Dialogue

2007-02-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Erzulie's Skirt & Empire

A Speech/Reading presented for Last Sunday
Austin, TX
February 18, 2007

What is empire?

In her 2003 speech on Confronting Empire, Arundhati Roy states:

Quote: When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what "Empire" means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that? In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization. End quote

If we are to consider how we as U.S. Citizens participate in the construction of Empire and how we confront our own participation and perpetuation of empire, we must begin by asking ourselves some fundamental questions around what we are certain we know: what we have assumed are truths guaranteed and embedded in our social contracts.

I am not a historian, and I am not a political scientist. I am a novelist, a poet, an organizer engaged in questions around the dismantling of oppressive institutions and transformative modes of thinking within U.S. society. I am engaged in these questions because of the very nature of empire: what we decide here affects the rest of the world. An appropriate metaphor would be the waterfall that begins as the wet, spongy ground of a spring and soaks up through the sand as a creek, to become a river and to then plunge off of a cliff into unknown depths, sweeping logs and branches and anything else in its path down with it. We as a nation enacting empire are both the spring and the waterfall. And I have witnessed the sweeping waters of U.S.Dominican Republic. empire tumbling violently across the landscape of the land of my birth: the

Picture this: A hot tropical sun radiating heat across white sand. Turquoise blue sea water lapping at your toes. The sound of the wind in the palm trees as the sweet scent of sand and ocean permeate your skin and every cell of your body. You have just eaten fresh fish and fried plantain served to you on a styrofoam plate. You look out over the sea, happy that you decided to visit the Dominican Republic on your vacation. The people are so nice, the food is so good and the rum, oh the rum. A dark woman, you assume she is Dominican, approaches you and offers to braid your hair for only $20.00. As you rub suntan lotion onto your shoulders, you decide, sure – why not. It would be fun to have braids for a little bit. It would be almost...exotic.

Now picture this: On a hot, sunny day in November 1999 a group of women, myself included, sat on the beach wiggling our toes in the white sands, looking out over turquoise blue waters. But we were not there to enjoy the sun. Just that morning, word had reached us that the President, Leonel Fernandez, had deported several hundred Haitians and dark-skinned Dominicans from the Dominican Republic over to Haiti. His reasons: securing the homeland and ensuring that the Haitians did not interrupt the economic health of the nation. That same day, a boat carrying 85 people, we will assume they were all Dominican, though that boat could have also included Haitians and Cubans and people from any other island in the region, capsized in the open waters of the Mona Channel as they attempted to make their way to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that has served as a port of entry for many on their way to the land of opportunity. We were trying to figure out what to do, how to respond to the loss of life, liberty and dignity among our fellow human beings whose only crime was to try and secure a living out of sand, water and scorched earth.

Read from Erzulie’s Skirt, excerpt pages 166 & 167

In the past few years especially we have become acquainted with sweat shop labor and its ramifications. Through the protests of the anti-globalization movements, including the first march in Seattle in 2000 and down to the neat label at the bottom of American Apparel advertisements stating: “Made sweatshop-free in L.A.” we as a movement have reached a higher consciousness about sweat shop labor and its implications for people and communities around the world. What we have failed to realize is that foreign economic policies designed in the United States, including NAFTA and the recently enacted Caribbean & Central American version, CAFTA, continue to create a two-tiered system of economic participation – between countries of consumption and countries of production. The Dominican Republic, a land and a nation at the heart of Western history – for being the first place in the hemisphere where colonization was enacted, as well as its institutions, including slavery, large scale cash crop plantations and gold mining – is a nation bound by the economic policies of the United States. In order to maintain its sovereignty as a nation, its leadership participates in economic and social policies that keep it in line with its friendly neighbor to the North. In 1999, this included the deportation of hundreds of people from the land of their birth. In 2003, this included the commissioning of 150 Dominican soldiers to fight in Iraq beside U.S. forces. In 2004, this included cuts in subsidies to Dominican rice agriculturalists and cattle ranchers – foods that were then replaced with imports from the United States. In 2005, the U.S. coast guard reported the highest number of immigrants arriving by boat from the Dominican Republic in recent history.

What, then, are our remedies? I don’t profess to have answers to this question. I will, however, offer two points of reflection.

The first point I will ask you to consider is the legacy of binary thought that we have been socialized into under the U.S. social contract. The either/or paradigm under which we function has limited us to essential concepts and language of black/white, male/female, us/them. The consequences of this paradigm are manifold and specifically affect those who transgress these boundaries of essential identity. We have historic examples in the ways in which white and black women were punished during struggles for abolition and suffrage, and forced to separate their efforts often through violent acts. Today, we see the effects of either/or thinking exemplified through the number of hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals. We also see this paradigm enacted in the framing of the Palestinian/Israeli struggle, and in the justification of pre-emptive war.

We as social movements and individuals hoping and working towards a better society, must undo our own participation in either/or paradigms. We must reconceptualize the multiple complexities of our society, and our political frameworks (including the bipartisan framework) as spaces for both/and approaches to decision-making.

Secondly, and finally, we must examine our sense of certainty. If there is one major shift in our society as a whole following 9/11 it is that we became less certain of many things. This, I believe, is a positive outcome of a very traumatic situation. Certainty, and I cite Karen Armstrong in this point, is a key element of fundamentalism. And in discussing fundamentalism, I am not speaking of those who have been framed as the enemies of the U.S. Remembering my recent call to intersectional thinking, rather than either/or thinking, I would ask us to consider how we as a secular society have become certain about the separation of church and state, while simultaneously witnessing the melding together of these two institutions into a force that is forming a discrete political agenda that dictates not only how foreign aid reaches other countries, but how we as a people are to think of ourselves in that process. As long as we are certain that our democracy is unquestionable, or that the assumed truths guaranteed and embedded in our social contracts are unshakeable, we will fail to grasp how we U.S. citizens continue to participate in the development of policies that strip the rights and livelihoods of millions of people around the world, including our own.

