Please check out a post I just wrote about Greek identity, Nationalism, and Colonialism, here:

http://saffolicious.blogspot.com/2011/05/parthenon-in-denver.html

Your voice(s) would be incredibly important to add to our chorus of support.  We just need to have written testimony submitted by this Sunday at 5pm and it takes no time at all to write. That’s tomorrow, so please jot something down if you can.

Here is a link to the Be an Advocate! page with hints on how to craft testimony, talking points for the bill, etc. http://www.ctequality.com/talk-to-lawmakers/

You can contact Pat directly through facebook or email: patrickcomerford1050@gmail.com (please put ctEQUALITY in the subject header).

This is such a crucial time for us, and we know that the Family Institute of CT will be our there at the hearing, so every voice counts…

Sarah - a pro-choice activist and feminist is in urgent need of legal funds surrounding politically charged criminal proceedings she’ll be facing in the coming months.

Police arrested Sarah in December 2010 during a regularly occurring pro-choice demo where she and other activists hold welcoming signs for patients entering reproductive health clinics to combat the harassment anti-choicers inflict on patients. The courts pinned Sarah with outlandish felony and misdemeanor charges. On arrest, the arresting officer purposefully misgendered Sarah as male (despite previously referring to Sarah as “she”) before his colleagues subjected her to abuses within the jail due to her sexual orientation and gender expression.

Sarah is currently on her way to trial. The first preliminary hearing ended in a continuance as neither the anti-choicers nor the police showed up. During the second preliminary hearing date, all legally involved were in attendance. During the hearing the antis were relentless, stating blatant lies on the stand. The judge recommended a plea deal to drop Sarah’s charges to a summary offense of which the antis turned down. The judge attempted to convince them that the Christian thing to do would be to have some mercy - advising them to think very hard about choosing to disrupt Sarah’s life in such a way.  Ignoring the judge’s advice, the antis insisted on pressing charges. Sarah is a queer, single mother of a three year old child. As apparently these “pro-family” Christians have little room for consideration of the welfare of children beginning life outside the womb, Sarah is being forced into a long criminal court process during which she will have to spend time away from her child and afford childcare costs. [Read more →]

http://gatheringforces.org/2010/10/14/beyond-gay-marriage-and-queer-separatists-the-call-for-a-working-class-queer-movement/

October 14th, 2010 · Posted by wen · 4 Comments · Queer Liberation

[Read more →]

From Aljazeera

gay rights parade in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, has degenerated into violence after police deployed to protect the marchers clashed with anti-gay protesters, sparking riots that left scores of people injured.

Protesters dressed mainly in black and with hooded tops hurled rocks and molotov cocktails at security forces who were trying to ensure the city’s second ever Gay Pride event went ahead on Sunday.

One official said that 90 police officers required medical attention and two had been seriously wounded in the violence.

The riots spread to other parts of Belgrade as nationalists and skinheads attacked targets unrelated to the parade.

At one point, rioters managed to set fire to the headquarters of Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party (DS) in protest against the Serbian president’s support for the march. The flames were quickly put out and no one was hurt.

Dragan Sutanovac, Serbia’s defence minister, said that “it’s a really sad day for Serbia”.

Susanne Simon-Paunovic, a German married to a Serb who attended the rally, said: “It was more like death march. The atmosphere was terrible.”

Reporting from Belgrade, Al Jazeera’s Aljosa Milkenovic said that “one police officer has sustained serious injuries and is fighting for his life”.

The city’s streets were sealed off by thousands of police officials as the march took place. Police said they had detained 101 people and that 53 of them would be investigated for “criminal act of violence.

‘Toughest sentence’

A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said the state would seek “the toughest possible sentences” against those behind the violence.

Our correspondent said that “the protesters clashed with the police not only to protest against the parade, which is deeply against the Serbian orthodox church [doctrine], but also because they are disgruntled with the current economic situation … and wanted to register their anger with the authorities”.

The parade was the first in almost a decade, a step towards an open and modern Serbia following years of war in the 1990s on account of ethnic hatred.

“Serbia will secure respect of human rights for all its  citizens, no matter what their differences are and no attempts to revoke this freedom with violence will be tolerated,” Tadic said in a statement.

The Serb government also condemned what it described as “hooligan violence”.

