“Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine.� -Chelsea Manning
Black & Pink June 2017
June 2017 Pride Month!
Cover photo courtesy of Instagram, Banner courtesy of Mini-Mi (TX), Flags courtesy of Ali Express
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A Message from Jason Dear friends, I hope this note finds you as well as possible. I just finished eating a very tasty brownie. It made me think, briefly, about this amazing microwave cake that friends of mine made when I was locked up at Devens years ago. While the food offered by the prisons could not be more disgusting, I was always amazed at what people could make in the microwave. I was thinking we should share some recipes from time to time in our monthly magazine. If you happen to have something you’re good at cooking and want to share the recipe, send it as a submission some time. It is important to have moments of distraction, and making yummy things to eat can be just that. Earlier this week I met up with a recently formerly incarcerated member of Black and Pink. His name is Frankie. He just got out after nearly a decade on the inside of Massachusetts prisons. We were meeting up just to get to know each other and figure out how he might get involved with Black and Pink on this side of the wall. He has only been out for a month, and I am so thankful that he wants to get involved and share some of his story with people on the outside. We talked a lot about solitary confinement, the ways guards choose prisoners to single out and pick on, how people navigate relationships on the inside, and even
stories of making good friends. He also shared about how important it is to stay connected with some of the people he left on the inside. For so many people getting out, there’s a sense of survivor guilt, knowing that there are people you care about who are still locked up. We talked about how important it is to keep it real when you get out. If you say you’re going to write, then you write. If you say you’re going to send money, then you send money. If you say you’re going to fight the system, then you fight the system. I have been thinking a lot about reentry lately. At Black and Pink, reentry has not been a big focus of ours. About a quarter of our readers are lifers. So many of our people won’t be getting out unless we actually abolish this system. I have always been hesitant to focus on reentry efforts because I don’t want us to ever forget about our people who are on the inside. There are foundations who only give money to support reentry work, and it’s as if they do not care about the lives of people on the inside. I think our reentry work, the work we do at Black and Pink, needs to be shaped by the relationships people build through letters and by reading the magazine month after month. I think our reentry work needs to be designed in a way that makes sure we are always building the power and leadership of people while they are still behind the walls. It seems to me that healthy reentry is going
to more possible if the person in prison is able to feel like they have some kind of power over their lives when they’re still locked up. What do you think makes for healthy reentry? I also think that most of the reentry work that is done on the outside has the wrong focus. All of the reentry agencies are so focused on getting people jobs. The truth is that prison is trauma. The first thing people need when they get out of prison is healing. The first thing we should be doing for everyone when they get out is making sure they have therapy, massage, and any other healing practice that will help ease the harms created by prison. When we are put in an inhumane environment, like prison, the core of who we are gets affected. The violence of prison, the culture of punishment, and the prison mentality takes over. It can take a long time to adjust. Whether one gets triggered by the sound of a key ring jingling, a person standing too close in the grocery store, or when someone brushes by you on the sidewalk; the outside world is full of things that can bring back the trauma of prison. At Black and Pink, as we figure out reentry work we want to do, we will be sure we do it with attention to healing and loving support. We will keep building all of our work knowing that once there were no prisons, that day will come again.
Jason
In loving solidarity,
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In This Issue Chelsea Manning pages 5-7 Attoney General page 7 Criminalization of AIDS page 8 Chechnya page 9 Tips for Men Who Date Trans Women page 10 B&P Chapter Feedback + Resources for Self-Care page 11 Sheriff David Clarke page 12 Kingston Frazier page 13 Bresha Meadows page 14-15 Terms & Definitions page 16 New Editors! page 17 What is Intersex? page 31 Letters pages 18-19, 21-30, 3237 Poetry pages 18-21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 33, 35 Submit to Black & Pink! page 38
June 2017
Black & Pink News Black & Pink Hotline The hotline phone number is (617) 519-4387. The hotline will be available Sundays, 1-5 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) for certain. You can call at other times, as well, and we will do our best to answer your calls as often as possible. We are sorry that we can only accept prepaid calls at this time. The purposes of the hotline are: Supportive listening: Being in prison is lonely, as we all know. The hotline is here for supportive listening so you can just talk to someone about what is going on in your life. Organizing: If there are things going on at your prison—lockdowns, guard harassment, resistance, or anything else that should be shared with the public—we can help spread the word.
work toward the abolition of the prison-industrial complex (PIC) is rooted in the experiences of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are outraged by the specific violence of the PIC towards LGBTQ people, and we respond through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing. Black & Pink is proudly a family of people of all races and ethnicities. About Black & Pink News Since 2007, Black & Pink free world volunteers have pulled together a monthly newspaper, composed primarily of material written by our family’s incarcerated members. In response to letters we receive, we send the newspaper to more prisoners every month! Black & Pink News currently reaches more than 9,400 prisoners!
Give us a call! (617) 519-4387 Sundays, 1-5 p.m. EST
We look forward to hearing from you! This is our first attempt at this so please be patient with us as we work it all out. We will not be able to answer every call, but we will do our best. We apologize to anyone who has been trying to get through to the hotline with no success. We are still working out the system. Thank you for being understanding. Restrictions: The hotline is not a number to call about getting on the penpal list or to get the newspaper. The hotline is not a number to call for sexual or erotic chatting. The hotline is not a number for getting help with your current court case; we are not legal experts. Statement of Purpose Black & Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and “free world” allies who support each other. Our
Disclaimer The ideas and opinions expressed in Black & Pink News are solely those of the authors and artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of Black & Pink. Black & Pink makes no representations as to the accuracy of any statements made in Black & Pink News, including but not limited to legal and medical information. Authors and artists bear sole responsibility for their work. Everything published in Black & Pink News is also on the internet—it can be seen by anyone with a computer. By sending art or written work to “Newspaper Submissions,” you are agreeing to have it published in Black & Pink News and on the internet. In order to respect our members’ privacy, we publish only first names and state locations. We may edit submissions to fit our anti-oppression values and/or based on our own editing guidelines.
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Statements from Chelsea Manning & Her Courtesy of the ACLU, published on May 9, 2017 Legal Team Whistleblower Chelsea Manning will be released from U.S. military prison next week after serving a seven-year sentence for disclosing classified information that raised public awareness regarding the impact of war on innocent civilians. Manning, a transgender woman, was serving an unprecedented 35-year sentence for whistleblowing and was forced to serve her sentence in an all-male prison. She received a commutation from President Obama in one of his final acts in office in January after an outpouring of support for Manning from the public over her mistreatment in prison and opposition to the extremely harsh sentence. The commutation followed a November 2016 request from Chelsea Manning’s appellate legal team — Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward of Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Urias & Ward, PA — to the U.S. Army, the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and White House Counsel seeking the commutation of Manning sentence to time served and “a first chance to live a real, meaningful life.” The American Civil Liberties Union filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the appeal of Manning’s conviction and represents her in a lawsuit against the Department of Defense that was first filed in 2014 over the department’s refusal to treat her well-documented gender dysphoria. In December 2016, the ACLU and more than a dozen LGBT groups sent a letter to President Obama urging the commutation of Manning’s sentence.
More than 115,000 people signed a petition on the White House’s “We the People” platform, asking President Obama to commute the sentence to time served. Chelsea Manning following statement:
released
the
“For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea. I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world. Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine. Now, freedom is something that I will again experience with friends and loved ones after nearly seven years of bars and cement, of periods of solitary confinement, and of my health care and autonomy restricted, including through routinely forced haircuts. I am forever grateful to the people who kept me alive, President Obama, my legal team, and countless supporters. “I watched the world change from inside prison walls and through the letters that I have received from veterans, trans young people, parents, politicians, and artists. My spirits were lifted in dark times, reading of their support, sharing in their triumphs, and helping them through challenges of their own. I hope to take the lessons that I have learned, the love that I have been given, and the hope that I have to work toward making life better for others.” Chase Strangio, staff attorney with the ACLU, had the following reaction: “Like far too many people in prison, particularly transgender women,
Chelsea Manning has had to survive unthinkable violence throughout the seven years of her incarceration. Finally, she will be leaving prison and building a life beyond the physical walls of the many sites of her detention. It is a remarkable gift to the world that Chelsea will be able to grow and fight alongside us for justice. “The transition out of these horrific institutions will not be easy, and part of what we hope is that Chelsea will find the space, love, and support to heal and build a life of her choosing. Her fight to be herself, to access the medical care that she needed, and to gain her freedom have transformed law and society for the better. The urgency of those fights for so many in our communities will continue, and Chelsea’s past and future work will no doubt be a critical force in moving towards a more just society for everyone.” Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward, Manning's clemency and appellate lawyers, said in a joint statement: “Chelsea has already served the longest sentence of any whistleblower in the history of this country. It has been far too long, too severe, too draconian. President Obama's act of commutation was the first time the military took care of this soldier who risked so much to disclose information that served the public interest. We are delighted that Chelsea can finally begin to enjoy the freedom she deserves. And we thank the many, many people and organizations who have supported her and continue to support her as we fight in her appeal to clear her name.”
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The Chelsea Manning Case: A Timeline Courtesy of the ACLU, published on May 9, 2017 On May 17, Chelsea Manning will be released from military prison after her sentence was commuted by former President Obama in his last week in office. She has been incarcerated for seven years — far less than the 35 years to which she was sentenced, but longer than any whistleblower in U.S. history. Chelsea’s story raises numerous issues of interest to the ACLU, including the government’s treatment of whistleblowers, the struggle of transgender people to survive and be treated with dignity, and prisoners’ rights. Below is a timeline covering some of the basics of her case. May 2010 Chelsea Manning is arrested in Iraq for disclosing information to Wikileaks that was ultimately published by The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel. The information, largely comprised of military and diplomatic documents, included evidence of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. attempts to cover up the CIA torture program, and other matters of public interest. Shortly after her arrest, she is transferred to a U.S. military base in Kuwait, and then to the Quantico Marine base in Virginia. April 2011 After being held for almost a year in solitary confinement in Kuwait and Quantico, Chelsea is transferred to a medium-security military prison in Kansas. Shortly before her transfer, the ACLU sends then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates a letter objecting to her treatment as cruel
and unusual. She had been regularly stripped naked, subjected to prolonged isolated confinement and sleep deprivation, deprived of any meaningful opportunity to exercise, and stripped of her reading glasses so she could not read. Almost 300 academics, most of them legal scholars, sign a letter objecting to her treatment. March 2012 The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez formally rules that the U.S. government’s treatment of Chelsea was cruel, inhuman, and degrading. The Pentagon refuses to allow Mendez to meet with Chelsea. June 2013 Chelsea’s court martial trial begins. She is initially charged with “aiding the enemy,” despite the fact that the government never claimed she directly provided military adversaries with information. The charge is akin to treason and punishable by death. July 2013 Chelsea is convicted of 17 of the 22 charges against her but acquitted of “aiding the enemy.” The following month, she is sentenced to 35 years in prison. “When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” the ACLU says. This is the heaviest sentence handed down to a whistleblower or leaker in U.S. history, almost 20 times the pre-Obama record.
August 2013 Chelsea publicly announces she is transgender and will be seeking hormone therapy as part of her transition during incarceration. The military, despite its own diagnosis of Chelsea’s gender dysphoria, responds by stating that it does “not provide hormone therapy or sexreassignment surgery for gender identity disorder.” September 2014 The ACLU sues the Department of Defense over its refusal to provide Chelsea medical treatment for gender dysphoria. February 2015 Prompted by over a year of litigation, the army begins to treat Chelsea with hormone therapy. She becomes the first person to receive health care related to gender transition while in military prison. The military continues to refuse to permit her to follow female grooming standards despite recommendations from its own medical providers that such treatment is a necessary part of her health care. May 2016 Chelsea appeals her conviction. The ACLU files an amicus brief in support of the appeal. We argue that her prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917, which does not allow defendants to argue that their disclosures were in the public interest, violated the Constitution and should be overturned.
continued on page 7
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Attorney General Orders Tougher Sentences, Rolling Back Obama Policy Courtesy of the New York Times, By Rebecca R. Ruiz, published on May 12, 2017 Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against crime suspects, he announced Friday, reversing Obama administration efforts to ease penalties for some nonviolent drug violations. The drastic shift in criminal justice policy, foreshadowed during recent weeks, is Mr. Sessions’s first major stamp on the Justice Department, and it highlights several of his top targets: drug dealing, gun crime and gang violence. In an eight-paragraph memo, Mr. Sessions returned to the guidance of President George W. Bush’s administration by calling for more uniform punishments — including mandatory minimum sentences — and instructing prosecutors to pursue the harshest possible charges. Mr. Sessions’s policy is broader than that of the Bush administration, however, and how it is carried out will depend more heavily on the judgments of United States attorneys and assistant attorneys general as they bring charges.