I will conclude with a final reading from my novel, Erzulie’s Skirt

Read from Erzulie’s Skirt, excerpt pages 79-81

Sources:

Roy, Arundhati
Confronting Empire, delivered at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on January 27, 2003

Armstrong, Karen
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness, Anchor Books, NY: 2004.

Statistics on the Dominican Republic gleaned from El Listin Diario & El Diario Libre, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Country Report (Dominican Republic, Chapters IX & X) OEA/Ser.L/V/II.104, Doc. 49 rev. 1, 7 October 1999

2007-01-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

Reflections on Creating Change--from Lisa

I learned a great deal about busting binaries work through Creating Change this year. Most importantly, I learned that the deepest form of binary busting is working across issues and communities in the most intersectional way possible. Prior to this experience, I had not quite articulated binary busting work in that way. Yet it is now clear to me that busting binaries has to result in something deeply radical beyond the act of challenging either/or thinking and practice. It must result in a deeper understanding of the overlaps and contradictions—in essence the messy places--- as they relate to issues and identities. Binary busting makes doing intersectional work both possible and urgently necessary.

I also learned more about how to concretely organize in this way. I realized that one thing that we sorely underestimate in our movements is relationship and community building. Having completely honest and accountable relationships with community is key to gaining invited access to those messy, contradictory and hard places where issues and identities overlap. In order to understand the intersections and overlaps it requires one to “hang out” in those vulnerable and hard places with folks for as long as it takes to move the work to a deeper place. Each step of the way requires transparency, openness and a strong commitment to supporting people in “go there” on there own time—not yours!

In the end, I gained tremendous clarity about how busting binaries/intersectional work demands flexibility in ways that one may not initially anticipate. To do this work in the most accountable way it’s important to develop a collective vision—yet be flexible around the ways in which that vision is achieved. Whether one is working within a specific community in an intersectional way or across communities in an intersectional way flexibility is key to getting as deep into the nuances and contradictions as possible. It is my experience that organizers often underestimate the importance of flexibility and therefore the nuances are overlooked. It’s this lack of attention to nuance and overlap that divides communities, fuels anger and mistrust and segments our movements.

This experience certainly gave me the opportunity to deepen my understanding of how this work is done—and it has further strengthened my resolve that binary busting work (as a framework for doing intersectional work) is exactly where we must move our movements.

Creating Change 2006, Kansas City, MO - from Ana

Some of the fundamental questions I ask myself in attending a conference often have to do with the approach and the framing of the work. What was amazing to me this year was how `intersectionality’ served as a framework for many of the institutes and workshops at this year’s Creating Change.

Here is a definition of intersectionality: “the Ontario Human Rights Commission offers a very simple definition of the phenomenon [of intersectionality] as `…multiple forms of discrimination occurring simultaneously’” from the Peel District School Board School paper: Manifesting Encouraging & Respectful Environments & the Future We Want – Issue Paper on the isms.

The People of Color Institute on the first day asked us to focus on privilege, language & generational experiences. What I discovered in this space is that it’s still hard for us as people of color to talk about carrying/walking with privilege. The idea that that is possible and also necessary to examine is still difficult for folks. Wow. I think one of the fundamental aspects of being a bridge person is that we’re constantly having to negotiate privilege and oppression within multiple frames, and it can feel really unsafe to unpack that. And yet, there are many, many points of connection between different kinds of experiences of privilege that would allow for the formation of bridges between people. For example, connections between the privilege because of U.S. citizenship and the privilege arising out of wealth. Something else that struck me is how shaped we are by our generation. I don’t mean the generation arising out of our individual ages, but out of our movement generation. I was in the group that has been in the movement 10-20 years. We were all struggling with questions of sustainability, and looking at the driving force for this work. There came a moment where we had to look at the question of “how does one frame work for liberation in the midst of responding to crises?”

It was wonderful to be at the conference together with Lisa. And to watch how the work around busting binaries is affecting how we talk about movement building, and organizational development, intersectionality and capacity building. Very exciting.

2007-01-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

Submission Guidelines: email attachment only to ikerlee@unm. edu; Chicago
manual style w/limited endnotes; full guidelines at www.femtap.com

In the recent past we have seen an increase in violence against
communities of color and LGBTQ communities, some televised and others
completely ignored by mainstream media. We have also witnessed a
conservative backlash against models that embrace intersectional
analysis and a critical look at privilege from all sectors. Yet, we
believe feminist models are uniquely capable of addressing increasing
inequities, particularly those models that argue that we must put the
most oppressed women at the center of our analysis (see Smith 2006,
Brenner 1998, Anzaldua 1984, etc.). As such, FemTAP is accepting
submissions that critically engage models, methods, theories, and
practices of feminist social justice that highlight race, gender, class,
and sexuality as co-equal.

All essays should include intersectional analysis including the critical
interrogation of whiteness, heterosexuality, and/or class privilege
where applicable. We are particularly interested in grounded studies
and ethnographic essays but accept essays from a feminist
perspective across disciplines.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. A feminist response to un/natural disasters: Katrina, mining on
indigenous lands, environmental degradation and environmental racism, etc.

2. Reproductive justice in communities of color, working class and LBT
communities of all colors - we are particularly interested in responses
to sterilization projects that target poor women, incarcerated women,
etc., holistic projects that seek to deal with multiple-intersecting issues,

any feminist organizing around transgendered and same-sex

parenting rights or reproductive justice, and scientific examinations

of the impact of use and/or research on NRTs for women of color,

working class women of all colors, and LBT women of all colors.

3. Rural feminisms: rural vs. urban queer organizing, rural women's
organizing as specific and generalizable, rural feminists' responses to
poverty, etc.

4. Alternative spaces: women of color and LBT women of all colors
resource centers, women of color and/or LBT women of all colors
grassroots organizing, LBT women of all colors and/or women of color
organizations or retreat-conferences as alternative feminist visions,
artist collectives, etc.

5. Historical essays - examination of "unknown" or unwritten histories
of women of color, LBT women of all colors, and/or poor women's organizing.

6. Models and methods: successful cross-cultural and/or cross-class
feminist organization models, successful trans-feminist organizing,
successful rural-urban organizing, etc.

