Category — Fuck HRC

SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: anarchoqueer@gmail.com
AND PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

As Radical Queers, we are in a constant war against the HRC. Our frustrations run much deeper than ENDA or any other single issue. However, I have often found myself unable to substantiate my frustrations when talking with more mainstream “LGBT” folks. So, me and a friend are planning to compile and edit a zine on why we hate the HRC. We are looking for more radical perspectives written in a language that would be accessible to more mainstream “LGBT” folks.

Talking points could/should include, but are not limited to:

Racism, Classism, Assimilation, Militarism/Imperialism, Transphobia, The Prison-Industrial Complex, The Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Immigration as a Queer Issue, Public Sex/Sexuality and Pleasure (and how the HRC tries to hide that as a part of our identities), The culture of respectability, Healthcare.

Or maybe, even more fundamentally, why there are no “separate issues.”

We would also be interested in writings on things people have done, actions that have been taken against the HRC, and why we don’t need the HRC. (We can do this shit ourselves!)

Remember, the intended audience is mainstream “LGBT” folks who aren’t already radical– this is an attempt to radicalize them!– so please make sure submissions are written in a way that will make sense to these folks. (I.e. don’t assume somebody knows what the prison industrial complex is or why we don’t like it.)

PLEASE EMAIL SUBMISSIONS, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS TO: anarchoqueer@gmail.com.

AND PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

Thanks!

Solidarity and Sodomy,
~Saffo

November 17, 2008 (See more @ saffolicious.blogspot.com.)

Hello everyone. My name is Saffo and I am trans. Some of you may know me by my birth name, Fokion. As many of you will already know, to many trans people, changing our names is an important rite of passage. Coming out as trans, choosing a new name and transitioning my identity has been a difficult, beautiful, emotionally exhausting, revitalizing and spiritually empowering process. Some of you who have known me for years have struggled to remember to call me by my new name, and by my new preferred pronoun. I assure you that it’s been even more difficult for me, adjusting to a new name, to a new relationship with the world. But it is so important and I appreciate the many people in my life who have supported me through this struggle, as well as the countless many trans and gender variant people who have struggled and fought so hard before me— many of whom have sacrificed their lives for the chance to name themselves. After all, today is the day of remembrance, so I must remember with a sense of gratitude and humility those who have fought before me and made the ultimate sacrifice.

So what’s in a name? Many of us live out our lives with names that were given to us by our parents, which may or may not have any real meaning or significance. Your name is perhaps the most important, most deeply engrained social marker you will have in your life. It claims to define you— and yet most people did not choose their name, or may not feel that it has any real meaning to them. Coming out as trans has given me a sense of solidarity with people everywhere who have chosen to rename themselves. Similarly, it is through this politics of naming that we are also able to name the forces of violence that oppress us. Transphobia, Heterosexism, Racism, Classism, Imperialism, Ageism, Ableism, Capitalism, Sexual Assault and Violence, the Prison Industrial Complex. The list goes on. Naming the systems of violence that oppress us and those around us is a vital first step in our various struggles for liberation. And so it is through naming both ourselves, our communities, and the forces of violence that oppress us that we are able to fight back. [Read more →]

This just in from Queer Today.com

ACTIVISTS UNITE IN PROTEST OF HRC GALA
Calling on Donors to Stop Giving

Boston - Over 60 LGBTQ activists from throughout New England have signed up to attend the protest of national gay-rights organization Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) annual Gala to be held in Boston on October 25th. The protest, organized by local QueerToday.com activists Trevor Wright and Ethan St. Pierre, is in response to HRC’s lack of support for the Trasngender community and their consistent alignment with conservative candidates like Joe Lieberman, a staunch supporter of McCain for president, and Susan Collins of Maine who supported all of George Bush’s Supreme Court Nominees.

[Read more →]

More standing up to HRC is gonna happen this weekend in Washington DC.  Bash Back! DC will be throwing a little party of their own outside of HRC’s $250 per person National Dinner party. The fun filled event will be held on Saturday October 4 and will remind HRC that there’s more to queer liberation than the right to heteronormative marriage for their rich, white, cisgendered , male donors.  says,  Bash Back! “Just because we are locked out doesn’t mean we wanna party with them in the first place!

The announcement from Bash Back says, “We’ll (hopefully) have some music, but bring noise makers and signs and bubbles and glitter and chalk and of course be as trashily glamorously campy and genderfuckably beautiful as possible.  seeya in the streets!”

Saturday October 4, 2008

Time: 4:45-5:45. 

 Location DC Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon PI NW, Washington D.C

Ethan St. Pierre has articles posted over at QueerToday  about HRC. Well worth reading if you are considering giving any of your hard earned cash to support an organization that in my opinion collaborates with an enemy of our people.  Ethan’s article, “Follow the Money,” reports on HRC and their non-support for the Stonewall Democrats and their $10,000 donation to the Log Cabin Republicans. For that report click here. You can also click over here to another piece, “Where your HRC donations are going.”  

The other piece is from the Petrelis Files of the San Francisco Advocate “HRC gave $10K to Republicans who Care.” Click here.

Michael Petrelis says it quite well, “HRC donors must feel so good knowing the organization they support has provided gay dollars to any GOP organization this election season, and that the recipient group is linked to the Republican efforts to elect John McCain.”

Amen Brother.

While you are over at Queer Today check out the video posting by Mark Snyder, “HRC Endorsed Her, Watch The Attack Ad HRC Doesn’t Want You To See.”

