learned. See what you can learn together. She’s not going to get to the point where you are overnight, but it will be a start.

(To be clear: This is not to say that a trans person trying to explain these same things to a cis person in their life should have to be patient and understanding. Trans people absolutely have the right to be less-than-patient or even angry with cis people who are being ignorant or oppressive about trans issues.)

I’m on this road with my family, too. I’ve had similar experiences with my dad, and we got into it when I interviewed him and my grandmother last year. One thing he said to me was, “It seems like sometimes there are questions that are off-limits [about trans issues], so it makes people uncomfortable because they don’t want to do the wrong thing, because there’s a whole new set of social norms that people aren’t ready for. Sometimes it’s stressful.”

And like, on the one hand, who cares if my dad is stressed out? It’s also stressful, I’m pretty sure, to meet the cis parents of your cis friends. But my dad’s not going to make anything easier for trans people he meets if my reaction is, “Who cares if you’re stressed?” It’s going to be way more helpful for everyone if I can meet my dad where he’s at and bring him further along, and if you can meet your mom where she’s at and bring her further along. That’s how they become better equipped to be allies. It will potentially be messy; it will potentially be very hard. But remember that the point is to help your mother get on the same page; not to attack her for her ideas, or to take her down to demonstrate how great of an ally you are. I encourage you to do the work.

There are already several responses to that Burkett piece in the New York Times. I’ll direct you towards some responses, including what Mey had to say in her piece about what we here at Autostraddle are going to say about Caitlyn Jenner. Mari’s piece, Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were “Born Boys” is a great resource because it explains what the media gets wrong in telling trans women’s stories, but it’s especially great because it explains why it’s wrong and also why they continue to do it wrong, which makes it harder for anyone to make excuses for Burkett. I also like this piece by Katie McDonough on Salon, because it dismantles Burkett’s piece just for making an argument badly, and sometimes when you’re dealing with family members more in line with the second wave, it can be super effective to discredit someone on their rhetoric before you break down their messed up trans politics.

You can do a few different things with these pieces. One thing that might be enough is for you to read them, so you can get ideas for how to articulate why Burkett’s argument doesn’t hold. You also might send some of these back to your mom.

But sending your mom articles is not as simple as it might seem. I do think it’s a good idea. It helps her learn in her own space, without her feeling like you’re breathing over her shoulder, waiting for it to click. It also gives you the opportunity to send her work from trans people, which is a way for her to learn and hear from trans people without making a trans person feel like they owe your mother an explanation of their life. BUT at the same time, if you do send your mom articles, I really recommend you also accompany it with some personal commentary. I’ve talked about trans issues at length with my family, but sending reading assignments without context tends to be one of the less effective ways of bringing them in the loop. One of the reasons why the Burkett piece has gone viral is because it has a very personal tie-in. Meet your mother at that level. Tell her why it’s important to you that she let go of whatever hangup she has about trans-ness. You might not identify as trans, but this is still about your community, your friends, and maybe even your future partners.

A few months ago, when the Times was talking a lot about “they” pronouns, I got into it with my grandfather, a retired English teacher and Times devotee. He framed the discussion as an intellectual debate about grammatical rules and semantics.

Thankfully, this happened via email, so I was able to gather my thoughts to respond, and ultimately what I told him is that I don’t see this as up for debate. I wrote, “I am trying to share knowledge with you about something that affects the very survival of members of my community, including friends I love deeply, former partners, and possibly future friends or partners, who you will almost certainly meet. In fact, you already have.” Can you try a similar approach with your mother? This DOES NOT mean outing your trans friends to her or otherwise tokenizing trans people in your life. What it DOES mean is thinking about how can you show her that her trying to understand trans experience is about fostering a safe and supportive world for people you love.

I know you can bring your mother further along the metaphorical road to trans allyship. It will take time. It will take a lot of patience. It will be worth it.

---

Send your questions to youneedhelp [at] autostraddle [dot] com or submit a question via the ASK link on autostraddle.tumblr.com. Please keep your questions to around, at most, 100 words. Due to the high volume of questions and feelings, not every question or feeling will be answered or published on Autostraddle. We hope you know that we love you regardless.