7. Confronting current issues impacting women of color, LBT women of all
colors, and/or poor women of all colors - urban renewal, funding
collectives, food collectives, welfare reform programs, parenting
students organizations, police and/or court watch programs, housing
safety and security programs, programs confronting the rise in hate
crimes, etc.

8. Academia - the impact feminists of color, working class feminists of
all colors, LBT feminists of all colors on policy, curriculum, and
organizing (please note the summer edition is on pedagogy so pedagogy
essays will be given the least importance in review ranking for this
edition but will *still* be considered; if we believe your essay would
be more appropriate for the summer edition we will advise you.)

9. DEFINING FEMINIST SOCIAL JUSTICE - theoretical essays that examine
what is or can be meant by "feminist social justice," praxis essays that
examine the meaning of "feminist social justice" and the means by which
to actualize it in feminist practice.

We accept essays from graduate students, PhDs, and community scholars.
For full guidelines, review policies, etc. see appropriate links on
website.

Editorial Board:
Erika Feigenbaum, PhD (Feminist philosophy)
Ime Kerlee, PhD (Women's Studies)
Annette Rodriguez (American Studies)

Questions contact: ikerlee@unm. edu (answers will come from entire board;
most questions answered on website: www.femtap.com

Dr. Ime Kerlee, Women Studies Program
1 University of New Mexico/MSC06 3900
Albuquerque NM 87131-0001
Phone: (505) 277-3467 office: MVH 2136
E-mail: ikerlee@unm. edu

A. Lynn Bolles, Anthropologist
Professor of Women's Studies
2101 Woods Hall
University of Maryland College Park

2006-12-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful

True Muslims Must Never Deny the European Holocaust

By Ibrahim Ramey

History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some
six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi
Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May,
1945.

The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this killing,
is irrefutable.  From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film
documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and
witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed,
the single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.

Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism
and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites,
but from none other than the President of Iran.  Indeed, this head of state
has taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of
anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former
Klan leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not
the very existence, of this barbaric act.

As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors
were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object.  And I believe
that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth,
must vigorously object to this gathering as well.

Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of
Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of
extreme importance.  I am certainly among those who believe that the
occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights
to Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is
deplorable.

But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build
political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred and
the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by the
viciousness of Hitler's genocidal rampage through Europe.

President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the
Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and
spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must never
drink from the well of hatred and racism.

And indeed, as the Holy Qur'an compels Muslims to demand justice for
the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are
in error.

And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.
      ********************************

The writer is the Director of the Human and Civil Rights Division of
the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation

2006-09-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Colleagues

It has been an exciting summer for bustingbinaries.com.

Both of us are deeply engaged in bustingbinaries writing and organizing projects,and, this summer has opened up multiple opportunities for us to do this work and identify other binary busters along the way.

Before we tell you about upcoming projects, we want to highlight the new additions to our site over the past several months. The exciting submissions that we have added cover some very important issues from queer families to immigration rights. We also have added several submissions on the controversy surrounding World Pride which was to be held in Israel/Palestine this past August.

We thank Carmen Vazquez for submitting a piece entitled "Family" and Dulani for submitting a piece entitled "Border". Both of these pieces can be found on our Featured Writers page of the bustingbinaries blog.

We also thank Kerry Lobel and Julie Dorf for submitting their piece "Why We Can No Longer Look the Other Way" and Al-Fatiha Foundation for their brilliant open letter about World Pride.
Please spend some time with these important writings--it's well worth it.

We are also pleased to announce the publication of Erzulie’s Skirt, Ana Lara's debut novel. It will be available to the public on October 1st and is being published by the fabulous bustingbinaries website this fall for Ana's upcoming appearances. Most importantly, get a copy of the book!

Lastly, both of us have spent the summer working on bustingbinaries projects. Ana was in the Dominican Republic working on her second novel as well as a curricula for bustingbinaries.com. Look for that curricula on the site later this Fall. Lisa has been deeply engaged in developing deeper anti-oppression organizing work in the LGBT rights community—much of which is going to be reflected in some new content being rolled out at Creating Change, the premier national LGBT rights conference.

Don’t forget that our blog http://www.bustingbinaries.blogspot.com/ is always there for you to register your opinions, feedback and thoughts.

In solidarity,

Ana and Lisa

Open Letter to the LGBTIQ Community and WorldPride Participants

2006-08-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

Open Letter to the LGBTIQ Community and WorldPride Participants

As LGBTIQ Muslims and allies, the Al-Fatiha Foundation is torn, but united in our boycott of WorldPride in Jerusalem. As a religious organization, Al-Fatiha embraces the great symbolism that WorldPride in Jerusalem represents: the bringing together of LGBTIQ people in a city regarded as holy by Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Yet, this WorldPride will not be a bringing together of people; Palestinians and the vast majority of Muslims will continue to be denied access to the city of Jerusalem. Al-Fatiha cannot, in good faith, support participation in WorldPride held in a segregated Jerusalem, under an Israeli apartheid system.

There is no pride in a system of apartheid institutionalized by the Israeli government and enforced by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinian civilians. Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are routinely denied freedom of movement and unrestricted access to Jerusalem. Palestinians must carry identity cards to go anywhere, and if granted, special permits to enter or exit Jerusalem. Every day, Palestinians must endure numerous checkpoints which restrict and often prohibit their travel for work, for education, and for healthcare. The escalating violence targeting civilians in Palestine/Israel precludes freedom of movement for everyone, regardless of sexuality, religion or ethnicity.

There is no pride in collective punishment of millions of people, in wholesale denial of food, water, adequate shelter, right to property, freedom of movement, access to health care and hospitals, access to education, right to earn a living, right to integrity and liberty. These are basic human rights. And, these are human rights that are systematically violated by policies and practices of the Israeli government and the IDF on a daily basis throughout Palestine.

The recent Israeli bombing of a water treatment plant and the sole power plant that supplies electricity to sixty-five percent of Gaza Strip's 1.4 million inhabitants is just one example of collective punishment experienced by all Palestinians--regardless of religion, political or ideological persuasion, sexual _expression or identity. To date, thousands of Palestinians are still without access to clean water and electricity during the hottest summer months.