The policy signaled a return to “enforcing the laws that Congress has passed,” Mr. Sessions said Friday at the Justice Department, characterizing his memo as unique for the leeway it afforded prosecutors. “They deserve to be un-handcuffed and not micromanaged from Washington,” he said. “It means we are going to meet our responsibility to enforce the law with judgment and fairness.” But Mr. Sessions’s memo also highlighted the gulf between his views on sentencing and a growing bipartisan push for an overhaul of the criminal justice system. A major reform bill gained steam in Congress last year but foundered amid congressional dysfunction and Donald J. Trump’s campaign push for what he termed a restoration of law and order. Numerous states have also enacted overhauls to their criminal justice systems in recent years. Mr. Sessions has said he believes that critics of mandatory minimum sentences are ignoring the Justice
Chelsea Manning Timeline September 2016 Chelsea ends a hunger strike she launched in protest of the army’s refusal to provide her with medical treatment related to her gender dysphoria, after receiving assurances from the military that it would grant her request for
gender transition surgery — a first for a transgender inmate. January 2017 Following a sustained, high-profile advocacy campaign — including a WhiteHouse.gov petition, videos
Department’s duty to enforce federal law. Mr. Sessions has argued that violent crimes such as murder can be an outgrowth of drug crime, and has suggested that prosecuting drug crimes more vigorously will reduce crime more broadly. “Many violent crimes are driven by drug trafficking and drug-trafficking organizations,” Mr. Sessions, who was a prosecutor at the height of the 1980s crack epidemic, wrote in a March 8 memo. Mr. Sklansky said it was unclear how dramatic an impact Mr. Sessions’s new policy may have. “Prosecutors in the field appropriately pay attention to and try to follow the directions they receive from Washington,” he said. “A reversal or replacement of the Holder memo will be interpreted by many prosecutors in the field as a direction to be more aggressive to use mandatory minimum penalties against low-level nonviolent drug offenders.
continued from page 6 from former whistleblowers and celebrities, and letters of support from every major LGBTQ organization — President Barack Obama announces he is commuting all but four months of Chelsea’s sentence. She will be released on May 17, 2017.
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Laws Fail to Deter Transmission of AIDS Virus Courtesy of Reuters, By Ronnie Cohen, published on May 1, 2017 More than 30 years since the first criminal laws were enacted in the United States to try to prevent the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a new study suggests that the regulations have failed to slow transmission of the deadly virus. The laws impose criminal penalties on people who know they have HIV and engage in behaviors such as sexual activity or needle sharing that might transmit the virus to others, without disclosing their infection status. “There has been much discussion about whether criminal-exposure laws affect HIV-risk behaviors or transmission,” senior author Dr. Jonathan Mermin said in an email. “In this analysis, we found no association between HIV diagnosis rates and laws that criminalize HIV exposure.” Working with data collected in 33 states from 2001-2010, Mermin and colleagues at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta tracked diagnoses of HIV, the virus that causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). They also analyzed AIDS diagnosis rates in all 50 states from 1994-2010. By the end of 2010, 30 states had passed criminal-exposure laws. But the new study, published in the journal AIDS, found no association between criminal-exposure laws and HIV or AIDS diagnosis rates. The researchers did find two factors associated with higher HIV and AIDS diagnosis rates: lack of education and living in urban areas.
Ayako Miyashita, director of the Los Angeles HIV Law and Policy Project at the UCLA School of Law, said the study “underscores the fact that we understand the social and structural drivers of the epidemic, and that criminalization is not a particularly useful tool in addressing HIV transmission.” “These laws are harmful,” said Miyashita, who was not involved with the study, in an email. “They embody the continued fear and stigma associated with HIV and serve to perpetuate a lack of awareness and understanding about existing biomedical interventions.” More than 1.2 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with HIV, according to the CDC. About a third of them take antiretroviral therapy, which can virtually eliminate the possibility of transmitting the virus to others. Few HIV criminalization laws consider whether an HIV-positive person took measures to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus, the authors write. A 2013 report in ProPublica pointed out that people have been prosecuted for nondisclosure of HIV infection even when they were using condoms or taking antiviral drugs that made transmission very unlikely (bit. ly/1ZBdlfN). HIV criminal-exposure laws have engendered debate about their effectiveness since 1986, when states first enacted them, the authors write. The laws were intended to encourage people who tested positive for HIV to disclose the fact to potential sex
partners and to discourage behaviors that could expose others. Some feared the laws could have the reverse effect and increase transmission by discouraging testing; if people don’t know they have the virus, they can’t be prosecuted under these laws. Since 2010, an estimated 40,000 people a year in the U.S. have been diagnosed with HIV. HIV disproportionately infects blacks, African-Americans, gay Hispanics and Hispanics who inject drugs, previous studies have shown. The new analysis too found that minority populations had higher HIV and AIDS diagnosis rates. Amira Hasenbush, who has studied HIV criminalization laws in California, said in an email that her research has shown that the laws disproportionately target women and people of color. Hasenbush, a fellow at The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, was not involved with the new study. “Enforcement data show that HIV criminalization is yet another example of the criminalization of the poor, criminalization of people of color and criminalization of otherwise marginalized populations,” Miyashita said. “We know HIV impacts these communities greatly, and it’s time we realize criminalization is not the solution to addressing the epidemic.” Miyashita called for review, if not repeal, of all HIV criminalization laws. “Criminalization is not the solution to this problem,” she said. “These data prove that.”
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We Can't Look Away From Chechnya Courtesy of the Advocate, By Ty Cobb, published on May 15, 2017 Secret prisons. Torture. Statesanctioned murder. These chilling words conjure up the practices of some of the worst regimes in history. And yet this is exactly what is happening in Chechnya right now to gay and bisexual men, and those rumored or perceived to be. They are being rounded up, locked in secret prisons, tortured, and even murdered by their own government. Chechen leaders have attempted to refute these allegations, despite widespread credible reports of the atrocities. They are even denying the very existence of LGBTQ people in the Russian republic, saying that if such people existed, Chechen families would have taken matters into their own hands to eliminate them. Despite that, the leaders have reportedly set a target to eradicate all of these “nonexistent” people from Chechnya by the May 26 start of Ramadan. Countries around the world have targeted LGBTQ people before, but we have rarely seen such an atrocious example of organized, far-reaching, and sustained statesponsored violence against the LGBTQ community. These are not a handful of arrests designed to “send a message.” This is a deliberate, government-backed effort to remove an entire population of vulnerable people from Chechnya. This week, as we join the global LGBTQ community in marking the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, we must act with
urgency, insisting that our nation’s leaders commit to working to end the horrors in Chechnya. As Sara Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, recently said about the Chechen situation, “The Holocaust teaches us what can happen when statesponsored, group-targeted violence is allowed to go unchecked.” From Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Cambodia, to the Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, and so many other places, we are overwhelmed with examples showing that our nation is less secure when others engage in serious human rights violations. The chaos that emerges under such regimes spills over borders, whether it’s refugees fleeing violence or the proliferation of violent extremists whose activities flourish in such environments. Yet under the Trump administration, international human rights are expected to take a backseat to other State Department efforts. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is endorsing a plan to slash up to 37 percent from the U.S. State Department’s budget and eliminate 2,300 jobs. Especially hard hit would be U.S. efforts to help make other nations and their people more secure — which ultimately helps to make us safer here at home. There are real-life consequences to this. Vulnerable people — including LGBTQ people, refugees, religious minorities, and women — suffer the consequences most when U.S. diplomacy is run like a transactional business devoid of compassion or a
long-term vision. U.S. Sen. John McCain wrote in The New York Times shortly after Tillerson indicated he was putting human rights diplomacy on the back burner, “Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.” We must restore our position as a beacon of hope for the world’s most vulnerable people. We must resume caring for the human rights of all people around the globe. While we cannot fix every problem in the world, we can at the very least keep our doors open to take in vulnerable refugees, including Chechen men who can never again feel safe enough to return home to their families. So this week, as we celebrate the anniversary of the date in 1990 when the World Health Organization stopped considering gay people to be “diseased,” we call on world leaders to do more — not less — to protect the human rights of all people around the world — including in Syria, in the South Sudan, and in Chechnya. If we turn a blind eye when human rights are violated, we all the suffer consequences of living in a world of violence and instability.
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6 Things Every Man Who Dates Trans Women Needs to Know Courtesy of Everyday Feminism, By Kai Cheng Thom, published on October 7, 2015 Dear Boyfriends, This is a love letter to each and every one of you. This is a letter to let you know that I still think about everything we did and will do together, everything we’ve talked about, every fight we had, and every tender moment we’re going to share. This is a letter to all the men, both cisgender and transgender, who have ever loved me, and to all the men I will ever love. I want you to know that you change my life and give me strength – even when things between us were/are hard. I want you to know that I see you, I appreciate you, even when I am challenging you to treat women like me – trans women and women of color – better than men in this society are taught to. I know that being a man who is dating a trans woman (who is outspoken and only sometimes passes) is not always an easy thing. Let’s also take as a given the fact that being a trans woman who is outspoken and only sometimes passes is pretty much never easy thing. Both of these things are true because of the transmisogyny that still runs rampant in our society and the communities we live in. And while this discrimination and hatred is mainly leveled toward girls like me, I know that some of it is reflected onto you as well.
This is something that is so, so hard to talk about. It’s something has remained unspoken, yet incredibly real, between us, as it does between so many trans women and the men they date. Part of the difficulty, I know, is that you may not want to admit that being attracted to, going out with, and having sex with trans women comes with intense social stigma. Another part is that trans feminists like myself believe that any discussion of transmisogyny must center around trans women ourselves. I don’t agree with Laverne Cox (for once in my life) when she says that men who date trans women “are probably more stigmatized than trans women.” Because that is blatantly untrue. Men who date trans women are not murdered regularly the way that we are. You don’t experience employment and housing discrimination or exclusion from social spaces in the way that we do. But neither can I pretend that you live your life totally free from the violence and humiliation that a transmisogynistic culture attaches to my body – a body that you have touched and held and become associated with. And as much as we may wish that things were different, you and I know that there are so many walls that lie in the way of
our loving each other. These barriers have caused us to question ourselves, and our relationships. Often, we fought about them. Sometimes, we broke up because of them. You shouldn’t have to learn how to fight transphobia and shaming in order to be with me. I shouldn’t have to teach you how. But the truth is, this is world that often necessitates both. Whether I like it or not, I am in this fight to the end. I have to be. You, however, have a choice: your privilege allows you to choose whether you want to walk away from the struggle that is loving trans women, or stay fighting with us. And if you should choose the latter – and I hope you do – then there are a few things I need you to know about shame, loving trans women, and loving yourself. 1. Dating Me Doesn’t Change Your Sexual Orientation 2. Dating Me Doesn’t Make You ‘Abnormal’ 3. Dating Me Doesn’t Make You Less of a Man 4. Having Sex with Me Isn’t a Fetish (Or It Shouldn’t Be) 5. You Don’t Have to Pity Me to Love Me 6. Loving Me Doesn’t Define You
Knowing how to love a trans woman is simple. You do it the way you ought to love anybody else: not fearlessly, but courageously.
