Category — HRC Watch

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

Queers Without Borders will be attending the demonstration in Boston Mass. on October 25, 2008 against HRC’ gala fundraiser. QWB has long spoken out and stood up against HRC and their disregard for our trans sisters and brothers, their support of multinational corporations whose profits come from sweatshop labor, their support of the war monger Joe Lieberman and anti-choice public officials. HRC is not the legitimate heir of those who fought the good fight, or the friend of those who fight now for freedom, justice, peace and liberation. [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!!!

“I understand and I hear every day that some members of our community are feeling forgotten or left behind. It is easy to understand why,” Solmonese told a crowd approaching 1,000 in the ballroom of the Hilton on February 23. But he also said, “We have to overlook our differences and we have got to see instead of our individual wants and immediate desires… a vision for the America that we all want to live in.”

WHAT!!!!!!!! YOU SAY JOE SOLMONESE OF HRC????????

QWB SAYS YOU ARE A BIG BULL SHITER!

ALL THE WAY WITH RHA!!!!!!!!

“On Saturday evening February 23rd, noise reverberated throughout the enclosed entrance to the midtown Hilton Hotel as approximately 50 motley LGBT demonstrators hoisted three-foot tall pink cardboard middle fingers, drummed and chanted to protest a fundraiser for the Human Rights Campign, a nation gay rights group.”

“With Funding from corporations that use sweatshop labor, exacerbate global warming and repress unions and indigenous activists, HRC has more to answer for than just ENDA,” says Tim a member of RHA who helped to coordinate the demonstration.

Check out RHA’s web site at: www.radicalhomosexualagenda.org

CALL TO ACTION

Tell HRC that Trans Rights=Queer  

Rights!

Join the RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA and PROTEST the Human Rights Campaign’s betrayal of the Trans community at HRC’s annual gala fundraiser.

When : Saturday, Feb. 23 at 5:30pm
Where: Outside the Hilton Ballroom
6th Ave & 53rd Street.
Bring: Attitude! Drums! Flamboyant threads!

                             
 Why protest HRC?Instead of supporting a united queer community, HRC dumped transgender people from ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, but not gender identity. HRC executive director Joe Solmonese said, “We absolutely do not support and, in fact, oppose legislation that is not absolutely inclusive.” But behind the scenes, he worked to eliminate trans protections.ENDA passed in the House and went on to fail in the Senate. Yet HRC continues to hail the bill as a “victory.” But the real victory is that so many LGBTQ groups are rallying together to oppose HRC by telling them they can’t turn some of us into second-class citizens so others can get ahead. The real victory is that, from Stonewall to Seattle, trans folks have constantly battled on the frontlines for a better world, and now a clear majority of the queer community is standing in solidarity them.

[Read more →]

The following is from our Queer friends at RHA (including the HRC is #1 pic)!

Hey RHAers

NY BLADE ArticleGay

City News Piece

Our big pink middle fingers are in both photos. We spiked the demo with our visuals, including a banner which read “Can’t spell LGBT with HRC! Trans Power Now!” [Read more →]

by Nadine Smith

I thought I should forward this letter on. Many of you may have already received it. If not, perhaps it is on its way.

To: The Gay Community
From: The Coalition
Re: Your Status

It pains me to write this letter but now I know that to do otherwise would be a failure of leadership. For years we have fought together in a coalition effort to end discrimination in its many and varied forms. We have stood shoulder- to -shoulder, linking arms in dangerous times. [Read more →]

Tuesday, November 20 is the National Transgender Day of Remembrance that honors victims of anti-trans hate crimes. This year it also happens to be the day that friends of the Human Rights Campaign are planning a networking event at the historic Stonewall Bar in the West Village. That confluence of dates has prompted Jon Winkleman, a longtime Democratic activist who is on the board of directors of the National Stonewall Democrats, to call for a protest at the bar against HRC [Read more →]

Each year HRC co-opts some group of Trans folks for an HRC National Transgender Day of Remembrance (last year it was Mara of NCTE and other DC activists), though this year their program in DC seems to lack any visible trans presence, wonder way. At any rate, over the next few days I will post some historical and factual details of the over 25 year backroom anti-trans dealing that HRC has been culpable of. For now, given that the Trans Day of Remembrance is fast approaching, I would like to reprint an email exchange between HRC and Sylvia Rivera [Read more →]