Girl Scouts Turn Down $100,000 To Stand With Trans Girls, Make Us Cry

Feature image via Forbes

Every organization in the U.S. should be watching Girl Scouts of the USA to learn what it means to practice allyship and stand by LGBT inclusive values. The Girl Scouts of Western Washington received a $100,000 donation earmarked specifically to exclude trans girls — so leaders of the regional council sent the money back to to the donor, who has not been identified. Now they are looking to replace the funds, which are enough to send 500 girls to camp.  You can donate to their IndieGoGo right now.

”Girl Scouts is for every girl,” said council CEO Megan Ferland. ”And every girl should have the opportunity to be a Girl Scout if she wants to.”

The Girl Scouts’ inclusion of trans girls first got media attention in 2011 when a Denver troop originally rejected a trans girl who wanted to join. That troop’s leaders were unfamiliar with the scouting policies, according to reports at the time. Since then, Girl Scouts has been loud and clear about including trans scouts. The policy states:

Girl Scouts is proud to be the premiere leadership organization for girls in the country. Placement of transgender youth is handled on a case-by-case basis, with the welfare and best interests of the child and the members of the troop/group in question a top priority. That said, if the child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe.

The organization allows trans girls to participate in camps and urges local camps and councils to make any necessary accommodations.  Its policies for staffing and volunteers are also inclusive. Many organizations with inclusive policies would think twice about turning down 100 grand, so this move demonstrates just how seriously the Girl Scouts takes its mission.

The Scouts history of inclusion goes back to its founding more than a century ago. At a time when segregation was in full force, my number one hero Juliette Gordon Lowe established a scouting organization that was deliberately inclusive of African American, Hispanic and Native American girls, as well as girls who were poor, lived in rural areas and were from immigrant families. Today, according to their website, “Girl Scouts reaches girls in urban, rural, low-income and public housing communities, and girls whose mothers are in prison or who are themselves living in correctional facilities, homeless shelters, foster care and domestic violence shelters. We have a long history of adapting activities to girls who have disabilities, special needs, and chronic illnesses.”

The scouts also include girls of all faiths and atheists, in stark contrast to the Boy Scouts. Contributing Editor Maddie says that one of her strongest memories of her experience in scouting was when her troop leader said she absolutely didn’t have to say the part in the Girl Scout promise about serving God.

“That was not my typical experience in other social settings,” Maddie said. But in her troop, “it was such a non issue it didn’t even occur to me at the time that it was kind of a big deal.”

Essentially, since its founding the Girl Scouts have been deliberately inclusive of girls who were excluded from so many other areas of life. I definitely experienced this in my 13 years as a scout in Texas. At Girl Scout camp I met girls from backgrounds much more diverse than I saw at school or church, my other main social outlets, and looking back I’m pretty sure most of the camp leaders were cool old dykes. The clearest message I got from being a Girl Scout was that being a girl could mean anything that felt true to me.

The Girl Scouts’ dedication to LGBT inclusivity, its work to expose girls to fields like technology and engineering and its efforts to reach marginalized girls make it a powerful force for girls and young women around the U.S. Today, their strong stance in support of trans girls sends a powerful message and promotes inclusive girlhood in a society whose conception of “girl” can feel very narrow. The Girl Scouts of Western Washington put it best on their IndieGoGo, which reached its goal in about 24 hours:

Our vision at Girl Scouts of Western Washington is that EVERY girl in our region — regardless of her race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity or geographic location — is empowered to unleash her potential, build her future and transform her world.

Immigrant Trans Women Can Now Be Detained in Women’s Facilities, But the Fight Isn’t Over Yet

This past week there have been two stories that have dominated the LGBTQ newsfeeds — the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage and the shushing and attempted silencing of trans Latina activist Jennicet Gutiérrez as she called out President Obama for the absolutely horrifying treatment of trans immigrants in US detention centers. While we all celebrated the marriage victory, and rightfully so, many people, including people who are members of the LGBTQ community or allies, were also trying to shame Gutiérrez and push the extremely important issue that she brought up to the back of the room. The story won’t go away, however, and now there’s a new development. US Immigration officials released a memo detailing their plans to improve their placement and treatment of trans immigrants in their detention centers.