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Black & Pink Chapter Feedback! At the moment there are Black & Pink free world chapters in Boise, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, Providence, San Francisco, Seattle, and South West Ohio and one inside chapter just starting up in Texas. Every chapter is its own autonomous entity with its own projects, capacity, and structure. To be a chapter, the group must share the Black & Pink analysis, statement of purpose, and agree to the basic requirements. These requirements are: • All chapter members have a pen pal • Focus on connecting people with incarcerated Black & Pink members in close geographic proximity • Starting number of 4 individuals to begin the chapter • Monthly communication with free world leadership circle in Boston; submit updates to e-Newsletter • Quarterly conference calls with chapters and sibling organizations • 2 year commitment for the group • Be in relationship with organizations doing local antiprison work
Otherwise chapters are free to move about in their own way, doing work that makes sense for their geographic location. The projects that chapters work on range from processing mail from inside members, to organizing End Solitary campaigns in their state, to leading workshops on pen-pal friendships or prisoner advocacy, to trainings on administering naloxone. Alongside working on various projects, chapters serve as an LGBTQ supportive family for LGBTQ incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals to be a part of and reach out to for advocacy, basic needs and community resources. Q1: If you’re located in a state where there is already chapter started, are you connected with that chapter or would you like to be? A: I am not connected but I would like to be connected with the ____________ chapter. B: No, and I don't want to join the chapter. C: Yes, I am connected with the ____________chapter. -If yes: How has your experience been so far?
Resources from “Self-Care on the Inside” Written by Everett Redente & Published by Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Writing If you have found that writing is a helpful tool, you may want to reach out to the PEN America Program, which publishes the work of people in prison and has a free handbook for aspiring writers: PEN America 588 Broadway, Suite 303 New York, NY 10012
Yoga Many people find yoga to be a helpful and healing practice. You can write to the Prison Yoga Project and ask for a free book: The Prison Yoga Project P.O. Box 426 San Quentin, CA 94964
Q2: If you’re located in a state where there isn't a chapter yet, would you be interested in helping to start one? A: Yes! B: No, thanks! Q3: Besides yourself do you know of anyone, on the inside or in your free world community, that might be interested in starting a chapter? A: I don't know of anyone who might be interested B: I only know of inside members who might be interested C: I only know of free world folks that might be interested D: I know of inside members and free world folks that might be interested Q4: Would you like more information on how to start a chapter and information on what kinds of projects and advocacy chapters are doing? A: Yes (especially on starting an inside chapter) B:Yes (especially on starting a free world chapter) C: Yes (on starting both inside and free world chapter) D: No, thanks! Cut out & return the above feedback to: Black & Pink - Feedback 614 Columbia Rd. Dorchester, MA 02125 LGBT Books to Prisoners If you want to learn more about healing and trauma – or anything else – you can write to the LGBT Books to Prisoners program and ask if they have books on certain subjects. They might not, but they may be able to find other books for you: LGBT Books to Prisoners c/o Social Justice Center Incubator 1202 Williamson St #1 Madison, WI 53703
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Black & Pink News
Sheriff David Clarke is Dangerous Courtesy of the Guardian, By Patrisse Cullors , published on May 19, 2017 Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee – a firebrand who has called Black Lives Matter a “terrorist” and “hate” group – announced this week that he will be serving as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Partnership and Engagement. The Department of Homeland Security has yet to confirm the appointment. If true, it would represent an overt attack against Black Lives Matter and black and brown communities across the country and the globe by the Trump administration. Don’t believe me? Just consider this gem by the controversial sheriff: “We have several forces internal and external attacking our rule of law: Isis, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street – just the most recent iterations of the elements who brand themselves as unique but seek the same revolutionary aim: take down the West, the philosophy of equality before the law, and replace it with their authority, their rules, their hate.” Clarke, born and raised in one of the country’s most segregated cities, Milwaukee, has served as sheriff there since 2002. Before then, he rose steadily but surely within the ranks of local law enforcement and built his reputation on the successful criminalization of black people. At least four people have died in a Milwaukee county jail under his watch. Meanwhile, national conservative-leaning news outlets seek Clarke out for his racist rhetoric. Among his most horrifying comments is that Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray – all of whom were killed by police – and Trayvon Martin
were co-conspirators in their own deaths. If Clarke is indeed appointed at the Department of Homeland Security, he will only further protect the Trump administration’s racist agenda in his new role. Since his inauguration, Trump has signed numerous executive orders that negatively impact poor black and brown, queer, Muslim and other communities. Increased immigrant arrests and Ice raids, travel bans against Muslim people and Jeff Sessions implementing 1980s-esque Drug War policies disproportionately targeting black people are only the beginning. The scale of what we can expect looks grim. Clarke’s insulting belief that “blue lives matter” suggests that he is bent on emboldening local and national law enforcement agencies and dismantling civil liberties that defend our right to protest these very institutions. The way he demonizes Black Lives Matter is befitting for an enemy in a war zone. He openly dismisses civil liberties and suggests introducing limitless detention. This is jolting. Black Lives Matter was born out of our unwavering love for black people and our undeniable rage over a system that has historically dehumanized black people. The Trump administration has done everything in its power to uphold the harsh racist reality we have faced. However, in the national conversation
outraged by Clarke’s nomination, one narrative is absent: our right and need to resist. Clarke has accused Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock and other movements of targeting the US rule of law. And, why wouldn’t we? Local law enforcement agencies, national police authorities and other stateoperated surveillance has created a hostile environment for communities at the margins. We’re up against clansmen in business suits, with government titles, badges and multi-million dollar weapons at their disposal. And, the Trump administration is expanding their rights by the day. Black people should not be harassed, incarcerated, deported and murdered at the hands of law enforcement. Clarke actively invests in this status quo. Therefore, we need to create another. In the era of Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and Sheriff Clarke and many more white supremacist, Islamophobic misogynists working within this administration; we must remind ourselves that we have to organize. We have to resist. This moment desperately calls for a radical transformation of our society from the inside out. Our affirmation that Black Lives Matter is seen as transformative because we live in a world where black lives are not valued. Black Lives Matter denounces Sheriff Clark and calls for a renewed commitment to the resistance against hatred and bigotry.
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Volume 8, Issue 5
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An Unhealable Wound Courtesy of Son of Baldwin, published through Medium on May 19, 2017 “It’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. You become a collaborator, an accomplice of your own murderers, because you believe the same things they do. They think it’s important to be white and you think it’s important to be white; they think it’s a shame to be black and you think it’s a shame to be black. And you have no corroboration around you of any other sense of life.” ― James Baldwin “Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth.” ― Toni Morrison
This story contains heartbreaking descriptions of the murder of a child. Discretion is advised. Family, Can you please help me to understand what must happen to a human being that the idea of murdering a sixyear-old boy is remotely within the realm of possibility? Who or what pulverizes the heart, mangles the mind, and strips the spirit to such a degree that pointing a gun at a baby, pulling the trigger, and leaving the shattered and desecrated body in the wilderness to rot is something that borders on ritual? How could they have possibly looked into that baby’s sweet face and said, “You must be destroyed”? What have we created here to have
so expertly and severely severed people from their compassion?
said Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest.
When children kill children as simply as if it were a video game and virtual reality, every adult in the society is to blame.
As previously reported by The Root, there were initially two persons of interest. Wakefield, a senior at Ridgeland High School and the school’s former starting quarterback, was taken into custody soon after Kingston’s body was found.”
How do we undo this hateful hate that corrodes the insides first, then spills out and poisons the world? You tell me. How? From The Root: “Dwan Diondro Wakefield, 17, D’Allen Washington, 17, and Bryon McBride Jr., 19, are all in custody and will all be charged with capital murder for the heinous killing of 6-year-old Kingston Frazier,
Look at that boy’s face. How could you not only love it? How? I don’t like to wish bad things on people, but may this child’s murderers feel eternal turmoil. May they never have a moment’s rest. May Kingston’s face forever haunt them. May the pain they inflicted be ever visited upon them. May restitution be extracted from their souls. May, in their enlightenment, their suffering never cease.
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Black & Pink News
Bresha Meadows's Hearing Resulted in a Plea Deal Courtesy of Teen Vogue, By Mariame Kaba, published on May 23, 2017 On Monday, Bresha Meadows, a 15-year-old black girl who shot and killed her allegedly abusive father, accepted a plea deal offered by prosecutors to resolve her case after months of suspense and worry. She has already served nine months in a juvenile detention center in Warren, Ohio. Now, under the terms of the plea deal, which drops her aggravated murder charge to involuntary manslaughter — she will remain at the juvenile detention center in Warren through July 29, and then will spend at least six months in a mental health facility in Cleveland before eventually returning to her family. When she is released from the treatment facility, she will be on probation for two years. Bresha killed her father in his sleep with the gun he allegedly used to threaten his family last July. Her case has since raised national awareness of the mistreatment and plight of black girls in the U.S. criminal justice system — young people who, in states like Ohio, where Bresha is from, can be tried as adults and criminalized for selfdefense. Brandi Meadows, Bresha’s mother, told Teen Vogue that she just wants to “thank everyone for their support. I’m relieved that she’ll get the help she desperately needs.” The steps that led her to this desperate act — which occurred on July 28, 2016, when Bresha was 14 — were years in the making. For her entire life, Bresha witnessed
her father’s brutal violence against her mother and siblings, according to family members. Bresha herself was also abused emotionally and, according to her own accounts, sexually. Dr. Kathleen M. Heide, an expert in parricide, testified in court on Monday that Bresha fit the characteristics of a “severely abused child.” She tried to escape her abusive home on several occasions only to be returned to her father, reaching out to adults who she thought would help her, like her aunt Martina Latessa, a Cleveland police detective who described the first 14 years of Bresha’s life as “a nightmare.” In court, Ian Friedman, Bresha’s attorney, said, “she grew up in an environment where every adult failed her.” She told many people that she was in trouble and needed help. The night she killed her father, she took matters into her own hands to protect herself and her family, according to those working for her freedom. According to her mother, Bresha likes to write and read urban fiction. She loves to sing and write poetry, and her favorite rappers are DeJ Loaf and Common. These are ordinary teenage pursuits, and yet nothing about Bresha’s situation is ordinary — especially in a Warren, Ohio, courtroom, seeing her small frame in a blue prison uniform as she sat before a judge. Bresha sat quietly, sometimes whispering to her attorneys throughout the hearing. She has been on suicide watch multiple times during her nine-month incarceration, and has been diagnosed with severe
depression and PTSD. She is traumatized. Locking her up has only compounded her traumas, according to family. Lena Cooper, her father’s sister, rose in the court to deliver two victim impact statements. She disputed the allegations that her brother had abused his wife and children. “My brother was a good man. He did not abuse his family. He did not abuse his children,” she said. He was not, according to Cooper, “the monster that is being portrayed in the media.” Yet just a few days prior, Bresha’s cousin told a local newspaper that he, too, had been abused by Jonathan Meadows. The #FreeBresha campaign began last August, and its main goal was to make sure that Bresha would be home with her family as soon as possible. Organizers (this writer included) wanted prosecutors to drop the charges against her. They called for her immediate release. Without the public attention paid to this case, Bresha might very well have been tried as an adult. If convicted, she could have faced a sentence of 25 years to life — and will instead spend 18 months in confinement. It’s a small comfort, but not what Bresha’s supporters hoped for. They argue that survivors of violence who defend themselves should not be criminalized and imprisoned. The cycle of abuse that they have lived through in their interpersonal relationships should
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Volume 8, Issue 5
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Reforms Leaving Behind the Mentally Ill Courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle, published on May 27, 2017 Since 2011, California has engaged in a comprehensive reform process for the state prison system. These badly needed reforms, which include significant changes to rehabilitative programs and prison and jail crowding, have improved the state’s justice system, while overall crime rates continue trending downward.
mental illness appears to be getting worse, not better, in California’s prisons. More than 30 percent of California prisoners are receiving treatment for a serious mental disorder — that’s a 150 percent increase since 2000. The severity of prisoners’ psychiatric symptoms has increased dramatically over the past five years.
That’s why a new study from the Stanford Justice Advocacy Project is so alarming. It suggests that California’s mentally ill prisoners —the very population for whom these reforms were partly initiated — aren’t benefiting from them.
There’s also evidence that the mentally ill prison population is being left behind by many of the recent reforms. For example, California is trying to ease prison overcrowding by offering early release or parole consideration for certain prisoners who exhibit good behavior and don’t violate prison rules.