In addition, the recent systematic violence by Israel targeting civilian lives in Lebanon and the deliberate annihilation of Lebanese infrastructure of water and electric power plants, airports, seaports, highways, schools and hospitals further widens the scope of collective punishment of millions of innocent civilians.

As an organization, and as a community that spans all continents of the globe, Al-Fatiha stands for justice, peace and self-determination for all people. We believe that all people have the inherent right to liberty, and to freedom of sexual and religious _expression. We equally believe that all people have inviolable human rights, regardless of ethnicity, culture, or nationality.

The Al-Fatiha Foundation stands in solidarity with the many individuals and organizations, such as ASWAT and Helem, which are actively working for nonviolent, peaceful solutions to the violations of human rights in Palestine/Israel, and now Lebanon. We envision a time when all people, regardless of faith, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, culture, or nationality, may celebrate a true WorldPride in a united Jerusalem.

In Struggle and Solidarity,

Al-Fatiha Board of Directors
http://www.al-fatiha.org/

Why We Can No Longer Look the Other Way

2006-08-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

Why We Can No Longer Look the Other Way
By Kerry Lobel and Julie Dorf

It might seem rather myopic, even self-centered, to focus on an LGBTQ rights demonstration in Israel during times like these. For now, Jerusalem WorldPride is still on after much debate. Its organizers are even more determined to sound a message of peace and tolerance in the midst of growing chaos in the region, but they can't do it alone.

As foreigners, it's hard to imagine that business goes on as usual in Jerusalem. We see unending images of complete destruction in Southern Lebanon, and attacks on Northern Israel. Since the Israeli siege in Gaza earlier this summer, many activists, understandably, have found it difficult to call for a focus on LGBTQ issues in the heart of an occupied country at war knowing that Palestinians in Gaza do without water and electricity under the 100 degree summer heat and that the Israeli army bombs not only Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, but roads, power lines, and innocent families, displacing more than 600,000 people.

However, with international attention now on this part of the globe, WorldPride can and must be seen as part of a wider social justice agenda. Together, we must seize this opportunity to show the interconnectedness of all movements for liberation.

In the two weeks prior to the Hezbollah capture of two Israeli soldiers, WorldPride Jerusalem organizers and LGBTQ leaders from around the world mounted a sustained and necessary response to anti-LGBTQ attacks and death threats by right wing religious leaders, particularly from the ultra- Orthodox Jewish community. These are the same leaders who support the settler movement, and who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.

Calls by extremists for the world's largest anti-gay demonstration, combined with violence in the region, has led Jerusalem authorities to deny WorldPride organizers the permit needed to march. The connection between anti-LGBTQ and anti-Palestinian attacks has been made for us, and these attacks are escalating on both fronts.

With the escalating violence in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, it is time for LGBTQ leaders to help WorldPride organizers make real their pledge to use this critical moment and world stage to show solidarity with Palestinians and Israeli peace and justice activists by calling for an end to the occupation, at the same time as calling for the end to religious intolerance. Together, we can work for a just resolution to this decades-long conflict.

The WorldPride Jerusalem 2006 website reads:

The reality that surrounds us is one of violent conflict and decades-long occupation. While painful enough, it is becoming even more painful as a result of the separation wall being built up over the last 2 years, which physically divides Jerusalem and leaves many Jerusalemites behind the wall, denying access to most of Jerusalem for Palestinians, including members from our LGBTQ community.

Our commitment &is to challenge the hostile environment around us and stand behind our principles. The separation wall hurts everyone in our community. Within the official program of the Jerusalem WorldPride events this August, we want to express our solidarity with our community's members who will not be able to be part of World Pride&"

As the WorldPride Jerusalem 2006 organizers wrote, "Holding WorldPride in Jerusalem the city at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a significant opportunity for our diverse community to raise a different voice, a voice for progressive moral values, inclusion, and pluralism."

If WorldPride organizers can speak out against the occupation, our LGBTQ leaders from around the world can do no less. As an LGBTQ movement, we have the responsibility to promote our own deeply held values of human equality and civil rights and to speak out against injustice wherever and however we find it.

For those of us spending WorldPride week at home, we can take action to bring peace to Israel and Palestine, and now Lebanon. Kerry Lobel will be standing with Women in Black in the Bay Area to call for an end to the occupation. For more information about an action near you, contact www.bayareawomeninblack.org.

For those who are attending Jerusalem WorldPride, please join Julie Dorf, WorldPride U.S. co-chair, who will stand along with WorldPride Organizers in solidarity with Palestinians on Monday, August 7th at a Solidarity Rally at the Jerusalem Separation Wall at 17:00. More information about the Rally location can be found at www.worldpride.net.

With our every action, we can bring peace. Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel said, "On three things the world stands: on justice, on truth, and on peace." (Zechariah 8:16)

Kerry Lobel is the former Executive Director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and is a consultant to national and international LGBT and feminist organizations. She can be reached at kerrylobel@thechangegroup.org

Julie Dorf is the founder of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and is Chair of the advisory committee to Human Rights Watch's LGBT Rights Program.

2006-07-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

Over 250 LGBT activists and leaders, writers and artists, organizers
and lawyers, allies and celebrities have signed a document, BEYOND
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, which offers a challenge to the current strategies
employed by LGBT organizations that are pursuing marriage equality.

The statement is below, and can also be found at
www.BeyondMarriage.org, where others can sign on, after reading a
short Executive Summary, as well as the full document.

Plans for the document began in April 2006, when a diverse group of
nearly twenty LGBT and queer activists -  some organizers, some scholars
and educators, some funders, some writers and cultural workers -  came
together to discuss marriage and family politics as they exist in the
United States today.

We met over the course of two days for lively conversations in which
there was often spirited disagreement. However, we do all stand in
agreement with the statement entitled "Beyond Same Sex Marriage".

We offer this statement as a way to challenge ourselves and our allies
working across race, class, gender and issue lines to frame and broaden
community dialogues, to shape alternative policy solutions and to
inform organizing strategies around marriage politics to include the
broadest definitions of relationship and family.