Although she was initially painted as just another heckler, shouting angrily at the president, Gutiérrez was trying to bring attention to a deadly-serious issue that affects many trans women of color, but doesn’t get anywhere near the media attention that other issues like same-sex marriage, so-called bathroom bills or even trans-women-exclusionary musical festivals get. Last Wednesday, Gutiérrez, a founding member of the LGBTQ Latin@ rights organization FAMILIA: TQLM shouted, “President Obama, release all LGBTQ immigrants from detention” and “I’m a trans woman, I am tired of the violence we’re facing” as the rest of the crowd at the White House LGBT reception boo’d her and cheered when the president said “Not in my house” and Gutiérrez was taken out of the building.

On Monday, less than a week after the “heckling,” US Immigration officials announced that trans detainees will now be able to be housed in detention facilities that match their gender identity. This should go without saying, but detaining trans women with men is never a good idea. According to a recent investigation by Fusion, ICE detains about 75 trans immigrants each night, with 90% of those immigrants being trans women. They also found that transgender immigrants make up only about one out of every 500 ICE detainees, but account for one out of five sexual abuse cases while in detention.

While this announcement sounds like it’s solving a huge problem, there are still many issues. ICE detention centers aren’t safe for many reasons that these new recommendations don’t address. Several groups advocating for the rights of trans immigrants, including Familia: TQLM, Transgender Law Center, GetEQUAL and Southerners On New Ground (all organizations you can check out to find out more about how you can help trans and other LGBTQ detainees) released a statement with the #Not1More campaign about this announcement, saying that no one should expect this announcement to solve the problems of trans detainees.

A guidance document cannot be expected to change the fact that DHS and ICE have consistently failed at maintaining a minimum of safety and dignity for transgender immigrants. Transgender immigrants and other vulnerable populations, including mothers with their children and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) detainees, should be released from detention.

They continued to talk about US Immigration’s spotty history of actually following through on these kind of policy changes, saying that their “experience with guidance documents such as these is that their implementation is inconsistent and with little oversight or accountability.” The #Not1More campaign also has concerns that inhumane practices including “administrative segregation, ‘protective custody,’ and isolated pods” are still allowed and will continue to be used, leading to more abuse of detainees. Additionally, Isa Noyola at the Transgender Law Center told me that “ICE already has many policies in place that should already create ‘safe’ conditions inside detention centers like PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) that they have a difficult time implementing and enforcing” and that she sees “this announcement as minimal.”

“The amount of harm they have inflicted on our communities greatly outweighs these recs,” Noyola said. “TLC and many other LGBT immigrant rights organizations are continuing to push the demands of #Not1More deportation and for our LGBTQ immigrants to be released from detention and solitary confinement.”

Noyola says that there’s still a lot of work to be done. “On the ground immigrant rights organizers and the transgender community are building together and connecting the threads of our struggle with many unifying points. We have many more battles to win.”

Should You Watch Sense8? The Answer’s About as Clear as This Show’s Plot

For a while I avoided watching Sense8. It’s a show created by a trans woman and her brother and another guy; it features a really diverse cast of mostly people of color; and it even has a lesbian couple made up of a trans woman and a black cis woman (Jamie Clayton and Freema Agyeman). It should’ve had me hook, line and sinker. But that trans woman who created it and wrote it, Lana Wachowski, comes with a lot of baggage, and by baggage, I mean “racist behaviors and actions.”

Before we talk about the actual show, I do want to spend some time talking about why I was initially reluctant to watch it. Like I said, Lana Wachowski (and her brother) have done some pretty racist things in the past. First, when they made their epic sci-fi film Cloud Atlas, where each actor plays multiple roles throughout time and space, they made the shockingly racist decision to use makeup to put actors Jim Sturgess and Hugo Weaving in yellowface. Seriously, it’s painful to look at pictures of the makeup from this movie. I don’t know how they thought it was okay.