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a court order stating California must reduce its prison population, to improve psychiatric and medical treatment for the inmates. But while the prison population has been reduced,
Bresha Meadows not be replicated by the violence that they experience in courtrooms, jails, and prisons. Bresha’s family is thankful to have a resolution to her case. Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Martina Latessa, Bresha’s aunt, said that her family was “extremely relieved [and] glad with this outcome.” Ian Friedman, Bresha’s attorney, suggested that this was the best possible outcome for her. “Nothing good would have come of incarcerating this child for long
On paper, that’s an excellent idea. But many mentally ill inmates deteriorate in prison, leading them to violate prison rules. State prison regulations also sanction behaviors — like suicide
attempts — that would be better handled with psychiatric treatment. The prison system’s mental health crisis carries enormous social and economic costs for the inmates, the prison staff and society at large. A prison population with a greater prevalence of mental health issues creates obvious difficulties and dangers, both for prison staff and the inmate population. Many inmates would have better outcomes in community-based mental health treatment, which is both more effective and less expensive than incarceration. Until California takes its investments in mental health seriously, the state’s mentally ill will have to settle for the housing and treatment they can get. The fact that this housing and treatment is increasingly in the state prison system shames all of us.
continued from page 14 years,” he said. Yet Bresha is still not free. After the hearing, she was returned to jail. On July 30, she will be confined to a mental health treatment center for at least six months, which will cost her family $70,000. This is money that they do not have. In addition, if the treatment facility decides that Bresha needs to stay there longer, they can decide to extend her stay. Once she is released in 2018, she still has two years of state supervision through probation. Discussing why the state offered the plea deal, juvenile prosecutor
Stanley Elkins said in court that “there is something wrong with this child” — but Bresha’s advocates argue that there is something wrong with a court system and society that would criminalize a child for selfdefense. While leaving the courthouse, her aunt Sherri told Teen Vogue, “Bresha’s a good kid.” With tears falling down her cheeks, she said, “I want people to know that and I’m looking forward to a future where she will do a lot of good for others in the world.”
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June 2017
Gender and Sexual Orientation Terms and Definitions* Androgynous: a term for a person who expresses or presents merged socially-defined masculine and feminine characteristics, or mainly neutral characteristics.
Gender Expression / Gender Presentation: the way a person expresses his or her gender through gestures, movement, dress, and grooming.
Bisexual: a person who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to men and women.
Gender Identity: a person’s understanding, definition, or experience of their own gender, regardless of biological sex.
Crossdressing (CD): dressing as someone from a different gender category; may be done by people from all genders and sexual orientations. Crossdressers sometimes refered to as transvestites (TV).
Gender Nonconformity: not expressing gender or not having gender characteristics or gender identity that conform to the expectations of society and culture.
Feminine: concept of what is “naturally” or traditionally female in terms of appearance, behavior, and personality.
Genderqueer: a term which is used by some people who may or may not fit on the spectrum of trans, or be labeled as trans, but who identify their gender and sexual orientation to be outside of the gender binary system, or culturally prescribed gender roles.
Gay: a person who identifies as a man who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to men.
Gender Role: culturally accepted and expected behavior associated with biological sex.
Gender Binary System: a social system that requires everyone to be raised as a boy or girl (dependent on what sex you are assigned at birth), which in turn forms the basis for how you are educated, what jobs you can do (or are expected to do), how you are expected to behave, what you are expected to wear, what your gender and gender presentation should be, and who you should be attracted to/love/marry, etc.
Intersex: refers to a series of medical conditions in which a child’s genetic sex (chromosomes) and phenotypic sex (genital appearance) do not match, or are somehow different from the “standard” male or female. About one in 2,000 babies are born visibly intersexed, while some others are detected later.
Drag: crossdressing, especially in public or in a performance.
Gender Characteristics: characteristics that are used by others to attribute gender to an individual, such as facial hair or vocal pitch.
Lesbian: a person who identifies as a woman who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to women. Masculine: concept of what is “naturally” or traditionally
male in terms of appearance, behavior, and personality. Pansexual: a person who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to folks of all genders. Passing: crossdressing well enough to be seen as a member of a different sex/gender category. Sex: one’s biological assignment as male, female, or intersexed. Transgender (TG): a term for designating those who transcend or transgress gender by not looking, acting, being, or identifying as traditionally male or female; can include crossdressers, transsexuals, intersex people, and other gender nonconformists. Transsexual (TS): a person who feels that his or her gender identity does not match their biological sex (“I’m a woman in a man’s body” etc.); a pre-op (preoperative) transsexual is a TS preparing to have sex reassignment surgery, and a post-op (postoperative) transsexual has already undergone sex reassignment, although not all transsexuals desire surgery; some transsexuals take hormones to make their bodies look more male or female. *These definitions are not set in stone. Everyone has the autonomy to define their gender and/or sexual orientation within their own terms. This list is just a start. B&P would like to create our own glossary of terms and definitions focused on prisoner gender expression and sexuality, so please write to us! Definitions courtesy of the GSA Network.
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☆ ﾟ. * ~ new editors saying hello ~ * . ﾟ♡
ヾ（＾∀＾） メ （´∇｀） ﾉ”
Hey what’s up y’all, I’m r0se and along with Mae I’m one of the two new (since December!) co-editors of Black & Pink News. I’m a 29-year-old white Jewish trans woman, born and raised in the Midwest, bounced all over the place for most of my 20s, now living on the East Coast. I was (very briefly!) incarcerated in the Southwest in 2014 and am currently serving out three years of probation. I’ve been transitioning for almost 6 years and doing prisoner support work on and off since 2013 or so. In the past, I’ve also volunteered for Trans Lifeline, the 24hour transgender crisis line—(877) 565-8860!— and worked as a cabin counselor at a summer camp for LGBTQ youth. Professionally, I’ve done print/media/internet work since college. Recently I went to school to learn computer programming and am currently looking
for my first position in that field! My interests include biking, basketball, scifi/fantasy, herbalism, film, magic, Yiddish, Judaism, and yoga I also play bass in a Yiddish punk band with mostly other trans women. I’m a lesbian and and always have a lot of love for trans women.
BY
M
MI INI-
(TX)
B&P fam: I read y’all’s letters and poems every month and am consistently so inspired by your strength. My heart goes out to all of you. It’s my deepest honor to help put this newspaper together for you every month.
As a college-educated white girl from a relatively welloff family, I know my path through the legal system has been and will continue to be a walk in the park compared to what most of y’all go through every day, and that’s part of what motivates me to continue doing what I can to give back <3 My mission, as well as Mae’s I think, is for this newspaper to truly serve all of you. If there’s a topic you’d like us to cover, something in the paper that’s not working for you, anything you’d like us to do better or differently— please feel free to share feedback, ideas, suggestions with us:
Black & Pink — Feedback see page 38 for mailing info Thank you for continuing to fight and survive, and for being who you are.Mae will write in and share a bit about themself in a future issue!
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Dear Black & Pink, I write you from a secured prison. I send my thoughts in this letter because I care. I know you might not believe that. I feel you. Because these words are comin from a stranger, you have every right to feel the way you feel. But the truth of the matter is my heart bleeds for this young world. I've seen young lives fade away from the city streets, streets full of the living dead feel me? My brother was murdered in the streets; the homies I come up with, some passed away, some are housed in local facilities. Look at me; I've been in prison 22 years. My heart is shedding tears for you because I don't want this young world to fall victim to the prison system. Prison is a place where they show you no care, tell you what to do and when to do it and not talk back. The thought of it I still can't bare. So what I feel, I want to share. Prison is not a place for you. It will only brain wash you, turn you out to be a monster inside. You are someone who needs guidance, love, and support. I have never had those things. All I felt was loss, rejection,
Hello Familia (Family), I hope that my story carries on. I am a 23 year old bisexual female. I’ve been down with that for 10 years now. I’m about to be 24 years old. Sometimes I don’t understand the Texas Department of Criminal Justice because half of the inmates—I’d say at least 22,000 females—come in not and turn out twisted. What I mean by that is they come in gay for the stay and next thing you know they get a man. Well there is a com-
June 2017
Black & Pink News
and unloved. Father never in the picture, Mother was abusive. Too much for a young man to handle so I ran away just to run into the prison gates. If you can only imagine the pain and hurt I've bene through, your
heart will fold for me. I haven't seen the streets in 22 years. I'll be an alien to the ones that are free. I don't even know the new world...crazy, huh? Sincerely, Storm Truth
Young World (by Storm Truth) Listen to me! Please re-evaluate your life. Understand that crime don't pay nothin but hard time or a casket. Don't waste your young life. There is potential in you, a dream in you. All you have to do is believe in a Creator that controls the universe. Believe in yourself that you can do better instead of doing destructive things.
plete difference with me because I have a child and am bisexual. I go both ways so of course I want to go have more kids and these wannabe studboys as you can say have no loyalty in them. Why? I need some feedback on this. I’ve been locked up for 5 years now. I’ve only been in 3 relationships. My main partner is at home. She has kept it real with me for 2 years. Regardless of whoever I’m with, I will always have love for my
There's a king in you, a queen in you. You are the mothers of our future. Think before you act. Act without thinking, you'll suffer the consequences. So be you. Seek to help; be a leader not a follower. Your life is your life. Achieve it. Don't ruin it. It is your life Young World!!!
partner Marissa AKA babygirl. I want to get married to her. We did time together and did everything together. We did get in trouble together but I think lost her because I decided to jump into another relationship when she went home. No matter what, she is my ride or die. Just to be blunt this is to all y’all bull-dawging females. Y’all need to get a life... Marissa AKA babygirl I love you. Selena (TX)
Volume 8, Issue 5
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Our Black & Pink Family: Art, Letters, Poetry Some Words of Encouragement: To everyone in the LGBTQ Community, I would like to reach out and 1) say thank you for all of your time that you have put into the Black & Pink newspaper. It is all encouraging to see that there are people out there who understand and know exactly what I am going through. It’s excellent that there are newspapers, magazines, and all
new world. It has given me ways to cope with all the torment, hate, disregard, and threats that come from all the “Str8” inmates and C.O.s. I want to also say that it has helped me to understand why people act this way towards our community. I forgot to mention that I am a 27-year-old bisexual man who likes men more than women. Don’t get me wrong I still like to be with women. But I find that men know
“75% of [the ‘Str8’ individuals] that tease, torture, and harass us... are in the closet and afraid to Come Out. Remember: people can’t make us angry. We only let them push our buttons. We have to show them that what they say and do can’t and won’t affect us.” the resources that help us when we need it. And 2) The poems, letters, pictures, and thoughts are Amazing and thoroughly interesting. They have gotten me started to express myself in more ways than just writing letters. I now write poetry, lyrics and I also draw. At one point in time I Thought that I was alone in this world of “Str8 people.” I was hated, harassed, beat up, twice, tormented, disowned by my own family, and illegally contained by law enforcement. I was literally put through Hell. Then someone put the Black & Pink magazine/newspaper in my hands. And I read it from front to back. It opened my eyes to a hole
exactly how to treat another man. They also know how and what to do to please another man. Since I have been here in Montana State Prison I have met quite a few Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender inmates. And yes we have all stuck together, no matter what. In this prison we are a tight knit community. So once again I want to say thank you immensely for all the positive things that each and everyone one of you have put in to Black & Pink. Now I would like to offer some encouraging words, thoughts, and feelings to those of our community who have struggled and are con-
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Stigma By Brandon Pierce Every day I’m the subject of self-persecution. A fate worse than death by electrocution. Tie me to a pole and burn me at the stake. Because every day I live with the reminder of a simple mistake. This very thing that puts people in a state of unease. The stigma of this deadly disease. Fear is the welcoming of this disease’s enrollment. The very thing that could claim my life at any moment. My family laying flowers at a stone they call my grave. The constant debate on if I even have a soul to save. For living my life sin after sin. But they can’t force me into a religion I don’t believe in. So they wait around expecting me to believe in it later. Where was that got when I prayed to be delivered from the haters? Or when I prayed to be delivered from this disease? Does he exist or was he just ignoring my pleas?