(For a complete listing of the Working Group please refer to the
asterisked names in the signatory section of the statement.)

For more information please contact:
Joseph DeFilippis
212.564.3608
BeyondMarriage@gmail.com



_______________________________________________________________________________




BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE:

A NEW STRATEGIC VISION FOR ALL OUR
FAMILIES & RELATIONSHIPS

July 1, 2006

We, the undersigned - lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers,
journalists, and community organizers - seek to offer friends and
colleagues everywhere a new vision for securing governmental and private
institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households,
kinship relationships and families.  In so doing, we hope to move beyond the
narrow confines of marriage politics as they exist in the United States
today.

We seek access to a flexible set of economic benefits and options
regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender/gender identity, class, or
citizenship status.

We reflect and honor the diverse ways in which people find and practice
love, form relationships, create communities and networks of caring and
support, establish households, bring families into being, and build
innovative structures to support and sustain community.

In offering this vision, we declare ourselves to be part of an
interdependent, global community. We stand with people of every racial, gender
and sexual identity, in the United States and throughout the world, who
are working day-to-day - often in harsh political and economic
circumstances - to resist the structural violence of poverty, racism, misogyny,
war, and repression, and to build an unshakeable foundation of social
and economic justice for all, from which authentic peace and recognition
of global human rights can at long last emerge.



WHY THE LGBT MOVEMENT NEEDS A NEW STRATEGIC VISION


Household & Family Diversity is Already the Norm

The struggle for same-sex marriage rights is only one part of a larger
effort to strengthen the security and stability of diverse households
and families. LGBT communities have ample reason to recognize that
families and relationships know no borders and will never slot narrowly into
a single existing template.

All families, relationships, and households struggling for stability
and economic security will be helped by separating basic forms of legal
and economic recognition from the requirement of marital and conjugal
relationship.

U.S. Census findings tell us that a majority of people, whatever their
sexual and gender identities, do not live in traditional nuclear
families.  Recognizing the diverse households that already are the norm in
this country is simply a matter of expanding upon the various forms of
legal recognition that already are available. The LGBT movement has
played an instrumental role in creating and advocating for domestic
partnerships, second parent adoptions, reciprocal beneficiary arrangements,
joint tenancy/home-ownership contracts, health care proxies, powers of
attorney, and other mechanisms that help provide stability and security
for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual individuals and families.
During the height of the AIDS epidemic, our communities formed support
systems and constructed new kinds of families and partnerships in the
face of devastating crisis and heartbreak. Both our communities and our
HIV organizations recognized, respected, and fought for the rights of
non-traditionally constructed families and non-conventional partnerships.
Moreover, the transgender and bisexual movements, so often historically
left behind or left out by the larger lesbian and gay movement, have
powerfully challenged legal constructions of relationship and fought for
social, legal, and economic recognition of partnerships, households,
and families, which include members who shatter the narrow confines of
gender conformity.

To have our government define as "legitimate families" only those
households with couples in conjugal relationships does a tremendous
disservice to the many other ways in which people actually construct their
families, kinship networks, households, and relationships. For example, who
among us seriously will argue that the following kinds of households
are less socially, economically, and spiritually worthy?


* Senior citizens living together, serving as each other's caregivers,
partners, and/or constructed families
* Adult children living with and caring for their parents
* Grandparents and other family members raising their children's
(and/or a relative's) children
* Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal
partner
* Blended families
* Single parent households
* Extended families (especially in particular immigrant populations)
living under one roof, whose members care for one another
* Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with
another queer person or couple, in two households
* Close friends and siblings who live together in long-term, committed,
non-conjugal relationships, serving as each other's primary support and
caregivers
* Care-giving and partnership relationships that have been developed to
provide support systems to those living with HIV/AIDS

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it
should not be legally and economically privileged above all others.
While we honor those for whom marriage is the most meaningful personal ¬-
for some, also a deeply spiritual - choice, we believe that many other
kinds of kinship relationship, households, and families must also be
accorded recognition.


An Increasing Number of Households & Families Face Economic Stress

Our strategies must speak not only to the fears, but also the hopes, of
millions of people in this country - LGBT people and others - who are
justifiably afraid and anxious about their own economic futures.

Poverty and economic hardship are widespread and increasing. Corporate
greed, draconian tax cuts and breaks for the wealthy, and the
increasing shift of public funds from human needs into militarism, policing, and
prison construction are producing ever-greater wealth and income gaps
between the rich and the poor, in this country and throughout the world.
In the United States, more and more individuals and families
(disproportionately people of color and single-parent families headed by women)
are experiencing the violence of poverty. Millions of people are without
health care, decent housing, or enough to eat. We believe an LGBT
vision for the future ought to accurately reflect what is happening
throughout this country. People are forming unique unions and relationships
that allow them to survive and create the communities and partnerships
that mirror their circumstances, needs, and hopes.  While many in the LGBT
community call for legal recognition of same-sex marriage, many others
- heterosexual and/or LGBT - are shaping for themselves the
relationships, unions, and informal kinship systems that validate and support
their daily lives, the lives they are actually living, regardless of what
direction the current ideological winds might be blowing.


The Right's "Marriage Movement" is Much Broader than Same-Sex Marriage

LGBT movement strategies must be sufficiently prophetic, visionary,
creative, and practical to counter the right's powerful and effective use
of "wedge" politics - the strategic marketing of fear and resentment
that pits one group against another.

Right-wing strategists do not merely oppose same-sex marriage as a
stand-alone issue.  The entire legal framework of civil rights for all
people is under assault by the Right, coded not only in terms of sexuality,
but also in terms of race, gender, class, and citizenship status. The
Right's anti-LGBT position is only a small part of a much broader
conservative agenda of coercive, patriarchal marriage promotion that plays
out in any number of civic arenas in a variety of ways ¬ - all of which
disproportionately impact poor, immigrant, and people-of-color
communities. The purpose is not only to enforce narrow, heterosexist
definitions of marriage and coerce conformity, but also to slash to the bone
governmental funding for a wide array of family programs, including
childcare, healthcare and reproductive services, and nutrition, and transfer
responsibility for financial survival to families themselves.

