WINTER 2011-2012In!!!SolidarityVOLUME 1, ISSUE 4 NEWSLETTER OF THE SYLVIA RIVERA LAW PROJECT’S PRISONER ADVISORY COMMITTEE Dear Friends, The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) welcomes you to the Winter edition of the Prison Advisory Committee (PAC) publication, In Solidarity. As many of you know, In Solidarity is a collaborative newsletter created by PAC members, SRLP staff & volunteers. SRLP greatly values this opportunity to share your inspiring work and reflect on our joint struggle against the violence of policing and incarceration. At this historical moment, we feel hopeful as movements of resistance are being fortified and spaces for reflection are growing. We want to share with you in this edition both the hope for the future that we have heard from across the world and also hold the trauma and sadness of the violence of the prison, policing and immigration enforcement systems. It is such an honor for us as SRLP staff to work with each of you and we value your input into our work and our political goals. In solidarity, SRLP staff & volunteers INSIDE... Legal Updates Poetry & Art SRLP Happenings Inside this issue of IN SOLIDARITY ! PAC currently has around 60 1! About PAC amazing members who are 2 ! About SRLP enthusiastic about sharing their 3-4 time, passion, and expertise SRLP Collective, Structure & Staff with SRLP. Our members are 5 PAC Member trans, intersex, gender non- Self Interview conforming people and allies 6-7 In the news PRISONER ADVISORY who are currently incarcerated 8-10 Occupy Wall Street! COMMITTEE in New York. Members of PAC The Sylvia Rivera Law Project work together with members of 11 PAC Art & Poetry strongly believes that the people our collective to develop 12! Legal ! Updates most affected by the systems of strategies & goals for our work. 13-14 PAC Essay & More violence and oppression we 15! Word Search fight against are the best people IN SOLIDARITY 16 PAC Member to lead that fight. We also is a collaborative newsletter Self-Interview believe that social justice created by PAC members, who 17-18 !Transforming Justice organizations must find ways to are involuntarily locked away, 19! Resources directly involve the members of SRLP staff & volunteers . our community who have been Together our words & collective 20 PAC Art & Poetry ! separated from us by the efforts work against injustice for criminal injustice system. The low-income and/or people of Submission Guidelines Prisoner Advisory Committee color who are trans, intersex & CONTRIBUTORS (PAC) is one way to overcome gender non-conforming both Shaniece Nyasia Powell inside and out of the prison the enormous state-created Stephanie Jo Gilley industrial complex and towards barriers to communication and Thomas A. Ross-Sobcezk political participation for the gender self determination for Chase Stranggio people who are most affected by all. Additionally, this newsletter Reina Gossett Katherine Brown the prison industrial complex. has always been a critical way for SRLP staff to connect with Tabitha Emo Shaylanna Smith & inform volunteer members of N. Vellon DISCLAIMER the Prison Advisory Committee. Paul Please note that the ideas and opinions expressed in In Solidarity are solely those Ronnie Brown of the authors and artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sylvia Shardea La’Ajia Nevaeh Rivera Law Project. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project makes no representations as to Bradley the accuracy of any statements made in In Solidarity. Authors and artists bear sole Gabriel Foster responsibility for their work. intertwined with racial, social legal services for our and economic justice. communities. We believe that Therefore, we seek to increase in order to create meaningful the political voice and visibility political participation and of low-income people and leadership, we must have access people of color who are to basic means of survival and transgender, intersex, or gender safety from violence. THE SYLVIA RIVERA LAW non-conforming. SRLP works PROJECT to improve access to respectful SRLP STAFF & COLLECTIVE The Sylvia Rivera Law Project and affirming social, health, and MEMBERS (SRLP) works to guarantee that all people are free to self- determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. SRLP is a collective organization founded on the understanding that gender self- determination is inextricably SYLVIA RIVERA STORY This project is named for civil rights pioneer Sylvia Rivera. A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, Sylvia was a tireless advocate for all those who have been marginalized as the "gay rights" movement has mainstreamed. Sylvia fought hard against the exclusion of transgender people from the Sexual Orientation Non- “So, that goes to show the rest of Discrimination Act in New York, and was a loud and persistent voice the community, that technically for the rights of people of color and low-income queer and trans when we ask for your support, we