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June 2017
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BY GONZALO ‘GEE’ (AZ)
These pleas that to the human ear go unheard. The reality of this disease, to the people is blurred. The animosity they hold spreads just like the disease. State to state, from sea to shining sea. To learn the truth, they do not dare. Instead I proceed to receive snide remarks and evil glares. Part of the stigma of such an evil thing. Which does not discriminate amongst human-beings. The virus itself may be the very thing they call hell. Living in my body, destroying my cells. Hiding in reservoirs the medication can’t reach. I’m a living lesson that continues to teach. A hypochondriac is amongst what I am called. But they don’t experience the pain, weakness, vomiting and all. Runny stool, anxiety, depression, and all other ailments. The Gay Man’s Disease that they say is heaven-sent. God’s very own retribution. An attempt to dismantle homosexuals by the radical revolution. Do they really believe this glorifies their deity? These people just prey on our frailty. The frailty of our entire nation. A nation full of people whose egos are the victims of inflation. Every day they have to be more than they are. Feeling like they own both the moon and the stars. Once they know what you have they won’t shake your hand. Just because these people fear what they don’t understand. So they approach us with hate and ferocity. It makes me snap back to reality. It does me no good to be praying down on my knees; begging that I’ll never have to mention this disease. I envy those of you considered to be “clean.” Not fighting for life, if you know what I mean. I always thought if I caught it it’d be from sleeping around. but it was not there that the virus was found. I got it from someone who I cannot start hating. I got it from someone who I had been dating. He had been raped by a guy who had forced him into an alley. In a city he was visiting when he was in cali! I don’t understand how it could be, that with the symptoms he had so obviously, that he didn’t get tested for HIV, before deciding to sleep with me. He called and told me the results over the phone. He begged my forgiveness for what he should’ve known. My preliminary test came back negative. But three months later I tested positive. That day was the day I was sentenced to death. This disease may be the cause of me breathing my last breath.
Volume 8, Issue 5
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‘Stigma’ (Brandon Pierce) I’m cursed with sorrow on top of the disease in which it derives. What’s the chance of finding someone to love the rest of my life? Even though my life is extended by a daily dose of a pill. And so many others understand exactly how I feel. The virus living in their body; immune system tainted. A society of people who continue to be alienated! that have a hot flash one moment and the next they freeze. They all bear the stigma of this disease. Though that mark varies in a case by case scenario, suffering consists in the greater ratio. Problems that I’ve mentioned before, plus some. So many people don’t care, their hearts have grown numb. They say they practice love, but for us, they cannot feel a thing. Their animosity, ferocity, their fear always resonating. I hear this country is becoming more aware. That more people are starting to care. More people supporting December 1st. More red ribbons upon their shirts. And yet, the truth is diluted by their fears, The caring-soul won’t stop to embrace the disease-ridden boy in tears. Apart from the tears, that boy is me. They are afraid to shake hands with the face of H.I.V. I’ve pushed so hard and still I cannot cry. I’ve cried so long now that these eyes are dry. Embraced by a grandmother who knew nothing about HIV. Concerned only with a grandson she may no longer see. A grandson that she may live long enough to watch him die. A grandson that was sentenced to death and neither know why. An entire family affected by a single diagnosis. All in a haze similar to the effect of hypnosis. My parents were afraid of the virus inside of me. My dad was worried about me infecting the family. Do you know how it feels when those you love are afraid of you? You need a place to live, but they don’t know what to do. They are afraid when you’re in the kitchen using a knife. That a single mistake could affect the span of their lives. I never thought my family could look at me with fear in their eyes. That they could ever consider me the cause of their demise. Sometimes I wonder what they think when they look at me? I wonder if it slips their minds that I have HIV? Does the love they have outweigh the fear of me? When they look at me, I wonder what they see? An attempted murder for sleeping with someone I’m dating? Am I the victim of someone they are hating? Do they hate the guy who cursed me with this disease? Do they wish I’d distance myself, that I would just leave? This is a stigma that cannot be erased. A stigma I’m forced to embrace.
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Dear Black & Pink family, Since I first wrote in, over a year ago, you’ve known that I am HIV+. Though the number of years I’ve survived with the virus does not top other’s survival times, I am 32 years old, I am a gay male and I’ve been living with HIV for 7 years. actually 7 years and about 4 months now. I am undetectable, which means the medicine I take has put the virus into remission. It also means that it is NEARLY impossible, IF NOT, IMPOSSIBLE for me to transmit the
“All of you facing any type of persecution be it over your skin color, sexuality, age, gender, or religion—keep in mind that you are not alone!” virus to anyone else through blood or through sex. Whenever I get my blood tested (which is every 3 months) I read 2 lines mainly: The viral load which for me says “No HIV cells detected.” The other line I look for is the CD4 which bounces up and down and is the amount of white blood cells found in your blood as an indicator of how your immune system looks. Typically the CD4 should be between 680 and I think 1300. It’s been a long time since I last read the
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June 2017
Our Black & Pink Family: Letters, Poetry Dear Black & Pink, My name is DH which is my birth name but, I go by my real name which is Ellis. I am writing this letter in regards to transitioning in prison. I have been in transition since October 2016 which has only been six months. I have lived my life behind the mask of society’s ridicule and judgement for 38yrs of my life. I came to prison very unsure of myself in this body but, I never stopped trying to
“Washington State inmates have rights to transition... I just want to be free on the inside and outside. I want to match.” find a way to accomplish my goal of being my true self and living in a body that matched. I wrote to the ACLU and to LAMBDA LEGAL, and to Washington State’s very own Columbia legal services to assist me in this fight against Washington Correctional Facility for Women and their old conservative beliefs about what is considered ‘medically necessary.’ If I had to choose between being what the system claims is normal and being a trans man I would choose what is
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continued from page 19 tinuing to struggle with all of the road blocks that are being placed in our way. Now I am still dealing with people who hate and torment the LGBTQ community. So I am not saying that I have overcome all obstacles, because I haven’t. But I will say this. I have learned of ways to ignore, block out, and deal with each and every attack. So here is my words, thoughts, and feelings. On the topic of abuse (whether it’s verbally, physically, sexually, mentally) by all those in the law enforcement. My adoptive mom has always taught me that no matter what happens if you ignore them and show that it doesn’t bother you, they will leave you alone. Well for the most part it is true. Not always but mostly. But I look at it this way. Out of the “Str8” individuals about 75% of them that tease, torture, and harass us, is because they are in the closet and afraid to Come Out. Remember: people can’t make us angry. We only let them push our buttons. We have to show them that what they say and do can’t and won’t affect us. Another thing that I have learned is an expression passed down from another man. He said to think of this phrase and repeated it over and over until it is embedded in your Mind. The phrase is “This too Shall pass.” My adoptive mom also taught me “to do as thy will and it harm none.” So stay positive, help your fellow LGBTQ peers and know that for every action there is a reaction. For every positive action is a positive reward. And every negative be-
havior has a negative consequence. I am very proud to be part of a community who has each others’ backs no matter what. I want to wish all my fellow LGBTQ inmates and “free world” people all the best. And I also wish to let every one know, who has lost someone in that Florida Club shooting, that each and every one of you are in my prayers. Even though I was locked up here at Deerlodge Montana State Prison,it still hurt my heart to know that someone could be so ignorant. I have been part of the LGBTQ Community since I was 13 years old and Since then I have watched a lot of “Str8” individuals just destroy our hopes, lives, well beings and our Freedom. But I say NO MORE! We deserve happiness, love, companionship, freedom, compassion, loyalty and the right to be equal. We have to fight for what we deserve and want. We got to stop letting people walk all over us like we are a welcoming mat on a front stoop. Because we are humans, and we deserve to be treated as an equal person. I hope to meet more of my fellow community when I get out/released from this prison. I discharge July 25th, 2018 so I hope to see a positive change, even if it is a little one. Because nobody is perfect and change is slow. It doesn’t happen in one time. So stay positive, “Do as thy will an harm none” and remember This Too Shall Pass. I will everyone a happy, positive, and stress and drama free holidays, whether you are locked up for free. Peace be with all of you, and Blessed Be, Nemo (MT)
Volume 8, Issue 5
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My life been up hill been lock up back and forth facing discrimination for who I am Gay black and happy
caught HIV while doing me not going to stop being me doing me All because I’m sick I got a fight to fight encouraging people to be them Gay and happy
God loves me He die for me Knowing that I’ll be gay So forget you haters Just living my life Gay and happy Dedicated to my gay mother
Live a life worth living for
Who cares I’m gay my family loves me
by Juicy Queen Bee (PA)
of hurt, destruction & alienation? For anyone who can do so, ask for these 2 books: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg PhD & Nonviolent Communication Companion Workbook by Lucy Leu [can be found online at “nonviolentcommunication.com” 10% off with code ‘book ads’] It teaches us how to speak a language of compassion & helps us leave behind the hate filled language of judgment & condemnation. I have served 15 years on a 25 forced plea. I have known discrimination of all kinds for all ‘reason’ & I have battled the guards & courts for just as long.
In 2016 family sent me these books & changed my life and theirs forever. The guards respect me now, as do other prisoners who I once had problems with. When guards do come at me wrong, I now have the power to defuse the problem & get things sorted without harm to me or them. Yes. Even Them. For truly, how can we heal our world & gain respect if we cannot first be examples of what we claim to believe? If we wish others to love & respect us, we must first learn how to live that in our own lives. Love & respect are not weak, they are POWER! IT is easy to kill, hurt & maim by word or deed. It takes a much stronger soul to know how to choose to heal, love & help live. The Nonviolent Communication language taught by Mr. Rosenberg has created peace & healing within communities, saved lives & is being further used internationally to conduct peace talks & strategize between war torn nations of earth. This my Brothers, Sisters & Siblings is what we have been looking for all our lives, and the lives of generations past! Here is our freedom, HERE is our Power! *Even if it’s got a really unimpressive name/title, lol*
My life been up hill
I want to write to share this phenomenal news! Do you want your life back? Do you want ppl to respect you & to hear you? Do you want POWER over your life & your actions? Do you want to look in the mirror every day & know beyond a doubt, that never again will you bear the label ‘victim,’ never again to be truly ‘helpless & trapped’ like a rat in a cage? Do you want the power to heal your heart & free your mind? To get your needs met & know how to meet the needs of those you love? Do you want to speak words of life & love & healing to your loved ones, instead
Cameron (TX)
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June 2017
Black & Pink News
Black & Pink Family: Letters, Poetry, Art continued from page 21 range. My last CD4 count read 784. If you know people who are HIV+ you may ask questions: “Are you undetectable?” “How long have you been on an ARV (AntiRetroViral)?” “What is your CD4?” “Has your CD4 ever dropped below 500? What about 200?” HIV is the virus that causes AIDs, the lower your CD4 the more chance of being diagnosed as AIDs; typically when the CD4 hits 300, last I heard, which was 7 years ago. Oh, before this moves on... PREP talk; June 2016 POZ interviewed (POZ Magazine) 3 guys who got HIV after starting the PREP drug Truvada. For those of you who don’t know what PREP means it’s pre-exposure prophylaxis. You would take this prescription prior to sleeping with an HIV positive person. There is also a post-exposure prophylaxis that you can take within so many days (3 days I think) of having already slept with someone who is POZ. Scientists have also found that HIV leads to an average cellular aging of 4.9 years. This shift is associated with a 19 percent increased risk of death. These are involving DNA and methylation of DNA. If you want to know more on that I’d ask a specialist, because I cannot explain that one. Besides all the medical mumbo jumbo I’m spewing out, I’d really like to encourage you all to practice unity. And stay busy. I’ve been studying Astrology and Lat-
in the last couple weeks. I’ve been really down and depressed over so much stuff. Friends and so-called friends. Family, housing on parole; which I have none right now, and won’t stay in a halfway house. And the way people interact with me because I’m gay or HIV+. Mixed with being a diagnosed insomniac, and the sleeping pills they have me on are too low of a dose. My mind spins and sometimes I can’t take it! I talk to medical to be seen by the psychiatrist and they schedule me so far out, they are doing less to treat & manage my HIV than normal. I wouldn’t know where to begin trying to get proper care, and I don’t want to make too big of waves that they ship me out to another institution when I’ve had issues with a gang that had a green light out on me. I was in protective custody at one time (Remember, my first letter was from P.C., my second was out & gave shoutouts to my friends still in p.c. especially Joey - Yo·ey). So, to all of you facing any type of persecution be it over your skin color, sexuality, age, gender, or religion, keep in mind that you are NOT alone! I am a 32 yr old homosexual white male,
practicing Witchcraft, and I am a sex offender (not proud of the last one, but I have chapters 6, 7, 8 to present to my group before I graduate). I get harassed over my sexuality, my religion, being a S.O., and for my HIV status. But, there are a lot of good people out there that will help you, some are too afraid and those ones are only one step above the tormentors because by not standing up they are allowing it. But, also remember; I’m not encouraging violence, I’m encouraging support! You don’t need to fight physically unless you are defending yourself. But it takes courage to say something supportive: “So, what that he’s gay, he is human just like you.” I wrote a poem (actually 2, but only sending 1 right now). I will send the second one later, I write a lot of poetry btw, this one is called “Stigma” and is about being HIV+. I’d love to hear what you all think. I know it’s long! Brandon AKA Akasha (ID)
I (TX)
INI-M
BY M
Volume 8, Issue 5
Hello my family, I mean that when I say “family.” I’ve buried so many members of my biological family since Christmas 2013. I’m all that’s left. Which brings me to this point in time. This, people, is what family is, “personified.” Members of a community coming together to care for others within our own community. It’s been even more special to watch a family grow from a four page newsletter (I have several copies from 2008) to what we are today.