Moreover, as we all know, the Right has successfully embedded "stealth"
language into many anti-LGBT marriage amendments and initiatives,
creating a framework for dismantling domestic partner benefit plans and
other forms of household recognition (for queers and heterosexual people
alike).  Movement resources are drained by defensive struggles to address
the Right's issue-by-issue assaults.  Our strategies must engage these
issues head-on, for the long term, from a position of vision and
strength.


"Yes!" to Caring Civil Society and "No!" to the Right's Push for
Privatization

Winning marriage equality in order to access our partners' benefits
makes little sense if the benefits that we seek are being shredded.

At the same time same-sex marriage advocates promote marriage equality
as a way for same-sex couples and their families to secure Social
Security survivor and other marriage-related benefits, the Right has mounted
a long-term strategic battle to dismantle all public service and
benefit programs and civic values that were established beginning in the
1930s, initially as a response to widening poverty and the Great
Depression.  The push to privatize Social Security and many other human needs
benefits, programs, and resources that serve as lifelines for many,
married or not, is at the center of this attack.  In fact, all but the most
privileged households and families are in jeopardy as a result of a
wholesale right-wing assault on funding for human needs, including
Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, HIV-AIDS research and treatment, public education,
affordable housing, and more.

This bad news is further complicated by a segment of LGBT movement
strategy that focuses on same-sex marriage as a stand-alone issue.  Should
this strategy succeed, many individuals and households in LGBT
communities will be unable to access benefits and support opportunities that
they need because those benefits will only be available through marriage,
if they remain available at all.  Many transgender, gender queer, and
other gender-nonconforming people will be especially vulnerable, as will
seniors. For example, an estimated 70-80% of LGBT elders live as single
people, yet they need many of the health care, disability, and
survivorship benefits now provided through partnerships only when the partners
are legally married.

Rather than focus on same-sex marriage rights as the only strategy, we
believe the LGBT movement should reinforce the idea that marriage
should be one of many avenues through which households, families, partners,
and kinship relationships can gain access to the support of a caring
civil society.


The Longing for Community and Connectedness

We believe LGBT movement strategies must not only democratize
recognition and benefits but also speak to the widespread hunger for authentic
and just community.

So many people in our society and throughout the world long for a sense
of caring community and connectedness, and for the ability to have a
decent standard of living and pursue meaningful lives free from the
threat of violence and intimidation.  We seek to create a movement that
addresses this longing.

So many of us long for communities in which there is systemic
affirmation, valuing, and nurturing of difference, and in which conformity to a
narrow and restricting vision is never demanded as the price of
admission to caring civil society. Our vision is the creation of communities
in which we are encouraged to explore the widest range of
non-exploitive, non-abusive possibilities in love, gender, desire and sex - and in
the creation of new forms of constructed families without fear that this
searching will potentially forfeit for us our right to be honored and
valued within our communities and in the wider world.  Many of us, too,
across all identities, yearn for an end to repressive attempts to
control our personal lives. For LGBT and queer communities, this longing has
special significance.

We who have signed this statement believe it is essential to work for
the creation of public arenas and spaces in which we are free to embrace
all of who we are, repudiate the right-wing demonizing of LGBT
sexuality and assaults upon queer culture, openly engage issues of desire and
longing, and affirm, in the context of caring community, the
complexities and richness of gender and sexual diversity. However we choose to
live, there must be a legitimate place for us.



THE PRINCIPLES AT THE HEART OF OUR VISION

We, the undersigned, suggest that strategies rooted in the following
principles are urgently needed:

 Recognition and respect for our chosen relationships, in their many
forms
 Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households, and
families, and for the children in all of those households and families,
including same-sex marriage, domestic partner benefits, second-parent
adoptions, and others
 The means to care for one another and those we love
 The separation of benefits and recognition from marital status,
citizenship status, and the requirement that "legitimate" relationships be
conjugal
 Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation
and recognition of relationships, households, and families
 Access for all to vital government support programs, including but
not limited to: affordable and adequate health care, affordable housing,
a secure and enhanced Social Security system, genuine disaster recovery
assistance, welfare for the poor
 Freedom from a narrow definition of our sexual lives and gender
choices, identities, and expression
 Recognition of interdependence as a civic principle and practical
affirmation of the importance of joining with others (who may or may not
be LGBT) who also face opposition to their household and family
compositions, including old people, immigrant communities, single parents,
battered women, prisoners and former prisoners, people with disabilities,
and poor people
We must ensure that our strategies do not help create or strengthen the
legal framework for gutting domestic partnerships (LGBT and
heterosexual) for those who prefer this or another option to marriage, reciprocal
beneficiary agreements, and more.  LGBT movement strategies must never
secure privilege for some while at the same time foreclosing options
for many.  Our strategies should expand the current terms of debate, not
reinforce them.



A WINNABLE STRATEGY

No movement thrives without the critical capacity to imagine what is
possible.

Our call for an inclusive new civic commitment to the recognition and
well-being of diverse households and families is neither utopian nor
unrealistic. To those who argue that marriage equality must take strategic
precedence over the need for relationship recognition for other kinds
of partnerships, households, and families, we note that same-sex
marriage (or close approximations thereof) were approved in Canada and other
countries only after civic commitments to universal or widely available
healthcare and other such benefits. In addition, in the United States,
a strategy that links same-sex partner rights with a broader vision is
beginning to influence some statewide campaigns to defeat same-sex
marriage initiatives.

A Vision for All Our Families and Relationships is Already Inspiring
Positive Change

We offer a few examples of the ways in which an inclusive vision, such
as we propose, can promote practical, progressive change and open up
new opportunities for strategic bridge-building. 

