It was a pleasure to work with the Atlanta Press Collective on this piece about the history and contemporary realities of the criminalization of mutual aid, in light of the indictment of 61 forest defenders working to stop the construction of a new police training facility in Atlanta.
Freshly published: Rachel Herzing, Bench Ansfield and I had a conversation about abolitionist questions of infrastructure, focusing on what transformative justice means, how abolitionists debate questions of state formation, and much more.
I am grateful to Oishik Sircar for asking me perhaps the most interesting questions I have ever been asked during this recent conversation. We talked about teaching, mutual aid, the role of legal work in social movements, and so much more. Check it out here. PDF here.
Aaron Belkin and I just published this debate/conversation about our opposing views on trans military inclusion advocacy. I hope it will be a useful tool for classrooms and reading groups, and people wanting to understand this debate.
Just five days after being sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden signed an executive order overturning former President Trump’s ban on openly transgender Americans serving in the military. “All Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve,” it read, going on to argue that an “inclusive military strengthens our national security.”
Biden’s executive order, one of a flurry he signed during his administration’s first week, marked the fulfillment of one of his foremost policy proposals regarding the advancement of LGBTQ+ equality in America. More specifically, the order counteracted a 2017 directive by the Trump administration banning openly trans folks from the armed services — itself a reversal of the Obama administration’s 2016 order that paved the way for trans Americans to serve in the military without hiding their gender identity.
Continue reading “New Interview with Them about Why I Oppose Trans Military Inclusion Advocacy”Roar Magazine just published this adapted excerpt from my new book.
The only thing that keeps those in power in that position is the illusion of our powerlessness. A moment of freedom and connection can undo a lifetime of social conditioning and scatter seeds in a thousand directions.
Many people are feeling great relief that Trump has been voted out and are rightly celebrating the efforts so many people have undertaken to make that happen. But even as we celebrate, we must ensure we do not demobilize, hoping that the new administration will take care of our problems. Unfortunately, we can be certain that the Biden/Harris administration will not address the crises and disasters of climate change, worsening wealth concentration and poverty, a deadly for-profit health care system and racist law enforcement.
Continue reading “Mutual aid will help us survive the Biden presidency”In case you missed it, Colin Kaepernick recently invited a bunch of abolitionist activists to write essays for a collection that his publishing platform has released over the course of the last four weeks in collaboration with Medium. The essays are really really really good–the whole collection would be a great syllabus for a class or reading group. I was honored to be included.
For Pride 2019 and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, I wrote an op-ed for Out Magazine.
Op-ed: Honor Our Stonewall Veterans by Being Your Most Queer Militant Self
The Stonewall rebellion was not a “peaceful protest.” Queer and transgender people threw shoes and bottles at cops who routinely raided gay bars, beat and raped queer and trans people. Today, under the direction of a multi-million dollar Pride industry, Stonewall is celebrated with big parades where police, the military, banks, and politicians wave rainbow flags. In some cities, the cops roll out special rainbow-painted police cars. The radical acts of rage and disobedience against illegitimate authority that erupted at Stonewall are now reflected back as a story about “progress” in which the institutions that run our lives through coercion and violence claim to be “gay friendly.”
I wrote this article on the dangerous ways the right is using trans people to promote right-wing security and military agendas alongside its violent backlash against trans people. Among these tactics is the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” campaign developed over a decade ago to promote a positive public image of Israel, foment anti-Muslim racism, and distract from Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine and apartheid regime.
Excerpt: “[T]he use of a thin LGBT inclusion politics to make the Israeli or US military appear progressive is becoming a losing strategy. Resistance to pinkwashing is rising, and each controversy exposes new communities to the critique of this propaganda. A growing number of Jews in the US, especially young people, are becoming critical of Israel. The Movement for Black Lives has made its solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation clear, helping many people in the US see the connections between US and Israeli racism and state violence. Cross-movement organizing between Indigenous people in North America, including Water Protectors, and Palestine liberation activists is helping people see the links between US and Israel as settler-colonialism.”
I wrote “Reframing Faculty Criticisms of Student Activism” in The Chronicle of Higher Education because I kept hearing the same kinds of criticisms of student activists over and over during the last few years. I hope it helps faculty reconsider some of the automatic responses to student activism that emerge.