The event was seen as a testament to pro-Western reforms launched by Serbia’s government and its pledge to protect human rights as it seeks European Union membership.

The clashes occurred two days ahead of a planned visit by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, who wants to highlight US support for Serbia’s EU aspirations.

okay this was originally a facebook comment on a friend’s post about a rally to repeal DADT but it turned into such a rant that i decided to publish it in my blog: (saffolicious.blogspot.com)

i am terrified of the repealing of DADT. i don’t want to be assimiliated into the fucking war machine. these are the same fuckers that bombed my mother when she was 10 and became a war refugee. i don’t want my queer sisters and brothers being sucked into the fucking death machine.

black people in the US fought long and hard for the right to serve in the military– and look what happened. the military is predominantly people of color being shipped off to kill or be killed by other oppressed people, mostly in the global south. i do NOT want my queer sisters and brothers being sucked into the same fucking war machine.

if DADT gets passed then that means homeless queer and trans youth– predominantly of color– who have run away or have been kicked out by their parents for being queer and have few other options are going to be sucked in and exploited by military recruiters. the fuckers that are organizing this repeal DADT shit don’t give a FUCK about how this is going to affect the most marginalized members of our community. that’s because this agenda is set by the most privilieged LGBT folks

HRC tells us that DADT is hurting the US military.. well FUCK why ruin a good thing? DADT is doing a better job hurting the US military-industrial death machine than any of our anti-war protests over the last 7 years. i don’t want them to allow queers in the military, i want them to ban straights from the military.

the non-profit elites like HRC that set the assimilationist agenda for our community, and the well-intentioned activists that eat that shit up, never consider how this affects the most oppressed queer folks. i don’t want to see queer youth getting sucked into the recruitment war machine. i don’t want to see them killed by IEDs. i don’t want to see them brainwashed and turned into killing machines, and then come home fucked up in the head and abusive. our community has enough problems already, thank you very much.

the fact is the people setting these agendas have their basic necessities met. they have food, they have shelter. most queer folks don’t. the military presents itself as a way out. it preys on poor peoples’ vulnerability. the fact that people are focusing on this shit, the fact that people are so psyched about fucking lady gaga talking about gays in the military, the fact that i see people i know and love as part of my community fucking pissing their pants over the possilibity of DADT being repealed, makes me so enraged and disgusted.

when i first came out as gay when i was 14 and i started to seek out gay community, i felt like i had to choose between my politics and my sexuality. leaving home and finding other folks who were QUEER AS FUCK (not gay, but QUEER), eventually coming out as trans, meeting radical queer communities, i realized that i could respect my gender and sexuality and also my politics which are so deeply tied with my mothers’ experiences as a war refugee at the hands of the west. to see the people who would claim to be my community– the “lgbt” folks– clamor to want to fill the role of the ones who bombed my mothers home, the ones who almost killed her and made her a war refugee, as they do to millions all over the world in neocolonial wars of occupation, makes me feel ashamed to call myself queer.

there are queer Iraqis too. what about their rights?

http://www.gayshamesf.org/endmarriage.html

GAY SHAME OPPOSES MARRIAGE IN ANY FORM

Whatever happened to the time when being queer was an automatic challenge to the disgusting, oppressive, patriarchal institution of holy matrimony? Now, it seems that queers are so desperate to get their taste of straight privilege that they’ll camp out in the rain with the hopes that the state will finally sanction their carnal coupling.

We are now faced with the spectacle of thousands of gay men and lesbians rabid with longing for any shred of acceptance from a violent, hypocritical establishment that really wants us dead. Don’t forget-marriage is the central institution of that misogynist, racist system of domination and oppression known as heterosexuality. Don’t get us wrong-we support everyone’s right to fuck whomever they want-we’re just not in favor of supporting the imperialist, bloodthirsty status quo.

Local, national and international-conservative and liberal-corporate and grass-roots media have all swarmed around City Hall as if Gavin Newsom is the vanguard leader of gay civil rights. Gavin Newsom came to power by aggressively pandering to the privileged gay vote with a message criminalizing poor people in a city wracked by years of greedy hyper-development. Now, he’s giving back to the gays who got him elected. These are the same sellouts who have for years promoted gay marriage as the penultimate achievement on the road to “equality,” yet they are now willing to bestow full credit upon Gavin Newsom for their own misguided work.