* Canada
Canada has taken significant steps in recent years toward legally
recognizing the equal value of the ways in which people construct their
families and relationships that fulfill critical social functions (such as
parenting, assumption of economic support, provision of support for
aging and infirm persons, and more).
o In the 1990s, two constitutional cases heard by that country's
Supreme Court extended specific rights and responsibilities of marriage to
both opposite-sex and same-sex couples.  Canada's federal Modernization
of Benefits and Obligation Act (2000) then virtually erased the legal
distinction between marital and non-marital conjugal relationships.
o In 2001, in consideration of its mandate to "consider measures that
will make the legal system more efficient, economical, accessible, and
just," the Law Commission of Canada released a report, Beyond
Conjugality, calling for fundamental revisions in the law to honor and support
all caring and interdependent personal adult relationships, regardless of
whether or not the relationships are conjugal in nature.

* Arizona
The Arizona Together Coalition (www.aztogether.org) is currently
running a broad, multi-constituency campaign that emphasizes how the proposed
constitutional amendment to "protect marriage" will affect not just
same-sex couples but also seniors, survivors of domestic violence,
unmarried heterosexual couples, adopted children and the business community.
The Arizona Coalition highlights the probability that the amendment
will eliminate domestic partnership recognition, by both government and
businesses. They also point out that DOMA supporters are the same forces
that wanted to keep cohabitation a crime. As a result of the
Coalition's efforts, support for the constitutional amendment declined sharply in
polls (from 49% to 33%) in the course of a few months (May 2005 -
September 2005).  Accordingly, should the amendment make it onto the
November 2006 ballot, Arizona is poised to become the first state to reject a
state anti-gay constitutional marriage amendment in the voting booth.
We suggest that the LGBT movement pay close attention to the way that
activists in Arizona frame their campaign to be about protecting a
variety of different family arrangements.

* South Carolina
The South Carolina Equality Coalition (www.scequality.org) is fighting
a proposed constitutional amendment with an organizing effort
emphasizing "Fairness for All Families." This coalition is not only focused on
LGBT-headed families, but is also intentionally building relationships
with a broad multi-constituency base of immigrant communities, elders,
survivors of domestic violence, unmarried heterosexual couples, adopted
children, families of prisoners, and more. As we write this statement,
the Coalition's efforts to work in this broader way are being further
strengthened by emphasis on the message that "Families have no borders.
We all belong."

* Utah
In September 2005, Salt Lake City Mayor Ross Anderson signed an
Executive Order enabling city employees to obtain health insurance benefits
for their "domestic partners."  A few months later, trumping the
executive order, the Salt Lake City Council enacted an ordinance allowing city
employees to identify an "adult designee" who would be entitled to
health insurance benefits in conjunction with the benefits provided to the
employee.  The requirements included living with the employee for more
than a year, being at least 18 years old, and being economically
dependent or interdependent.  Benefits extend to children of the adult
designee as well.  While an employee's same-sex or opposite-sex partner could
qualify, this definition is broad enough to encompass many other
household configurations.  The ordinance has survived both a veto by the
Mayor (who wanted to provide benefits only to "spousal like" relationships)
and a lawsuit launched by anti-gay groups.  The judge who ruled in the
lawsuit wrote that "single employees may have relationships outside of
marriage, whether motivated by family feeling, emotional attachment or
practical considerations, which draw on their resources to provide the
necessaries of life, including health care."  We advocate close
attention to such efforts to provide material support for the widest possible
range of household formations.

We offer these four examples to show that there are ways of moving
forward with a strategic vision that is broader than same-sex marriage, and
encompassing of all our families and relationships.  Different regions
of our country will require different strategies, but we can, and must,
keep central to our work the idea that all family forms must be
protected - not just because it is the right thing to do, but also because it
is the strategic and winnable way to move forward.


A Bold, New Vision Will Speak to Many Who are Not Already With Us

At a time when an ethos of narrow self-interest and exclusion of
difference is ascendant, and when the Right asserts a scarcity of human
rights and social and economic goods, this new vision holds long-term
potential for creating powerful and vibrant new relationships, coalitions,
and alliances across constituencies - communities of color, immigrant
communities, LGBT and queer communities, senior citizens, single-parent
families, the working poor, and more -hit hard by the greed and
inhumanity of the Right's economic and political agendas.

At a time when the conservative movement is generating an agenda of
fear, retrenchment, and opposition to the very idea of a caring society,
we need to claim the deepest possibilities for interdependent social
relationships and human expression.  We must dare to dream the world that
we need, the world that has room for us all, even as we also do the
painstaking work of crafting the practical strategies that will address
the realities of our daily lives.   The LGBT movement has a history of
being diligent and creative in protecting our families.  Now, more than
ever, is the time to continue to find new ways of defending all our
families, and to fight to make same-sex marriage just one option on a menu
of choices that people have about the way they construct their lives.


We invite friends everywhere to join us in ensuring that there is room,
recognition, and practical support for us all, as we dream together a
new future where all people will truly be free.


SIGNED BY:

(All organizational affiliations listed for identification purposes
only.
Asterisks* indicate "BEYOND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE" authors.)

Mimi Abramovitz
Professor of Social Policy, Hunter College School of Social Work and
the CUNY Graduate Center
Author, Regulating the Lives of Women

Katherine Acey *
Executive Director, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice

Kimberly D. Acquaviva
Washington, DC

Cathy Albisa
Executive Director, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative

Dorothy Allison
Author, Bastard Out of Carolina, and Cavedweller

Amy Andre
Sexuality author/educator and bi activist,
Documentary filmmaker, Black And White All Over Films

Martha Ackelsberg
Prof of Government and Women's Studies, Smith College
co-author, Why We're Not Getting Married

Nikhil Aziz
Executive Director, Grassroots International

Inelle Bagwell
Coordinating Team Member, Church Within a Church Movement

Marlon M. Bailey
Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and Women's Studies,
University of California-Berkeley

Andre Banks,
Director of Media and Public Affairs, Applied Research Center

Rachel Baum
Former National Program Associate Director, The National Coalition of
Anti-Violence Projects

Nancy K. Bereano
Organizer, Tompkins County Working Group on LGBT Aging
Founding publisher and editor, Firebrand Books

Lauren Berlant
George M. Pullman Professor of English, University of Chicago
Editor, Intimacy