Then, at this year’s Trans 100 event, Lana was the keynote speaker. Her speech started on a rocky foot when she talked about how, when filming this very show, she was in India and people stared at her hair (which is a brightly-colored version of dread locks). Trans POC attending the event started to get uncomfortable at this point. It got even worse when Wachowski tried to equate gender and race, and then started to seemingly blame Black Americans for holding back the rights of trans people. This pattern of actions made me reluctant to get too excited for this show.

So, if you know about those things and decide to not watch Sense8, I’m not gonna blame you. If you did watch it and want to talk about it, Aja, Gabby and I had an awful lot of feelings that we want to share with you.

There Will Be Lots of Spoilers

---

Things We Liked

Mey

So, Sense8 is basically a show about eight strangers — a white cop from Chicago named Will, a white lesbian trans woman/former hacker from San Francisco named Nomi, a Korean martial artist and daughter of a super powerful businessman named Sun, a Kenyan bus driver named Capheus, an Indian pharmacist and bride-to-be named Kala, a German safecracker named Wolfgang, an Icelandic DJ named Riley and a Mexican actor named Lito — who all start to develop a psychic connection. They start to get hunted down by this mysterious guy named Whispers who seems to have lots of money and lots of international power and who really doesn’t like the Sensates (that’s what they’re called). I think that was the plot.

It was nice seeing such a diverse cast. Like, it wasn’t just one character of each race or ethnicity, they each had supporting casts around them. I especially loved Lito’s supporting cast and definitely Nomi’s. I even spotted trans actor D-Lo, an activist and writer who played a friend of Nomi’s who helped them escape.

Honestly, there are some good, and even great moments. Right away we see Nomi and Amanita having sex, I don’t think I have to tell you how revolutionary it is to show an interracial lesbian couple, where one of the women is trans, fucking on a mainstream TV show. A couple other early scenes with Nomi are pretty powerful as well. When Amanita defends her at Pride in the flashback scene and when she gives her own speech about her feelings about Pride, I was genuinely moved.

Gabby

The love thing between Nomi and Amanita hooked me right away. Like it’s already been stated above how revolutionary it is to see their love on screen, but let’s add to that for a minute. I hear so many lesbians, not in my Autostraddle groups, but like just out in the world, talking about how they’d never be able to date or love a trans woman. They talk about trans women with the same disregard and hatefulness that has generally been reserved for bisexual women. All of it is gross. And this opening sex scene between Nomi and Amanita was like a huge beautiful fuck you to all those hate-filled feelings and ideas about bodies and who’s allowed to be a lesbian and who’s allowed to be a woman, you know? And they love each other. It wasn’t just some curious, fetish-baiting fuck session. They love each other and I believe them. So I kept watching and you should start.

Mey

Another highlight was watching Sun kick some serious ass, and just be really awesome in general. I did like the show most of the time when she was on screen. I was already a big fan of Doona Bae, the actress who played her, from the awesome Korean Monster Movie The Host, so it was fun watching her be the most kickass character on this show.

Aja

Sun was one of the most perfect depictions of a tough, feminine fighter I think I’ve ever seen. Her performance refuses to even acknowledge the existence of a “fighting fuck toy” trope — she’s too incredibly intelligent, beautiful and lethal, and while I’d have loved for the show to do more than hint at her complexity, there’s no question it exists. On a material note, Sun’s baller shower is baller. I want her Seoul apartment.

Gabby

Also, can we give a shout to Capheus. He’s driving a van around Nairobi to stack up funds for his mom’s HIV meds. He’s got the best damn smile. Also, his van is called the Van Damme, as in Jean-Claude Van Damme, who sucks as a person but made the most amazing/ridiculous action movies in the ’90s. Capheus’ accidental rise to a super hero in his village is one of the best moments in this series. Like he’s such a dreamboat, I’d marry him and help him drive his Van Damme Van.

AND Lito’s telenovela action save-the-girl scene was my favorite. I know, I know. It’s against my feminism to like anything about this scene but it was still so fun. I’d watch his telenovela about being a gay action hero with a sexy nerd boyfriend and a live-in beard. I like when bad guys get their asses kicked, y’all.

Mey

I also kinda loved Daniela, even though I know her character and storyline is full of problems. She was pretty much the only part of the show that made me laugh, and the only character I really cared about. She was just so fun and weird and seemed like she would be cool to hang out with, even if she would fetishizie me. Lito and his boyfriend were pretty cool too. Maybe we should’ve just watched a telenovela instead of watching this?