Newsom is using gay marriage as a wedge issue in order to get national press, and further his megalomaniacal quest for national power. What is depressing is that gay people are so blinded by their desperation for “rights” that they’ll promote a cynical, closet-fascist as the messiah.

[Read more →]

Queer is many things. It’s a critique of identity– critiquing/questioning the boxes and categories we are given to cage ourselves with. Example, we can be gay, straight, or bi. These are the choices we have. But they don’t describe reality and they do more to contain us than to liberate us. (Although, I have to note that people do find empowerment and community within these identities and I don’t mean to downplay that.) It’s a critique of the construction of sexuality– formed by the ideas we have to conceive of it. If who you fuck is what you are (i.e., “gay”) — then that’s a sexual identity. Or we can do sexuality differently– it’s not who we are but what we do– our acts. I may engage in homosexual acts, but what does it mean to say “I am gay”? And how does that identity restrain me? (Also, many argue that asserting an identity like “gay” or “bi” actually uphold the binary of “hetero/homo” and, as with all binaries, one will be privileged over the other. Therefore it can be argued–and I agree with this–that upholding a gay identity can actually work against liberation by reinforcing heternormativity and asserting, rather than destabilizing, the hetero-homo binary.) If you’re interested in that, read Jagose’s Queer Theory: An Introduction (I love this book but it’s dense and heavily theoretical and some people hate theory). Also, the notion of the “homosexual” was actually invented in the mid 1800s. Gay people didn’t exist before that. I’m not saying women didn’t fuck women and dudes didn’t fuck dudes, but they were engaging in *acts* and didn’t label themselves something because of it– they didn’t *identify* by what they did erotically. [Read more →]

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2010/05/16/and-they-moved-to-stars-hollow-and-lived-happily-ever-after/

This post would have appeared earlier, but I only just now got the gore and debris cleaned up. I allude to the obstreperal lobe tissue dripping from the bunkhouse rafters. That’s right, I blew another lobe, and no doubt you did, too, when you heard about the insane bill that just passed in Missouri.

Missouri’s state legislature, like that of many states, has invaded the personal bodies of its citizenry and enslaved their uteruses. Without compunction of any kind, this cruel and bloated governing body swaggers around the countryside, snapping its fingers, yelling “jump,” and smirking when the captive uteruses ask “how high?”.

There was already an extremely obnoxious law in Missouri forcing women seeking abortions — 24 hours in advance of the procedure — to sit through a lecture (bring a book) on the supposed mental and physical devastation that abortions supposedly cause. The idea being that, after a heartstring-tugging indoctrination with patriarchy-replicating, godsick disinformation about the certainty of a post-abortion lifetime of regret, cancer, depression, infertility, desperate yearning and insanity, women would voluntarily abdicate their personal bodily sovereignty in order to incubate fetuses for the state, which state would then abandon all parties concerned at the conclusion of gestation.

So things were bad enough in Missouri before, but with this new law they’re even worse. Instead of being forced to endure this patronizing abortion-is-bad-for-you crap via telephone, women are now required to audit in person. Providers must also describe the adorable little fingers and toes, the teensy little heartbeat, the precious little turned-up nose of the “unborn child.” Then they have to offer the woman an ultrasound and a chance to hear for herself how adorable the teensy heartbeat is. Then — no shit — they have to hand over “a state-produced brochure proclaiming: ‘The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.’” If the woman is pretty young, they have to show her a couple of seasons’ worth of “Gilmore Girls,” because that’s such a realistic portrayal of the long-term results of teen pregnancy. Then they lock her in a room for an hour or two with a statue of the Blessed Virgin who weeps tears of blood. [Read more →]

Copied from http://libcom.org/news/war-zone-athens-three-people-dead-many-buildings-burning-general-strike-march-turns-battle-#279 | An employee of the burnt bank speaks out on tonight’s tragic deaths in Athens – please spread

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Tonight’s tragic deaths in Athens leave little space for comments – we are all very shocked and deeply saddened by the events. To those (on the “Occupied London” blog even) who speculate that the deaths might have been caused purposefully by anarchists, we can only reply the following: we do not take to the streets, we do not risk our freedom and our lives confronting the greek police in order to kill other people. Anarchists are not murderers, and no brainwashing attempted by Greek PM Papandreou, the national or the international media should convince anyone otherwise.