people. This project works to continue Sylvia's work by centralizing want your support. But in the issues of systemic poverty and racism, and prioritizing the struggles long run, if it’s not there, we will of queer and trans people who face the most severe and multi- acquire what we need” faceted discrimination. — Sylvia Rivera, from her talk at Latino Gay Men of New York, June 2001 SRLP NAOMI COLLECTIVE Collective Member STRUCTURE has volunteered with SRLP since 2004, serving first as a part of the Public Education Team and now as a SRLP functions as a multi-racial, member of the Movement Building intergenerational collective of Team. She's helped build SRLP's people committed to a broad websites and has spoken at many understanding of gender self- SRLP trainings and events, and was determination. As a collective, one of the first members of the we recognize that it is essential SRLP collective when it was formed. to create structures that model Naomi spends the rest of her time our vision of a more just society. designing video games for a living and occasionally playing the drums. We believe that in the struggle for social justice too often change is perceived as a product and not a process. We seek to use a non-hierarchical structure GABRIEL to support work that aims to Collective Member redistribute power and wealth is a white Muslim transgender queer for a more just society. man who joined the collective in 2004. !He was on staff providing We also strongly believe that legal services until 2010 when he our community-based structure, became an Acting Assistant which maximizes community Professor of Lawyering at NYU. ! involvement, will support the Now he volunteers on the Collective sustainability of our work and Development Team at SRLP. !In his the accountability of SRLP to free time, he loves playing table-top its constituencies. role playing games, reading science fiction and fantasy, and dreaming of We have developed an a world with no prisons. organizational structure with five equally important teams and a Board working together on a shared vision and mission. JAMILA The Direct Services Team Collective Member provides direct legal services, joined SRLP in June of 2010, runs our legal clinics, makes helping the collective move in to the determinations about how to new office. They have since worked take and handle cases, advocates as the tech support consultant, and for policy reform within as a member of the Movement institutions that impact our Building Team, helping plan and run community, and sustains events for our community. They are relationships with allied service glad for the opportunity to use their providers. skills to help create and maintain a safe and welcoming space for our The Public Education Team community. creates and implements our trainings for other groups and organizations, creates and MIK distributes our public Collective Member education materials, develops and maintains our website, and is a queer white trans male law creates and implements SRLP's student at CUNY Law in NYC. Mik media advocacy work. formerly worked at the Ali Forney Center where he became invested in The Fundraising and youth organizing, re-thinking the way Finance Team is responsible we view mental health, and stopping for raising money for our the school-to-prison pipeline. When operations, coordinating our he's not trying to understand the law budget-planning process, in order to use it as a tool for social maintaining relationships with change he is reading, watching British our donor base, creating comedy, or outside trying to re- fundraising events, and connect with his midwest roots. administering our financial systems. HELEN The Collective Collective Member Development Team is is a newbie to SRLP and New York. responsible for recruiting staff Originally from Seattle, where she and collective members, for worked with LGBTQ youth, Helen making policies and programs recently finished social work school at regarding SRLP's diversity, and the University of Michigan. She got developing policies and involved with SRLP in the spring when procedures for SRLP staff and she helped out with the most recent collective members. edition of In Solidarity. Helen is enthusiastic about trying new things, The Movement Building like playing musical instruments while Team supports the hula hooping. community-based leadership development and organizing of SRLP’s low-income trans communities & trans OLA communities of color. Staff, Director of Grass Roots The Board is charged with Fundraising oversight of the legal, ethical, and moral responsibilities of is a Brooklyn-based Nigerian queer the organization and its transfag activist, feminist & gender financial health. SRLP is liberationist of Edo & Yoruba developing a structure where descent. He organized with the people committed to gender Audre Lorde Project's TransJustice self-determination, and trans, & Immigrant Rights Work Groups intersex, and gender variant for years.