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No longer do we run in to those hiding places. By running forward we can help discover new paths, search out new answers. Let us be the ones who go first to see what lies ahead. For the ones already connected to the Beltway in DC, let us serve as mediators or “go-betweens,” particularly between the genders but also across the “aisle.” Since we are so well equipped to look into the muck and mire of what society has become from the outside, let us as queer people help society to more accurately perceive itself. We can be reflectors of diver-
“This is not time for passivity. LGBTQ people need to function as catalysts, acting as agents of change, helping to bring about continued reform in this new administration, inciting social movement and supporting the advancement of humanity.” Like I said above, it’s 2017. We as a country have entered into a very unknown future. While others are still searching their heads, trying to figure out how this happened, we as a community need to be “catalytic transformers.” We do not need to sit back and wait for “it” to happen. This is not time for passivity. LGBTQ people need to function as catalysts, acting as agents of change, helping to bring about continued reform in this new administration, inciting social movement and supporting the advancement of humanity. The ones who speak the loudest are the ones who will have the ear of this very confused, inexperienced president. We as a community and a people have blown the door off our closets.
sity and help society determine its limits and boundaries. Allow me to stop just a moment and say that as an outsider looking in or, in my case, an insider looking out, it seems that our community in here (and I’m sure out there, as well) is starting to deal with a whole new issue. An identity crisis. We’re starting to not remember who we were. There is a corrosive effect creeping into out community. I call it “The Isms.” It’s all about I, the self, me. This breeds infighting and is a senseless waste of time and energy. In here it’s bad! Finding and maintaining support is not an easy task. The backstabbing and gossip is sick.
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This Is Us We have all been lost or confused Not knowing what to do Because so many have turned away From people like me and you Though we do not deserve The pain placed in our life We will always have each other To keep us feeling alive Sadness may run in our veins But strength beats in our hearts Many may still turn away And even that won’t rip our pride apart Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender We are a family to be seen We were placed in each others arms To help pick up our community Together we will stay strong and positive Together we will see another day Together we will see our future grow Better each and every day -D (MI)
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My Dear and Beloved B&P Family, I have sat back and heard the cries of my transgender sisters (like Miss Venus W. in Arkansas, and Eric "Angel" AKA YOLO in Texas and others) for long enough, about being punished for engaging in sexual activities. And alleged violation of PREA. Sisters (and ALL persons), please listen to me carefully.
continued from page 22 considered my normal and that is being a man. I asked all of those places for assistance in helping me get hormone therapy through my facility which was a fight in itself and to no avail the fight was left to my mental health provider who did his magic and made it happen. I am very grateful to my doctor but, he had to fight with his cohorts to prove I displayed gender dyshoria.
“I don’t just fight this fight for myself but for the many trans men who don’t have the right words, self-confidence, or the courage to fight the system.” Without the help from these places that claim they are fighting for the rights of prisoners, fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ community and also the rights of human beings. I am very upset about the responses that I received from these places because the excuses were that my case was individual and not
June 2017
Black & Pink News
PREA is a federal law, and as such, the Department of Justice's guidelines are controlling. The Department of Justice came out with 28 CFR Part 115 which, one page 30, clearly states that it is not a crime or punishable act for two persons to engage in consensual sex. Unfortunately, the prisons can still separate you from your significant others, which is punishment in itself, but they cannot punish you per se for having sex. If they give you a ticket, I would cite
the D.O.J. policy if I were you, because it is not a crime. Please keep your heads up, and let me gently kiss your precious tears away by reminding you, please practice discretion and keep people out of your business. The less they know, the less they can do.
big enough and it wasn’t a systematic problem. I thought to myself well what does that mean? I don’t just fight this fight for myself but for the many trans men who don’t have the right words, self confidence, or the courage to fight the system. I am not afraid to voice my needs. The fight I am fighting right now is not for just myself but for all Washington State inmates male and female to receive ‘medically necessary’ gender reaffirming surgery. The State Department of Corrections offender health plan contradicts itself when it comes to deeming SRS medically necessary and not medically necessary by stating that the OHP follows the WPATH standards of care which states that SRS is medically necessary but then in the OHP states it is cosmetic surgery and is not medically necessary. I have looked for policies to assist me in this fight but, the only policy that has any verb age with transgender in it is the PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT. PREA. Does anyone realize that the only thing that the prison is worryed about is if I am assaulted by inmate or staff or attacked verbally? What about the unfinished transition that they refuse to complete, doesn’t that
set me up inside the walls to be a potential victim upon release into the community? Without the second step in my transition which would be top surgery how does it make sense for me to live a year in my new body and get approval for bottom surgery when I am clearly walking around with breast and a beard? Isn’t that confusing to society not to mention disturbing to myself? At this moment I feel deformed and like my body doesn’t match. The more testosterone that enters my system the more I feel like myself then I look at my body and feel the gut punch to the stomach at what I see. I am still stuck in is limbo. I am so furious at these places like the ACLU, and the Lambda legal for not jumping at the chance to take on the Department of Corrections conservative beliefs about Transgender individuals. Washington State inmates have rights to transition, won’t we get the help of our own state’s ACLU or Lambda legal so that we won’t be left behind California, Oregon, Vermont? I just want to be free on the inside and outside. I want to match.
Love + Respect to All of My Skittles, Jerome T. (MA)
Thanks for listening. Ellis (WA)
blackandpink.org
Volume 8, Issue 5
Our B&P Fam: Letters, Art Hello Black and Pink family, I am Jesse, writing from Texas. I have been reading Black & Pink for a few years now, and I'm always intrigued and affected by one or more letters in each issue. Thank you for enlightening me to the life of other LGBT people incarcerated across this country. As a gay man, I can honestly say that I haven't had a bad
BY
MI
NI
-M
I (T
X)
time here in the last 14 years I've been in prison. Sure, I've h a d a few scuffles with guys
that underestimated me thinking of me as weak, because of their misconception and assumption of how gay people are, but I'm just this gay man who is doing time. However I do receive large amounts of respect from men here, who are not gay, and I give them the same respect. There are few who make a show out of not liking me, but they're in my business everyday. There's something behind that facade, and it eventually comes out. Y'all know what I'm talking about! As a biracial man, I've been quite popular here over the years. However, I've been in two long term relationships; the first was 3 years (2006-2009), and the next was 2 years (2014-2016); both of them ended when the guys went home. Most of the officers knew about us, and never gave us any problems, and knew about us, and never gave us any problems, and I feel blessed by that, due to what I have read about some relationships, that are looked at negatively at other units in the prison system. What trips me out about this unit, is the "undercovers". NIt's like an underground society. As long as you are hiding your homosexuality it's okay, but if you are out and proud, it's taboo. People act afraid to talk; don't want to be seen near you; act as if you don't exist, until you end up on the rec. yard at night, or by chance, get moved into the same cell, then everything comes out when the lights go out. There is one phrase I have heard for 14 years, "If we were cellies, we would do our thing". So why do we have to be cellies? Who are you
continued on page 32
Page 27
To All of our B&P Family, I just want to tell you all to keep your head up and never give up or give in, there’s a brighter day ahead and you don’t know what tomorrow will bring, sounds cliché, but it’s true. Also to those of you who are separated from your loved ones, stay strong and fight for it, give it all you got because it works out in the end. I don’t know what types of things you have been through, but if it’s worth it you got to fight, and when you feel down and feel like giving up or checking out early from this life, remember all of those who gave everything for us to be who we are and those who lost their loved ones to hate and those who have gone through the same type of horrible things you have...you’re not alone... even if your locked in the hole and you and your someone are apart. Your part of a bigger family and as long you really love each other, you keep each other in your heart... The people we love, I mean truly love become a part of who we are. Those of you in lock down I send luv and prayers out to you and hope that you will stand up and be strong for those you love and not let anyone keep you down. much love and many prayers, Mato Witko Oka (AZ)
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June 2017
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Black & Pink Family: Letters, Poetry, Art continued from page 25 Black & Pink is and has been my support group, family and all around hug for many years now. As of the Dec/Jan 2016/17 issue of B&P your hugs are reaching out or being sent to 9,400 of us since 2007. Yes, that is something of which we should be very proud. However, really? Come on, boys and girls. It should be double that now.
“Let us as queer people help society to more accurately perceive itself. We can be reflectors of diversity and help society determine its limits and boundaries.” I love y’all, I really do. I’m sure my past few letters have been dark and I’m sure that’s why I haven’t received any print time. I have a very bad habit of digging myself a hole. My problem is I hang curtains and stay awhile. Some of you know I have a blog site, but lately I don’t really have much to talk about. When I started sounding like I was talking to myself, the Texas Dept. of Criminal (In) Justice told me that I should really tone down my blogs about the injustices going on here or face losing my chance at parole. Well, at parole, my blogs would have put an insomniac to sleep and, guess what, I still didn’t make my first parole. So yeah, New Year’s Day this year hurt just a little more, especially after 25 years.