Aja

Dani is a total babe, and she came in swinging hilariously and hot, with no regard for anything beyond her own immediate desires, and then they turned her character into a punching bag with the word martyr scrawled across it in Sharpie. Hernando is a dreamboat. He’s just a dreamy gay dude with healthy boundaries and positive attributes, like making homemade ceviche and having a conscience and digging cool art. He made me want to go to Mexico City and be his friend, and then they turned his character into one of these things: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. While I’ll never not love Lito’s bizarre pre-filming tics like going POP! POP! POP! or grinding sharp-cornered movie trailer cabinetry (which looks…painful), Dani and Hernando were highly enjoyable characters who didn’t need him, despite the show desperately trying to convince us otherwise.

Riley’s dad, Gunnar, was a lovely character. You can tell he’s an IRL musician, but in a good way. (I didn’t know but had a feeling after watching; then, looked it up).

Gabby

Sense8 is just so damn cool to watch. I’m not a sci-fi geek like Star Trek and Star Wars. I’m a sci-fi geek like The 5th Element and District 9 so Sense 8 hits me where I like to be hit, ya know? It’s trippy. These characters are shifting into each other’s dimensions and lives. There’s a huge mystery surrounding what’s happening to them and who they are; I like that stuff. Keeps me interested. It’s like Orphan Black but with a diverse cast, more sex, and a bigger budget.

Mey

I say that I love sci-fi, but I think it’s really more that I love sci-fi movies, comic books and books. I like the CW’s The Flash and iZombie shows, and I loved Agent Carter, but other than that I’m not sure if I’ve ever really gotten into a sci-fi TV show? So I think that was something I struggled with. Like, there were moments that I liked, and some parts where I was into it, but also lots of times when I just struggled to pay attention. I think I would have liked it better as a movie or trilogy of movies.

Also, did you catch Geena Rocero in the opening credits?

Aja

I’d feel okay saying that I’m a sci-fi lite kind of gal when it comes to television; I like The Walking Dead and Twin Peaks, and I definitely enjoyed Lost, but I can’t get into a thing like Heroes, True Blood, or Doctor Who. Aside from more or less renaming telepathy linking an international ensemble cast by birth date, I can’t say Sense8 had any real compelling point (let alone something original to say in that genre), but what they did incredibly well was make it easy for the audience to bounce around with the Sensates in a believable way. That can’t have been easy. The most incongruous aspect of the show wasn’t being jarred by our characters switching up time zones and languages, it was the story lines they’d been given to work with, which brings us to…

---

Things We Didn’t Like

Mey

Let’s see which stereotypical characters we can check off: Korean martial artist? Check. Kenyan woman with AIDS? Check. Mexican drug lord (that’s what Dani was implying her father is, right?)? Check. Indian woman in an arranged marriage? Check. (Aja: Manic pixie dream girl with substance abuse issues? Check. White savior cop? Check.) Just having a diverse cast isn’t enough, you need to have well-thought out and well-written characters. The stereotypical nature of all these characters almost cancels out their diversity.

I also felt like some of the scenes with Nomi were a little cheap. Of course I’m going to cry when her mom keeps on calling her by her birth name, but that doesn’t mean you earned those tears. Watching those scenes reminded me of watching Glee’s episode “Rumour Has It” and crying for twenty minutes when Finn outs Santana. I was angry that a show like this made me cry so much.

I had a really hard time getting invested in most of these characters. I think a lot of that was because of the script, which I felt was stereotypical, generic and had weak dialogue. I even found it hard to get invested in Nomi and Amanita, and that’s a lesbian trans woman and a black lesbian played by Freema Agyemon, my favorite Doctor Who actor!

Aja

I’m always going to be unreasonably hard on San Francisco-based characters, and I wanted to be impressed with this couple for obvious reasons but it was hard to wipe the WTF?! off my face after their amazing hospital escape scene. Also their loft situation felt more Oakland than SF to me, and Riese thought it’d cost at least $5K/mo. – I’m gonna bet it’s worth almost double that! With hacktivist bank like that, they could’ve at least used their superpowers to keep the Lex open.