That being said, and with developments still running frantically, we want to publish a rough translation of a statement by an employee of Marfin Bank – the bank whose branch was set alight in Athens today, where the three employees found a tragic death.

Read the letter, translate it, spread it around to your networks; grassroots counter-information has a crucial role to play at a moment when the greek state and corporate media are leashing out on the anarchist movement over here in Greece.

I feel an obligation toward my co-workers who have so unjustly died today to speak out and to say some objective truths. I am sending this message to all media outlets. Anyone who still bares some consciousness should publish it. The rest can continue to play the government’s game.

The fire brigade had never issued an operating license to the building in question. The agreement for it to operate was under the table, as it practically happens with all businesses and companies in Greece.

The building in question has no fire safety mechanisms in place, neither planned nor installed ones – that is, it has no ceiling sprinklers, fire exits or fire hoses. There are only some portable fire extinguishers which, of course, cannot help in dealing with extensive fire in a building that is built with long-outdated security standards.

No branch of Marfin bank has had any member of staff trained in dealing with fire, not even in the use of the few fire extinguishers. The management also uses the high costs of such training as a pretext and will not take even the most basic measures to protect its staff.

There has never been a single evacuation exercise in any building by staff members, nor have there been any training sessions by the fire-brigade, to give instructions for situations like this. The only training sessions that have taken place at Marfin Bank concern terrorist action scenarios and specifically planning the escape of the banks’ “big heads” from their offices in such a situation.

The building in question had no special accommodation for the case of fire, even though its construction is very sensitive under such circumstances and even though it was filled with materials from floor to ceiling. Materials which are very inflammable, such as paper, plastics, wires, furniture. The building is objectively unsuitable for use as a bank due to its construction.

No member of security has any knowledge of first aid or fire extinguishing, even though they are every time practically charged with securing the building. The bank employees have to turn into firemen or security staff according to the appetite of Mr Vgenopoulos [owner of Marfin Bank].

The management of the bank strictly bared the employees from leaving today, even though they had persistently asked so themselves from very early this morning – while they also forced the employees to lock up the doors and repeatedly confirmed that the building remained locked up throughout the day, over the phone. They even blocked off their internet access so as to prevent the employees from communicating with the outside world.

For many days now there has been some complete terrorisation of the bank’s employees in regard to the mobilisations of these days, with the verbal “offer”: you either work, or you get fired.

The two undercover police who are dispatched at the branch in question for robbery prevention did not show up today, even though the bank’s management had verbally promised to the employees that they would be there.

At last, gentlemen, make your self-criticism and stop wandering around pretending to be shocked. You are responsible for what happened today and in any rightful state (like the ones you like to use from time to time as leading examples on your TV shows) you would have already been arrested for the above actions. My co-workers lost their lives today by malice: the malice of Marfin Bank and Mr. Vgenopoulos personally who explicitly stated that whoever didin’t come to work today [May 5th, a day of a general strike!] should not bother showing up for work tomorrow [as they would get fired].

- An employee of Marfin Bank [greek original]

KKE/SYRISA:

1. In Parliament the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) has accused the government for the deaths, claiming it was a result of agents provocateur fascist groups. The claims of the Communist Party are based on the fact that 50 fascists tried to enter the PAME demo bearing the flags of the union earlier in the morning. The fascists were spotted, chased and sought refuge behind riot police lines.

2. Accusing the extreme-right as being behind the deaths, the Coalition of Radical Left (SYRISA) has declared in Parliament that the government cannot pretend to be in grief for the loss of life, as it has been attacking human life by all means possible.

Parents have a new and welcome option this summer for their transgender or gender non-conforming child — a weeklong, overnight summer camp called Camp Aranu’tiq. Its organizers recently held a reception in the Boston area to introduce the program. In attendance were several new-age parents who, instead of rejecting their child’s persistent gender non-conformity, are seeking ways to be understanding and helpful.

