Category Archives: gender
Prison Health News: Spring 2011 Issue Available for Download!
The spring issue of Prison Health News has been out for a few months — but it is such a good one, I hate to see it go! You can download it as a pdf for reading by clicking here, … Continue reading
Call for Submissions: Trans Justice and AIDS Activism Zine!
From Che Gossett: [Correction: The word limit is 2,000 words, not 5,000 words.]
Highlights from the US Social Forum: LA COIL on Intersectionality, Horizontalism and Prefigurative Politics
My favorite session at the U.S. Social Forum was organized by LA COIL (Communities Organizing Liberation), a collective of revolutionaries who work with the teachers’ union, the Garment Workers’ Center, and in hospitals in Los Angeles. They asked us to imagine in detail the world we want to live in, starting with what we want our schools to look like (windows on every floor! peer evaluation! all students, faculty, staff and community members involved in decisions about budget, curriculum, etc!) and then exploring how we can build accountability and support structures in our neighborhoods to replace police and prisons. These folks are for real. Continue reading
US Social Forum workshops not to be missed!
1p – 5:30p: HIV/AIDS and Social Justice – Cobo W2-61 – Fighting for the rights of people in prison, living on the streets, or in schools. Organizing against gentrification, poverty, and government neglect. Challenging racism, homophobia, and discrimination of all sorts. Confronting the forces of corporatization, globalization, and greed. AIDS activists are at the center of each of these battles, because we have long recognized that the AIDS epidemic is fueled by each of these forms of oppression. Good activists link local, national, and global struggles. They bring a broad range of voices to confront those with power. They work to amplify silenced voices within their own groups and throughout the world. And they win. We’ve won local victories like on-demand housing for everyone living with AIDS in NYC, and global victories like forcing drug companies and governments to accept generic drug competition. We are led by people living with HIV and have always brought the voices of those infected directly to those in power, amplified but not drowned out by the voices of allies. Come help us connect the dots between AIDS and oppressions faced by people on a daily basis, and learn what the successes and challenges of the AIDS movement can teach us all. Continue reading
Filed under Africa, African Americans, Alternatives to 501c3, arts and culture, California, disaster capitalism, displacement and gentrification, Drug users' rights, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, Haiti, harm reduction, housing, immigration/migration, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, New Orleans, New York City, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, sex workers' rights, sexual violence, Southern United States, trans and gender non-conforming, transformative justice, treatment access, women
Cultural Healing: Native American Activists Say Boarding School Abuses Harmed the Health of Generations
“Many of the problems of alcoholism and drug abuse now prevalent in Indian country can be traced back to the physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of our keepers in the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] and mission boarding schools,” Lakota journalist and boarding school survivor Tim Giago wrote in the Huffington Post. Government-sponsored boarding schools have created a legacy of trauma among Native American peoples in the United States. The Boarding School Healing Project documents the abuse and demonstrates how it has led to high rates of childhood sexual abuse, family violence, violence against women, alcoholism, and drug use in Native communities. In addition to the homophobia the schools enforced in children from cultures traditionally welcoming of gay and gender-nonconforming people, most of these symptoms of trauma are the same factors that make Native communities vulnerable to HIV. A look at the brutal history of these boarding schools can teach us a lot about the ways that social injustice fuels the epidemic – and how to fight back. Continue reading
Land and Freedom: Indigenous Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, Fight HIV and Repression
The United States has twice the HIV prevalence of Mexico, so it isn’t surprising that the need to cross the border for work has increased Mexican communities’ vulnerability to HIV. But the reasons for HIV’s increase in some places in Mexico – indigenous, rural communities far from the border – may not be so obvious. “The state of Oaxaca has the highest HIV rate in Southeastern Mexico,” Oaxacan queer activist Leonardo Tlahui says. “One of the primary factors is immigration. The Mixteco people [one of Oaxaca's largest indigenous groups] have a high population of immigrants to the United States.” He explains that migrating to a country with double the HIV rate makes immigrants more vulnerable to HIV, and that increased vulnerability is then shared with their home communities since most of the immigrants return home to Oaxaca. Continue reading
Filed under arts and culture, displacement and gentrification, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, immigration/migration, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, Mexico, Native Americans/Indigenous peoples, police repression, revolutionary strategies, Solidarity Project, trans and gender non-conforming, treatment access, women
The AFIYA Center: La Cisha Crear and Marsha Jones
— Suzy Subways, Editor, Solidarity Project November 2007 • Issue 7 *Activist Snapshots #3* When La Cisha Crear and Marsha Jones heard about the Prevention Justice Mobilization, the Dallas activists knew they had to get involved. “Our vision was already … Continue reading
Liberated Style
By fighting discrimination, violence and criminalization, sex workers are fighting HIV. Communities that trade sex for money and other necessities are often isolated, and an important step for sex worker rights is to make connections across movements. Sex workers are the people best positioned to stop HIV in their own communities – they are positioned to change community norms (including clients’ norms) around condom use and needle sharing. They are the experts on what will work best for their communities. Continue reading
Kumjing’s Activist Passport: Migrant sex workers in Thailand become HIV prevention leaders, despite U.S. groups’ attempts to “rescue” them
EMPOWER Foundation was started by sex workers and activist allies in 1985 and produced Thailand’s first HIV educational materials. Now EMPOWER runs its own bar, “Can Do,” collectively owned and run by sex workers, with best-practice occupational health and safety standards, a sex worker-designed security system, condom distribution, and workers who are trained as safe sex counselors. Continue reading
RESOURCES
Addressed to sex workers and supporters of the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign (a movement of marginalized people against capitalism and allied with the massive teachers’ strike in Oaxaca), the CNUC (Women’s Rights Network Collective) of Apizaco, in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, calls for sex workers across Mexico to fight for their rights together. Continue reading