Mey

I felt like the violence was weirdly gratuitously graphic? Like, there wasn’t enough enough of it to make it expected, but when it was graphic, it was really graphic. That bothered me. I really didn’t go into this show expecting to see arms get chopped off right on screen, but they went for it. Like, I loved Sun and liked Capheus a lot, but that scene where he was fighting those people with the machete really was too much for me.

Aja

Yes. This. I’m so turned off by: heist violence, macho violence, save-the-girl violence, drug violence, gang violence, and especially combinations of three or more of those things and THEY HAPPEN CONSTANTLY IN SENSE8.

Mey

Also I think if you’re not into the Wachowski’s style of philosophy-heavy and transhumanist filmmaking, you’re not going to like this. This reminded me a lot of Jupiter Ascending (which I did kind of love) and The Matrix trilogy in that it was about people who think they’re normal humans but are really so much more and meant for so much more and it’s all about the greater connectivity of humanity and the universe and all that. In the end, watching this show was sort of like listening to one of those dudes who gets a philosophy degree and then just tries to tell you all their “radical, mind-blowing ideas” at a party.

Aja

That’s the perfect way to describe it. Like that dude, or the kind of dude whose main beef with Mad Max: Fury Road is that “they never eat.” Your brain has to turn off because it’s just met a person who loves the sound of their own voice far more than they love authentic, shared human interaction. It does feel a bit like someone sat around thinking, “How cool would it be if I could have multinational telepathic group sex with all my closest friends and we’d never have to talk about our daddy issues (seriously over half the characters have daddy issues) because we just read each others’ minds,” and then they make the mind-being-blown sound out loud like in a cell phone commercial. I’m cool, and would actually rather have gone to see Mad Max: Fury Road five more times for a grand total of nine viewings than have sat through Sense8.

Gabby

The white savior stuff gets a little out of control. But there’s not much I didn’t like. I’m in agreement with most of what everyone has said so far.

---

Things We Sorta Liked/Sorta Didn’t Like

Mey

There was way more crowning than I was prepared for, but maybe that’s radical for a TV show?

Aja

That was such a genuinely lovely sequence, but I don’t know that it needed all that crowning. I’m good with crowning scenes through 2025 now. These things were more baffling than positive or negative: The singalong in episode four. WHAT IN THE WORLD. (I really hope there’s a screengrab for this!). That the sensate orgy is my wife’s Achilles heel for cheating, apparently. “Maybe because they’re still where they are it’s not that big a deal.” Huh.

Mey

I was not feeling that orgy. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like if I was having sex with my girlfriend and all of the sudden I was having sex with four men, I would freak out, not get more into it. But then again, that’s never happened to me, so maybe I don’t know how I would react.

Gabby

The orgy was bomb. The fight scenes are bomb. I think we need to watch this show as a group so I can pull you all into my lovefest.

---

Overall, even if Aja and I didn’t exactly love it and just wanted to start watching the new season of Orange is the New Black, all three of us agree that this does signal some good things for the future of TV when it comes to representation. So, what did you like, what did you hate, what did you sort of like and how did you feel about that orgy?

Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding a Relationship With My Dad

feature image via shutterstock

---

If you’d told 17-year-old-me that in 2015, I’d be standing in Target, picking out a Father’s Day card or crying while dancing with my Dad at my wedding, I would’ve laughed in your face. Yet that’s precisely where I found myself this afternoon: staring at the remainders of a plundered Hallmark rack, seeking something that wasn’t too saccharine or too silly or dismissive. And just a few weeks ago, on my wedding day, I danced with my father and both of us sobbed ugly tears. I laughed out loud in the store thinking about the absurdity of it all, given my life’s history, earning a side-eye from a nearby shopper.

You could — if you’re into grossly minimizing euphemisms — refer to my childhood and adolescence as “tumultuous.” I still find it difficult to talk about even with my closest friends, let alone publicly. In short: I was pretty severely physically and emotionally abused by my father from literally as early as I can remember until I hit legal adulthood. My mom feared him too, but feared being on her own more, so she scared me into silence with horror stories about what would happen to me if I ended up in foster care. I hid bruises, learned to disassociate when the violence came, and lived in constant anxiety, never knowing what’d set off the next attack. It escalated when I became a teenager, and I spent most of my senior year of high school fearing for my life. That’s not an exaggeration.