Parents have traditionally been told gender non-conformity is “just a phase,” and psychiatric studies back that up assessment. Yet the research comes in part from the work of Dr. Kenneth Zucker, whose Toronto clinic provides treatments that encourage the child to accept their natal sex and associated gender. One has to wonder if Zucker’s research is truly without bias.

New-age parents, frustrated at seeing their child become even more miserable after trying this approach, have begun looking elsewhere for help. And they have good reason to. Dr. Caitlin Ryan, head of the Family Acceptance Project, says that gay and transgender children rejected by their families were three times more likely to use illegal drugs, six times more likely to report high levels of depression and eight times more likely to have attempted suicide. No parent wants this for their child.

The professional consensus on how to treat gender non-conforming and transgender children comes from The World Professional Association for Transgender Health. WPATH’s Standards of Care require significant involvement and guidance of a behavioral health professional to treat the trans child. But Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a new breed of sympathetic psychiatrist working at Children’s Hospital Boston, points out that no process exists to train and certify professionals to play this role.

Fortunately, there are an increasing number of resources to help. Trans Youth Family Allies will work with organizations and individuals to help identify the services and support needed, and to provide the education and training useful to parents. TYFA’s tireless Executive Director and Founder, Kim Pearson, is herself the mom of a transgender son.

Parents may also find their way to the free Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, which this June will have expanded programming for children, youth and families.

Another great resource for parents is the groundbreaking book The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals by Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper.

A child may become even more distressed when sex characteristics start developing that don’t align with the child’s sense of gender. New-age parents are increasingly turning to programs like the Gender Management Service clinic of Children’s Hospital Boston to delay puberty, and if indicated, start cross-hormones to trigger the right puberty. GEMS founder and endocrinologist Dr. Norman Spack recently observed:

We are beginning to see great success. Patients aren’t trying to commit suicide, they’re bullied less at school, relationships are better and mammoplastic surgery may not be necessary.

Armed with these new resources, parents are becoming more visible and vocal in advocating for their children. Brave parents and their children first appeared on television in 2006 in an episode of 20/20 that Barbara Walters devoted entirely to the subject of transgender children. Others have since appeared on Oprah, Maury Pauvich, and, in the last few months, on the Tyra Banks Show and the Doctor Oz Show.

Unfortunately, parental support does not free a child from discrimination by the world at large, but caring parents have become powerful non-transgender allies in the drive for change. Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, recently spotlighted the poignant testimonies of three parents in the hearing for proposed transgender non-discrimination legislation in Massachusetts:

Listen to the words of Ken and Marcia Garber, of Quincy, whose 20 year old son died after years of harassment based on his gender identity. Ken, a square-jawed fire fighter with a grey crew-cut, spoke at the State House today about how hard it was for their son to live as a second class citizen. “When you discriminate against transgender people, you discriminate against everybody who loves them,” said Ken.
A mother, Marion Freedman-Gurspan, said “In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I’d have to stand here and beg for basic civil rights protections for my child. I thought that went out in 1964!”

Another father, David Hardy, spoke about his concern for the safety of his three kids: the one who is on duty in Kabul, the one who is a rock-climber and the one who is transgender. “We really worry about him,” said Hardy.

Transgender people have had a tough time being recognized as ordinary citizens. The presence of supportive parents changes everything. These parents lend critical third-party credibility to our quest for basic human rights and dignity. With them leading the way, there is no doubt that we’ll see social advances for transgender people at what feels like warp speed compared to what we have seen so far.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-herman/new-age-parenting-for-tra_b_561688.html?view=screen

Are you coming to the Bash Back! 2010 convergence in Denver?

We’re still looking for workshops and people to be on panels! The deadline to submit a workshop proposal is this Friday! Email bbworkshops (at) gmail (dot) com. For more info on the convergence check out http://bashback2010.org/

Submit workshops for anything, really! This is YOUR convergence and we want YOUR voice heard! We are also looking for people to be on our panels. One panel in particular that needs folks is an Older Queers panel.

Also, we are looking for people to facilitate the caucuses. The format is a little complicated so here’s the explanation: http://bashbacknews.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/bash-back-convergence-caucus-proposal/

Hope to see you in Denver!

XO

~Saffo

http://gatheringforces.org/2010/03/18/sylvia-rivera-transliberation-and-class-struggle/

Sylvia Rivera, transliberation, and class struggle.

[Read more →]