Since I’m not making parole I’m going to start something in here that I’ve been working on with a couple of people on the outside for two years or so. I am a disabled vet. I’m no war hero but I served 9 years before my accident forced me to leave. I’m working with one VA psychiatrist and a representative, both of whom have been very supportive and helpful. I know the fight I’m about to undertake is going to be one full of struggle and I’m begging anyone who wishes to give me good counsel to do so. I’m requesting that TDCJ start my hormone treatment to transition from male to female. This is the final hurdle. So, everyone, I’d like to introduce you to Celeste. That’s right,
Billy’s always been a girl, just not a good one. But this is who I’ve always been. Always. Ever since jumping on a train from Plano to Dallas so I could be with my own kind. And since I got to Texas I’ve been looking for the girls on the unit just to say hello. Well, I’m going to close and, I’m not kidding, I need advice. I also need to know I’m not going to do this alone. I love you, my family. Let us rejoice in the tight community we are and not let our fight for equal protections steal our community identity and spirit. Peace, With all my love, Celeste (TX)
The Prison Rose It’s been growing Here for years
with love Keep it safe and forever strong
In my Heart and in a cell but now
for it has lived on Tears but it
I must send it out for it Doesn’t belong
will Never Do you wrong it needs a lot
in This Hell so to you I give This Rose
of love so Don’t ever make it cry
from The Garden of my Heart and Though
and most of all Don’t send it back
it was Raised in prison, Please allow it
for in prison the Rose will Die
a fresh start Let it warm your Heart
By Juan R (CA)
Volume 8, Issue 5
Dear B & P family,
beautiful feeling. It makes me motivated to do it again and again. Eventually you gain respect and are left alone. I've been in prison 5 years now, I've been openly gay the whole time except my first few months and I've NEVER been in a fight. I tell you all this because it's possible! It's possible to not only be out and proud but it's possible to help others just like you WITHOUT having to fight all the time. All it takes is pride in yourself. Remember there is no other you! So be yourself and show off what you got under that skull of yours. Even though I'm very open and supporting I have an issue I
(TX MI MI NIBY
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a derogatory word against gays so how are other people, especially the LGBT community accepting to be called Queer? I'm all for adding the Q in LGBT but just don't get it. I also know some organizations add "I" for intersex. What is that? [EDITOR’S NOTE: see page 31 for info about being intersex!] LGBTQI? Screw it, the more letters, the more support I guess, right? So you all know I read EVERY word and poem in the newsletters and encourage you guys to keep pushing forward. I will be o u t of prison hopefully soon. You better count on generous donations from me an see me standing next to Jason making B&P better, bigger and worldw i d e YES, I sad worldwide! That's my personal goal I give you my promise. Pinky swear! I love you all with all my heart. Stay strong! DJ (MI)
)
My name is David aka DJ. I’m a very open and proud gay man. I'm 22 years old and have been out of the closet since I was only 14 y.o. I love this newsletter because I can relate to so many of the painful stories told by my new brothers and sisters in it. I also love this newsletter because everyone is so supporting and encouraging even though we are telling our most painful memories. The LGBTQ community is very eye opening but heartbreaking at the same time. Since coming to prison in 2012 the main holding me together is my pride and the smiles on other LGBTQ persons around. I admit I had to go back into the closet when I first came to prison due to the stories I heard but quickly came back out and now 5 years later I've supported, stood up for even saved lives of other LGBTQ persons in prison. I say this because each time I stand up, or speak up for my brothers and sisters in prison it's the most
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hope someone can help me with. I'm used to the word Queer being
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Queer is a term that many people have reclaimed as a way of building power. When others use a term to cause harm, taking it back can be a way to feel powerful. Queer started to be used by people mostly in urban and coastal cities in the 1980s. It is a word that was popular with activists. It was also a popular term for people writing theory books and articles. Some activists pop-
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United United we stand, Divided we fall. We all will live, If we stand for a cause. To be who we want, NOT told who to be. We all stand together, We know how to see. Who are those who say who we are? They don’t know us It’s for their cause We shall never break Our fate will not fade Our love will always stay We will all be great Our lives are ours Our fates are ours We will stay strong We will stand for it all Together we’re strong Support our cause No one can judge us Always remember United we stand And stand we shall
By Nathaniel G. (PA)
Black & Pink News
June 2017
Letters and Poetry from our Black & Pink Family continued from page 29 ularized a slogan, “not gay as in happy, but queer as in f*ck you!” Queer was a way of feeling powerful in resistance to mainstream culture or ideas of assimilation. Queer has also become an umbrella term at times, people might say queer
Dear Black & Pink, I wanted to pour my thoughts to you, to show you what Black & Pink really means to me. I was sitting in my cell tonight, and I received a holiday card from you. I really have tears in my eyes. I don't have family to get cards from. I been on my own since I was 14 years old, when I told my Catholic parents I was gay. Since then I was on the streets. I didn't know better, and I caught a prison bid. I have 7yrs left. I have really grown up, I won't mess up again. I am 25 years old. I just want to find a good gay community, and do something good with my life when I get out. *I hate straight people.* I will only ever now, put my faith in the gaynation. And the LGBT community will always stay strong, no matter where anyone is at, because of organizations like you. I have been receiving mail now, from you, since the beginning of 2016. I read the magazine, and really learn from my gay-brothers and sisters, that are in them. I really try to, everyday, to keep my head-up.
when they mean the full spectrum of people outside of the dominantly accepted genders and sexualities. There are books upon books written about “queer” as a term, so this is just a brief response. And check out the note on Intersex on your right, from the Intersex Society of North America.]
There are days, where I really want to break-down and give up hope, because I live in a deep black hole at this time, *but* when I read your articles, and when I see how your love is, for every gay man, and woman, I tell myself, it would be wrong to give-up because you
“I want to show [gay leaders] that I could be a big help when I leave, and show the young gay men and woman that they should be on the right track.” won't give up on a man like me. Black & Pink are leaders, for people like me, so it wouldn't be fair to you, if I gave-up my hope and soul, because then I would be not only disappointing you, but the *whole* gaynation also. And I could never do that. Everybody makes mistakes, but I deserve a 2nd chance. With-
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Volume 8, Issue 5
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Intersex Society of North America: What is Intersex? “Intersex” is a general term So nature doesn’t decide where What does this mean? Intersex is used for a variety of conditions a socially constructed category that the category of “male” ends and in which a person is born with a reflects real biological variation. To the category of “intersex” begins, reproductive or sexual anatomy better explain this, we can liken the or where the category of “interthat doesn’t seem to fit the typical sex spectrum to the color spectrum. sex” ends and the category of definitions of female or male. For There’s no question that in nature “female” begins. Humans decide. example, a person might be born there are different wavelengths that Humans (today, typically doctors) appearing to be female on the out- translate into colors most of us see decide how small a penis has to be, side, but having mostly male-typ- as red, blue, orange, yellow. But the or how unusual a combination of ical anatomy on the inside. Or a decision to distinguish, say, between parts has to be, before it counts as person may be born with genitals orange and red-orange is made only intersex. Humans decide whether that seem to be in-between the when we need it—like when we’re a person with XXY chromosomes usual male and female types—for asking for a particular paint color. or XY chromosomes and androexample, a girl may be born with Sometimes social necessity leads us gen insensitivity will count as ina noticeably large clitotersex. ris, or lacking a vaginal In our work, we find opening, or a boy may that doctors’ opinions “Nature doesn’t decide where be born with a notably about what should count small penis, or with a the category of ‘male’ ends and as “intersex” vary subscrotum that is divid- the category of ‘intersex’ begins, stantially. Some think ed so that it has formed you have to have “amor where ‘intersex’ ends and more like labia. Or a biguous genitalia” to person may be born with ‘female’ begins. Humans decide.” count as intersex, even mosaic genetics, so that if your inside is mostIntersex Society of North America some of her cells have ly of one sex and your XX chromosomes and outside is mostly of ansome of them have XY. other. Some think your Though we speak of intersex to make color distinctions that oth- brain has to be exposed to an unas an inborn condition, intersex erwise would seem incorrect or irra- usual mix of hormones prenatally anatomy doesn’t always show up tional, as, for instance, when we call to count as intersex—so that even at birth. Sometimes a person isn’t certain people “black” or “white” if you’re born with atypical genfound to have intersex anatomy when they’re not especially black or italia, you’re not intersex unless until she or he reaches the age of white as we would otherwise use the your brain experienced atypical puberty, or finds himself an infer- terms. development. And some think you tile adult, or dies of old age and is In the same way, nature presents have to have both ovarian and tesautopsied. Some people live and us with sex anatomy spectrums. ticular tissue to count as intersex. die with intersex anatomy without Breasts, penises, clitorises, scrotums, Rather than trying to play a anyone (including themselves) labia, gonads—all of these vary in semantic game that never ends, ever knowing. size and shape and morphology. So- we at ISNA take a pragmatic apWhich variations of sexual called “sex” chromosomes can vary proach to the question of who anatomy count as intersex? In quite a bit, too. But in human cul- counts as intersex. We work to practice, different people have tures, sex categories get simplified build a world free of shame, sedifferent answers to that question. into male, female, and sometimes crecy, and unwanted genital surThat’s not surprising, because in- intersex, in order to simplify social geries for anyone born with what tersex isn’t a discreet or natural interactions, express what we know someone believes to be non-stancategory. and feel, and maintain order. dard sexual anatomy.
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June 2017
Black & Pink News
Black & Pink Family: Letters, Poetry, Art
My Inner Thought on Reality: When I share with ya'll it's to me like my open diary. Sharing my most personal, deepest, secrets and feelings with you. Writing takes me away from here and that's sooo healthy for me. I hope what I share
(TX) I-MI MIN
afraid of? The same guys you hang with, mess around too; so who's fooling who? This unit is crazy at times, but it's laid-back, quiet, and gay people can come here and be comfortable. The one thing that really bothers me about gays in prison, is the animosity, division, drama that goes on within our little communities. All of the hatred I have received in prison, was from other gay men. Through the years I have tried to reach out and be friendly when someone shows up, and introduce the person to guys that are accepting and open-minded and that same person tried and failed, to use those same straight guys to go against me. Trying to steal friendships that have grown over many years. One queen told vicious lies on me, which people knew were not true; another tried to break up my relationship, when there were several other men who were interested in him - why go after what I have, when there are others available! Here's the funny part, each one of those gay men, all said the same thing when we first met, "I don't talk to gay men, because gay men are messy", and in the end they were
the messy ones. My grandmother always said, "Be careful what you do to people, it will come back on you much worse". So, when the messy o n e s got
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into situations, and needed my help, they knew not to come to me, because what they had done. Always know this people, the
inspires you and others and that being yourself is OK. My name is Tiffanyjoy a transfemale. I'm comfortable with who I am. Why wouldn't I be? What works for me here in DOC as a transfemale may not work for you or others and vice versa. It's trial through error for me. RAPE I've
bridge you set fire to, you might need to cross over it again one day. As LGBT in prison, we need to unify as a family and community, and use that unification s a way to help each other rise and progress. There is strength in numbers! The last three issues of OUT magazine have educated me on transgender people, and it's been eye-opening and informative. I thought I was a brave and courageous person, but once I really understood what transgender people go through in prison and in society, I realized that you all are the most brave, courageous, and heart-felt warriors. Keep winning your battles and I will stand, not behind, but by your side. A straight guy once told me, that gay people are the most interesting people. I will be up for parole in April 2017, and hopefully get my chance to go home. I promise I won't steal anymore cars. Wish me luck, pray for, and to all LGBT people in prison—let's keep it interesting. Always, Jesse J (TX)
experienced. No matter how careful I was or am. It's a scar I can't cover up. I suppress it. It that healthy? No. But it's working for me for now. When coming to DOC seven years ago, 8 years left, I kept Tif-
continued on page 34
Volume 8, Issue 5
blackandpink.org
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Lost Souls All across the country, men & women fill penitentiaries to the capacity Anticipated deaths, slowly dying from genocidal catastrophe It's a shame of how we die for the ghetto fame when we consider ourselves to be sane Tables turning, twisted lives going against the grain for illegal proceeds, material love, and the killing sales of cocaine Stagnated malfunctions come from the contact of potent marijuana blunts while death struck fatalities arise from the handling of AKs and pistol grip pumps Ignorance remains to keep us behind time while a lack of direction gives us the theory we don't mind dying No spiritual roots or religious ties leaves one's mind to ponder about where the soul goes after the body dies Our bodies lay scattered throughout funeral parlors on display Dying young is a hell of a way of leaving this world today The words of our funeral: shall the world reap 'em Will the Lord grant us eternity for committing two-way suicide, Lost Souls, or shall the devil and I continue to walk side by side? Mental illusions of tombstones and daisies Shattered dreams of this life continue to daze me Teenage girls give birth to the newborn who constantly cries Chasing dreams, the distance, despite their dilated eyes No mercy at the hands of this genocidal killer Living to reach old age becomes a hellified thriller There's no particular reason as to why life is treated so cold, it's just generation after generation to suffer from the illness of Lost Souls. By LJ (GA) aka Lazerick J P.S. God bless y’all. Thanks Jason for B&P.