Why did I endure what I did? My Dad is hot-headed, aggressive, and very much “a man’s man.” He’s into sports, the outdoors, cars, all things mechanical and all things “guy culture.” I was quiet and emotional, a nerdy bookworm who was absolutely terrible at pretending to be a boy. We only managed real conversations when hockey games were on (the only sport I’ve ever mustered the enthusiasm to care about). My parents were young when they married and had kids, were still almost kids themselves when I was. My autism wasn’t diagnosed ’til I was 27, so back then I was just “difficult.” My parents were entirely unequipped for the little ball of feminine weirdness they’d produced as their first offspring.

I moved out shortly after turning 18 and have been functionally taking care of my own damn self ever since. Over the last decade plus, I’ve drifted further and further away from the bulk of my blood relatives.

Putting 30+ miles between us and only seeing him in small, controlled doses has become a catalyst for a thawing of the bad blood between us. I went through tons of therapy to process and move on from what I’d lived through and finally, at 19, I was in a place to confront my Dad about what he’d put me through.

It happened on a summer afternoon, and without much warning: I simply unloaded on him. I let loose a lifetime of pain, anger and resentment. I let him know what damage he’d done — the panic attacks and dissociative responses I have at raised voices, the intense struggles with any form of self-esteem, and my years of chronic depression — and made it clear that I could easily and happily never speak to him again.

I’d expected him to chase me out of the house and we’d never speak again. But instead, something happened that I’d only witnessed one other time in my life — I saw my Dad cry. Not just well up, but weep with shame and hurt. He hadn’t interrupted me or denied what happened. He just cried. He just apologized. Over and over and over. I was surprised, but it didn’t undo 15 years of relentless abuse. I told him it was on him now. It was his job to demonstrate that he could actually be a parent, and prove to me that he deserved me in his life.

Shockingly, he did try. Not always well, but he made the best efforts he could — fixing my car when it broke down, enlisting his buddies to help me move — anything “manly” that he could offer. It wasn’t a magic salve, but I was impressed he was even making an effort. Over the next few years, we began building a functioning relationship. I did my best to forgive him for the past. Still, we never really “related” to each other, and I’ve certainly never sought out his company alone.

Coming out to my parents as trans was perhaps the most terrifying part of my whole transition. I hadn’t heard many stories from trans friends about that particular conversation going well. I even brought my brother with me in case things got out of hand. How would my Dad handle the news that his oldest son and namesake was really a girl? I had a 4,500 word speech neatly typed and folded in my back pocket. I cleared my throat: “Mom, Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”

I cried while reading the speech, focusing on the page in front of me instead of their faces. When I was done, I set the pages down and looked at him — all six feet two inches and three hundred pounds of father — and saw that he, too, was crying. He had a kleenex in his hand. He wanted to hand it to me.

My Mom had a lot of questions, typical ones, but my Dad was silent. He didn’t have any questions, just a statement: “I’m so sorry that you had to hurt for so long.”

From that moment forward, my Dad never once used the wrong pronouns or my dead name. He never questioned why I was trans, never expressed frustration or resentment about my transition, and never criticized how I looked. He’s never failed to refer to me as a daughter, granddaughter, niece, or sister, and he unflinchingly talks about his daughter to friends who were absolutely aware that until relatively recently, he thought he had two sons. When I had to suddenly and awkwardly come out to my mother’s family when my grandmother passed away this fall, he refused to make apologies for me, and resolutely informed anyone who asked that the only thing he cared about was that I was happy. He’s never given the slightest indication that he’s uncomfortable with how I look, or that he’s at all embarrassed to be seen in public with me. When he sees me, he kisses me on the forehead to say hello, and uses diminutives like “sweetheart.” He calls me once a week to check in on me when he knows my mother and I aren’t speaking (which is frequently).