This article is re-posted from our comrades over at www.QueerToday.com. Spokeman for the Human Rights Campaign Brad Luna speaks as the Native peoples use to say with a forked tongue. Mara Keisling of NCTE, National Center for Transgender Equality says it right like it is. QWB continues to say: Beware of HRC Tricksters! See you all in Boston!

At the request of QueerToday please spread this far and wide.

Ethan St. Pierre in a aritcle posted over at QueerToday has this to say—

I arrived home from a five day vacation just in time to play catch up with emails and news items I had missed. I was happy to see that Baywindows had published an article on the Boycott of the New England HRC gala. The article started off reasonable enough: [Read more →]

You gotta check out Ethan St. Pierre’s posting over at QueerToday.com. Ethan’s posting Organized Tragedyputs HRC right where they belong in a pile of their own crap. Ethan takes on HRC’s executive director, Joe Solmonese’s statement about the murder of Angie Azpata which amounts to “Hypocritical Statements” and questions the “heinous inexcusable actions of HRC.” 

Ethan writes and I quote: “The fact is that given the opportunity, HRC has always supported legislation that does not include gender identity. The cost of HRC’s decisions to continue to do so is mounting in loss of jobs, education, the homelessness of our youth, and in a rising death toll. We continue to pay with our lives. What a way to educate Congress.” To read Ethan’s post click here.  Be sure to check out some of the links in the article.

Forwarded to QWB by Vanessa Foster Williams (orig posted by her on Trans Political)

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Donning The Rose-Colored Glasses

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” - Chinese Proverb

The rumors have been flying for some time, and even recently Donna Rose noted on her blog about meeting with Joe Solmonese with HRC. One might think she’s going there to give them a piece of her mind (or another piece as she’s already made public her opinions post-ENDA).

As it turns out, that’s not the case. A friend of mine there locally reported of the upcoming San Francisco HRC Banquet and its accompanying protest from the bay area’s GLBT community in a show of strength. Of course, we recently received a press release of HRC holding up their current Business Council trans person, Diego Sanchez as speaker (fresh from testimony on Capitol Hill.) It wasn’t the press blurb over Diego that really got my attention, but the report that another trans person was working hard to be the trans keynote there: Donna Rose. Per the note, she was trying to be “the bridge between the two parties” by addressing the banquet. [Read more →]

Boston - QueerToday.com activists and allies will protest the annual Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Dinner at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston on October 25 at 5pm.

The group is working to build a coalition of trans and queer activists, anti-war activists, and women’s rights activists to protest HRC’s lack of grassroots coalition building, support for pro-war and anti-choice candidates, and support of a non-inclusive version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA).

“It’s time to show HRC what real solidarity looks like,” said [Read more →]

Click on over to QueerToday.com to view Castro in the Streets Video–HRC Protest Left Out Party. This video is on view now by clicking here.  MANY THANKS to QueerToday for this.

Forwarded from the Boycott HRC blog by our brother in the movement, Ethan!

In an article written on July 27 By Lisa Leff, Associated Press:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pulled out as keynote speaker for a gay rights group’s fundraising event scheduled for Saturday night following intense lobbying from transgender activists angry over the group’s stand on a federal gay rights bill.

Inside the Picket Line at HRC fund raiser.

Villaraigosa was scheduled to headline the Human Rights Campaign dinner scheduled for Saturday night in San Francisco. San Francisco city officials and many prominent gay rights leaders already had agreed not to attend the event, which has been billed as a fundraiser to help defeat a November ballot measure that would again ban same-sex marriage in California.

[Read more →]

Check out the posting today on www.QueerToday.com. This posting is of local coverage of the planned protest this evening at the HRC dinner in San Francisco and is posted by Ethan St. Pierre. Sending our radical selves and love to all who stand up and out against HRC and for justice now this evening.

Click here for the video.  

Check out the update. San Francisco Labor calls for a boycott of the HRC event. As QWB has sung for a  long time, Solidarity Forever!!

  If Queers Without Borders could fly off to San Francisco we would be there for the protest against HRC’s annual dinner. We will be there in spirit, in solidarity sending out our good vibs for justice and freedom for all. We will be in the street with the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, And Castro 4 All, SF Labor Council, Pride at Work at what these groups are calling the “Left OUT Party.” I found this information on Kelli Busey’s site  (see link for planetransgender on our side bar) and she had a link to an article from San Francisco’s Alternative Online News. The article by Tommi Avicolli-Mecca can be found here. There are many fine articles stating QWB’s position on HRC. To sum it up in a nut shell, Fuck HRC!!!

 Click on over to our friends at the Bilerico Project and read all about what are sisters in the Trans community are doing as they get ready for the sleaze balls HRC to come to town. See Monica Roberts report here. A big thank you to Monica for this report. Now anyone who wondered just where this HRC was at will know. Just think calling the police on one’s own people. This mainstream crap just can’t be trusted. If the shit was hitting the fan these folks would turn any of us in just as fast as saying Jack Sprat.  This is just another case of these mainstreamers calling the police on our people. Remember the bashing our comrades in Gay Shame SF got outside of the G&L center.  SHAME ON THESE FOLKS! Read the posting about Bash Back in Chicago and the out of sight comment that was posted. Instead of lending a helping hand to our people they try to shut us down. STOP THEM IN THEIR TRACKS!

Thanks 100 times to the folks out in Houston for coming out and standing up to these creeps. Queers Without Borders stand with our people in Houston and send all good vibes and our RAH, RAH’s to this action. By our actions all over this country let it be known that we do not support HRC and they are not our leaders. This blog has spoken out against HRC since we first began to post and will continue to do so until they go the way of the dinosaur. Our fingers are crossed that more and more people will learn a lesson from this and not repeat the mistake called HRC.