Dear Black & Pink, I just want to start off by saying thank you for sending me Black & Pink Newsletter. It helps me a lot with everything I am going through in my life right now. It's not easy being this way. I was put
on this earth as a man but I know in my heart I'm a girl. There are a lot of days I don't know why I am like this. There is also a lot of days I don't want to be on this earth no more. That way I won't get in no one's way. Just so much that goes on in my mind ev-
ery day. I pray all the time for god to help me understand why I am this way. I look for happiness all the time in my life but I can't find it. I thought when I started taking my
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Black & Pink News
June 2017
Black & Pink Family: Letters, Poetry, Art continued from page 30 out people like you, gay people in prison wouldn't stand a chance. I can't tell you how much I owe you. One day, when I get out in 2023, I am going to Boston, and I will pledge my heart and soul to your headquarters, to making and helping you guys continue to make the gaynation and even stronger nation for the future. I wish there was a way, to set up pen pals with great gay-community leaders, that you guys are in contact with. I don't get money,
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from the outside, so I can't pay for a pen-pal account. I just want to be in contact with gay-leaders, because I want to show them that I could be a big help when I leave, and show the young gay men and woman that they should be on the right track. I want to help the ones in different community, who are lost, find their way back. I don't want them to go through what I am going through. That is one of the biggest reasons I love, Black & Pink, because you guys, are showing how much you really care, and how you let
but, yea, there's that "BUT." But they're more absorbed with what or how their acquaintances will treat them. If they only knew the true individuals within their circle, I'll never kiss and tell. I've been told that I'm a breath of fresh air. I'm a girl who generally cares for
people like me, share my pain, and not judge me. I really love the card you have sent me for the holidays. I love Bears. I really hope I touched your guys heart, with the words in this letter, like you guys touched my heart, by showing me how much you care. with much honor, and great love, your #1 follower, *my heart and soul*, is given to all my brothers and sisters, in the Black & Pink community, Alexa (NY)
ok, I still love ya! During the Holiday [Valentines Day] those others fany discreet and allowed her to whom distance themselves, made come out in small doses as not to a point to wish me a nice Holiday. be a shocker to 1,400 plus inmates. Are they growing or maturing? Now in the present Tiffanyjoy Who knows but what ever it may (me) has found that southern combe it's step in the night direction. I fort zone within these walls. The will continue being who I am because it works ones who acfor me, most cept me are my important! I acquaintances “I think some are scared, often unknown, and which is a step think some are scared, often below a friend. it’s easier for them to suppress and discard Those who than to be open minded and accepting to a unknown, and distance themit's easier for them to supselves from me lifestyle such as mine. Love to ALL LGBTQs press and disdon't truly un- around the world. Acceptance through card than to be derstand that knowledge sustained from Educating.” open minded who I am is and acceptnormal. Howing to a life ever 1/2 those who distance themselves from me all, especially my LGBT family. style such as mine. Love to ALL I come to believe that they're up- I've adapted a bubbly persona that LGBTQs around the world. Acset with themselves because they draw people in, Good and Bad. I ceptance through knowledge susdidn't see this one coming, but they find most times a silver lining in tained from Educating. still, I guess, respect me in some- negative situations. I look for the way or another. The other 1/2 of positive not the negative in everyLove ya, the distant group really don't care thing. You want to hate me? That's Tiffanyjoy (FL)
Volume 8, Issue 5
blackandpink.org
Hey Everyone!
I Can’t Breath It’s like the elephant in the room is literally sitting on my chest, slavery days are over with they say...so why don’t we give it a rest! Why don’t we move on, there’s nothing to see here, school yard bully tactics...democracy is fear. Everything’s alright & I’m free to be who & whatever I want to be, unless its something that society doesn’t want me to see. Rules are rules & theres consequences if they are broken, a harsh pill to swallow... because too much water & we drown.. & not enough...& we’re chokin, cuts from the violations...sit wide open, prejudicial discrimination... these words aren’t supposed to be spoken! Aren’t supposed to be murmured, aren’t supposed to be heard, extreme racial profiling from those hired to protect & serve, ends with citizens strangled or
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shot dead on the curb! Even non-prophets could forsee the lines of economical & racial divide being drawn in the sand, if only god can judge me...then why has my freedom been determined by man? How did this century become synonymous with revelations end of days?, The current regiment isn’t working...so we need to find a better way. Lungs clogged wit political bull.. asthmatic symptoms got society weezin, we being hunted by classifications...like tis is the season. Faith gives hope that this will end and gives courage to fight and endure, adversity is the test that shows we’re ready...or just full of manure. Some will stand firm but many will witness this battle & leave, participation is my only option...somethings gotta give because...I can’t breath!!!
-Nedrick H. (IL)
My name is Johnnie but everyone calls me G-Money. I'm 26 years old born Dec. 1989 yes a true "capricorn" from Youngstown, Ohio. I'm currently serving 8 years with 4 1/2 left, I'm in the worst prison in Ohio (physically and mentally). This is my second number and I can honestly say I have learned a lot about our community inside these walls. I have been an open bi-sexual for over 10 years and I am happy as well as proud of who I am. My heart goes out to all our LGBT brothers and our sisters in Orlando as well as their family. Until I read B&P's June 2016 newsletter from our sister Isabella, I had hatred in my heart. But we can't fault a whole community for one lost soul and bring hate to our minds, so instead I prayed for his soul as well as his families hearts to be healed. I underlined the words on page 19 in June's 2016 newsletter about the way we judge and treat our own LGBT family and I read it to all the brothers and sisters here to remind them we are all equal and should never betray, disown, or degrade each-other. I myself am the head of our LGBT ear here, and it is an honor to be able to take advice from someone so wise and open-minded. Thank you for all you've taught me through just that one letter. Well to all my LGBT brothers and sisters I salute you all and send my love, I look forward to being able to correspond and reach out to you. My support goes out to the whole LGBT community worldwide, we are all "Free Spirits" and shall live as such! Love, Loyalty, and Respect, Your Brother G-Money (OH)
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continued from page 33 shots to help me to become a woman would make me happy. It did at first but now I'm not so happy. Being locked up don't help any either. I have to put up with a whole lot for others in here. Others in here just want to put you down all the time and make fun of you for who you are even staff will put you down and make fun of you. I know I don't need to let all of this get to me but it's not easy. It looks like as you get older in life you would not think much about what others say about you. I'm just 36 and I will be 37 in November. I know I still got a lot to go through in life. It don't make it easy when you don't have a whole lot of people to talk to about wanting to be a woman and the people that work here don't know much about Transgender people. I feel like sometimes they just don't want to hear what I got to say. Most days I just want to give up on wanting to be a woman and go back to being a man. I know that would make my dad very happy, and others in my family also. Sorry I don't mean to take up a lot of your time. Just so much on my mind and in my heart I need to get out. Bye for now, Christy Ann M. (TN)
June 2017
Black & Pink News
Letters and Art from Our Black & Pink Family To My Brothers and Sisters In Arms: It’s a new year and it’s time to get it together for our selves and each other. For years I’ve seen people tear each other down instead of uplifting each other. These people want us to feel hopeless and helpless, to feel that we ain’t worth nothing a n d
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They use this rule to target openly gay men and transwomen and their lovers. Right now I’m in the working cell block because I had consented to sex with my lover. This happened not once but twice since I ’ v e been here. I lost overall s i x months of good time and the second time I got disciplined for this rule vi-
that w e are not human. We are freaks in these people’s eyes and have no business on this earth. Five months ago I was transferred to Rayburn Correctional Center along the Mississippi and Louisiana border. Now I don’t know how many states discipline the inmates for having consensual sexual contact but this state has it bad and the facility that I’m housed in does it the worst.
olation I was put on extended lockdown. My lovers got the better end of the stick, let’s just say. This place has a history of putting open gay men and transwomen on lockdown for basically being ourselves. I go home in a few weeks once I finish with the reentry program. When I leave here I’m going to take a stand on this issue and many others that impact the LGBTQ community. Hopefully this starts a domino effect in other states with rules like this and come up with a better policy to accommodate the LGBTQ community. Kenisha H. (LA)
Volume 8, Issue 5
Dear Black & Pink, I have been inspired by the letters in the November + December 2016 newsletters. I would like to say to Miss Lisa (CA): A very sincere thank you for the positive and uplifting words. I am a bi-sexual 36 year old black male, and I do feel alone a lot. But reading these newsletters, I see that my struggle is shared by others. I have been openly gay for the past 12 years. I knew I was attracted to both men and women at a very young age. I tried to hide it from everyone, and trying to hide from others and myself led me to make a very terrible decision that has cost me 12+ years of life.
To my newfound family,
blackandpink.org
As a bi-sexual man in the CDOC system I’ve been taken advantage of by others, and I run across those who only want to believe that there
I don’t know if it is just my perception or not but as it stands I get no mail, I have no hope for a future, no reason to be the best me possible. Can you all in the community and family help me? is only one way to be gay or bi, and just plain old stupidity. I am also serving a 2 year to life sentence so I have no affective out date.
I turned bisexual when I got incarcerated in ‘05. I have what others would say “turned out” in ‘08. I’m proud of who I am. I surrounded myself around people that’s not going to lie to me. Even if it hurts
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Sorry, my name is Brian. I go by Mason because I am not what my name represents. Brian means strength, courage and loyalty. Outside of being loyal I am weak and a coward in my opinion. I can be strong for others, but not myself. I can run courageously into the fire on someone else’s behalf—in fact, I have— but not on my own behalf. I feel empty and sad. I don’t know if it is just my perception or not but as it stands I get no mail, I have no hope for a future, no reason to be the best me possible. Can you all in the community and family help me? With all my heart, Brian, CO
that’s been going on for years and you don’t know how to tell the one you love some bad news just come My name is Jerrell Robinson. I’m out and tell that someone. Because 31 years old. I’m from Charleston, if they find out that you know about South Carolina. I’ve got 9 months the situation, now you have probleft off of a 15 years. My total time lems. Then the that I have done next thing you will be 12 years the police and 9 months. “I want ALL BLACK & PINK readers to know, know are being called. I’m bi and loving it. I’m if you are in ANY type of relationship KEEP IT You don’t want to go to jail. The also a song writ- REAL. If you have a relationship that’s been other person er. I write inspidoesn’t want to rational / gospel going on for years and you don’t know how go to jail either. / R+B / rap. My to tell the one you love some bad news just You talk about stage name is how y’all love YA-REAL. It’s come out and tell that someone.” each other. Just a Hebrew name a lot of chaos. I that’s taken from the name YHWH which means me, I want them to tell me them- don’t have any time to waste on a relationship where we’ve got to get GOD. My stage name means “GOD selves. I want ALL BLACK & PINK physical. IS REAL.” And he was in my life of sin. I’m the type of person that will readers to know, if you are in With love to ALL, NOT let any religion, what someone ANY type of relationship KEEP IT YA-REAL (SC) REAL. If you have a relationship else does or say dictate who I am.
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June 2017
Black & Pink News
Buscando Contribuciones
Call for Submissions
¡Hola hermosa familia hispano-parlante de Black & Pink!
Seeking erotic short stories, poems, and art by Black & Pink incarcerated and free-world family members for a new zine. To be mailed, art cannot include full nudity. Please send submissions (and shout out to the authors from the first issue mailed in January!) addressed to Black & Pink — HOT PINK. This is a voluntary project, and no money will be offered for submissions, but you might get the chance to share your spicy story with many other readers! The zine will be sent one or two times per year.
Estamos buscando contribuciones en español para nuestras secciones de Cartas a Nuestra Familia y Poesía del Corazón. Por favor envía tu contribución escrita en forma legible y de no más de tres páginas a: Black & Pink — ESPAÑOL Damos la bienvenida a cualquier escrito de tu creación, pero dado el espacio y la variedad, no todas las contribuciones pueden ser aceptadas. Al enviar tu contribución, das permiso a Black & Pink para publicar tus escritos en forma impresa y en internet.
To subscribe to upcoming issues of HOT PINK, write to our address, Black & Pink — HOT PINK.
Black & Pink Mailing Information Write to us at: Black & Pink — [see table below] 614 Columbia Rd. Dorchester, MA 02125 Please note that you can send multiple requests/ topics in one envelope! Due to concerns about consent and confidentiality, you cannot sign up other people for the newspaper. However, we can accept requests from multiple people in the same envelope. There’s no need to send separate requests in more than one envelope.
If you are being released and would still like to receive the Black & Pink News, please let us know where to send it! Penpal program info: LGBTQ prisoners can list their information and a short non-sexual ad online where free-world people can see it and decide to write. There will be forms in upcoming issues. Mail info: We are several months behind on our mail. There will be a delay, but please keep writing! Email us: members@blackandpink.org
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Happy Pride Month!
BY MINI-MI (TX)
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