A few months after I came out, I went to a Red Wings game with him — the first time I’d talked to him without my mom being present since I came out. Mom had — behind my back — tried to blame him for the fact that I’m trans, a notion I’d thoroughly dismissed in my coming-out speech. I mean, it was a long speech for a reason! I had a lot of bases to cover.

As we drove to the game, I reassured him that it wasn’t him that made me trans. He just patted my head and said, “I know.” I raised an eyebrow. He added, “you’re the smartest person I know. If you tell me that this is how it is, I have no reason not to believe you.” And with that, there was never a need to ever discuss the subject again.

Over the next few months, I found myself finding excuses to see Dad without my mother around, as she still was (and still is) uncomfortable with the situation, which tends to trigger my anxiety. I had dinner with him while Mom was out of town, perhaps only the third or fourth time time I’d gone out to eat with just my dad as an adult. It was astonishing to see a completely new side of him. He seemed to feel more comfortable with me than ever before. We were just any other father/daughter pair out for a meal, and if you didn’t know any better, you might have thought I had grown up a Daddy’s Girl. We had actual adult conversations, and I told him about my then still-developing relationship with the woman who is now my wife. He told me he was proud of me. He told that I’m brave.

In the 18 months or so since that dinner, my dad continues to be so much better than I ever thought possible. I went to see him while my mom was out of town a few months back, and we chatted about the work I’m doing as a writer and activist. He told me that he doesn’t read my stuff because he doesn’t really understand how to Internet, but that it “seemed like I was doing important things” and he likes being able to tell people his daughter is “an important writer.” I told him about the social justice work activism I do, and he actually listened and engaged on the issues in way that demonstrated some nuanced understanding of those situations. Meanwhile, that same conversation with my mother over Christmas lead to me walking laps around a freeway rest-stop to keep from screaming. Whether it was having an activist daughter or the “herbal medicine” my brother had started giving him, I don’t know. But, whatever the cause, it’s a damn unprecedented change for a fairly conservative ex-military working class man like my dad.

When my partner and I announced our wedding back on Christmas Day, it was my dad who hugged me first with tears in his eyes. When my partner and I discussed what wedding traditions we actually wanted to keep, one of the few I found myself attached to was dancing with my dad, but I was a bit concerned he might feel weird about it. I got up the nerve to ask him just a week before my wedding day, and he informed me that nothing would make him happier. When it came time for the dance at the reception a few weeks ago, Dad already had tears in his eyes before he made it to the dance floor. (He cried at the ceremony, too.) He hugged me tightly and danced with me. He told me over and over how beautiful I looked, and how happy he was that I found someone to love. He told me how glad he was that he could be there with me on our special day. I just sobbed. It was a moment that was quite literally unimaginable just a few years ago, and it meant more to me than I possibly express.

I’ve spent the last few years reflecting on why exactly my parents reacted in such completely different ways to my coming out and transition, and I’ve come up with a bit of a theory. Both of my parents always wanted a daughter, and never made that much of a secret growing up; my coming out made that wish come true in some ways. But for my mom, she got exactly the wrong kind of daughter: a queer radical feminist who wasn’t interested in having kids and not particularly feminine. My mother and I almost couldn’t have less in common. My dad, on the other hand, got exactly the right kind of daughter for him: a strong, successful woman who still kind of needs him for practical things like house repairs and car-fixing, who can sit down and watch a hockey game with him, and who’s absolutely guaranteed to never bring home a boyfriend. But more than that, I think maybe I just make a lot more sense to him as a girl.

One of the things that trans people are told early on in transition is that we should be prepared to lose everything — our friends, our jobs, and especially our families. When I came out, I didn’t really feel like I had all that much to lose with regards to my family. I still bear the physical and emotional scars from what I endured during childhood and adolescence, and I was fully prepared for old wounds to re-open, and for the tenuous bridges we had built over the years to finally come tumbling down again. I wasn’t prepared to find that the person who had done some of the worst harm to me would turn out to be one my most unflagging supporters, and I still have days where I can scarcely believe how fortunate I am. The rest of the world is often cruel and unwilling to accept me for who I am, but somehow that’s a little bit easier to face when a hug from my dad reminds me that he’s standing behind me.