Joan E. Biren (JEB)
Filmmaker/photographer

Ricky Blum
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Society
Member, Pride At Work

Terry Boggis *
Director, Center Kids, the family program of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Community Center
Co-Chair, Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Marsha C. Botzer
Founder, Ingersoll Gender Center

Candice Boyce
Board Chair, African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change

Laura Briggs
Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of Arizona
Author, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in
Puerto Rico
Member, No More Deaths

Susie Bright
author

Michael Bronski
Visiting Professor in Women's and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies,
Dartmouth College
Author, The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay
Freedom

Wendy Brown
Professor of Political Science, University of California-Berkeley
Author, States of Injury

Wayne Bryant
Past President, Bisexual Resource Center
Author, Bisexual Characters in Film

Charlotte Bunch
Executive Director, Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers
University

Kent Burbank
Executive Director, Wingspan (South Arizona's LGBT Community Center)

Linda Burnham
Executive Director, Women of Color Resource Center, Oakland

Richard D. Burns
Executive Director, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community
Center

Judith Butler
Maxine Elliot Professor, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature,
University of California-Berkeley
Author, Gender Trouble and Antigone's Claim

Leslie Cagan
National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Mandy Carter
Board Member, National Black Justice Coalition
Former Executive Director, Southerners On New Ground

Ellen Carton
Former Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

Virginia Casper
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Bank Street College of Education,
New York City
Co-author, Gay Parents/Straight Schools: Building Communication and
Trust

Eli Clare
Author, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation

Pat Clark
Former Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Cheryl Clarke
Poet and author, The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry: 1980-2005

Blanche Wiesen Cook
Author, Eleanor Roosevelt, vols. I & II
Professor, John Jay College & the Graduate Center/CUNY

E.G. Crichton
Professor of Art, University of California-Santa Cruz

Paisley Currah
Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS)
Director, Transgender Law & Policy Institute

Wendy Curry
Vice President, BiNet USA

Ann Cvetkovich
Professor of English, University of Texas, Austin
Author, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public
Cultures

Debanuj Dasgupta *
Board of Directors, Queer Immigrant Rights Project

Trishala Deb
Program Coordinator for the Training and Resource Center, Audre Lorde
Project

Kathleen DeBold
Executive Director, Mautner Project, the National Lesbian Health
Organization

Lara Deeb
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, University of California-Irvine
Founding member, Radical Arab Women's Activist Network
Board member, National Council of Arab Americans Defense of Civil
Rights Committee

Joseph N. DeFilippis *
Executive Director, Queers for Economic Justice
Former Director, SAGE/Queens

John D'Emilio
Professor of Gender Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
Founding Director, The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force
Co-Editor, Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy and Civil Rights

Lisa Dettmer
Producer, Women's Magazine KPFA Radio

Caroyln Dinshaw
Founder, The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
Professor of English and Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University
Founding Co-Editor, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Bill Dobbs

Betty Dodson, PhD
Sexologist
Author, Sex for One and Orgasms for Two

Heidi Dorow
Activist

Marta Drury
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, 1000 Women for Peace, 2005

Martin Duberman
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, City University of New York
Founder, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY
Author, Stonewall

Aine Duggan
Vice-President, Food Bank for New York City
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Lisa Duggan *
Professor and Director of American Studies, New York University
Author, The End of Marriage: The War Over the Future of State Sponsored
Love (forthcoming)

Barbara Ehrenreich
Contributing Writer, New York Times, Harpers, The Progressive and Time
Magazine
Author, Bait and Switch and Nickel and Dimed

Rev. Marvin M. Ellison
Willard S. Bass Professor of Christian Ethics, Bangor Theological
Seminary
Author, Same-Sex Marriage? A Christian Ehtical Analysis

Annie Ellman
Co-founder and former Executive Director, Center for Anti-Violence
Education

David L. Eng
Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University

Jeffrey Escoffier
Writer/Editor
Author, Sexual Revolution and American Homo: Community and Perversity

Rachel Epstein
Coordinator, LGBT Parenting Network, Family Service Association of
Toronto

Paula Ettelbrick
Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission

Kenyon Farrow *
Co-Editor, Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out
Author, "Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?"

Anne Fausto-Sterling
Professor of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular
and Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University
Author, Sexing the Body

Leslie Feinberg
Co-Chair, LGBT Caucus of National Writers Union/UAW
Author, Stone Butch Blues

Chai Feldblum
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

Roderick Ferguson
Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota
Author, Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique

Martha Albertson Fineman
Robert W. Woodruff Professor, Emory University - School of Law
Author, The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency

Laura Flanders
Host, AirAmerica Radio

Charles Flowers
Executive Director, Lambda Literary Foundation

Katherine M. Franke
Professor of Law, Columbia University in the City of New York

Joyful Freeman
Director, GLTBQ Youth Program (Seattle), American Friends Service
Committee

Monroe France
Educational Training Manager, GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education
Network
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Susana T. Fried
Independent Consultant on Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights
Former Program Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission

Stephen Eagle Funk
Regional Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War

Coco Fusco
Associate Professor, Columbia University in the City of New York

Robert Galloway
Pastor, MCC Knoxville, Tennessee

Abigail Garner
Author, Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is

Nicky Grist
Executive Director, The Alternatives to Marriage Project

David Goldberg
Professor and Director, Humanities Research Institute, University of
California-Irvine
Author, The Racial State

Tami Gold
Filmmaker / Activist
Professor, Hunter College CUNY

Richard Gollance
Los Angeles, CA

Letitia Gomez

Gayatri Gopinath
Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of California-Davis
Author, Impossible Desires: Queer Diaspora and South Asian Public
Cultures

Catherine Gund
Filmmaker / Writer / Activist

Ellen Gurzinsky *
Educator / Activist
Former Executive Director, The Funding Exchange

Gael Gundin Guevara

Judith Halberstam
Professor of English, University of Southern California
Director, Center for Feminist Research at USC
Author, Female Masculinity

Karl Hamner
President, KMH Consulting, Inc.
Health Consultant / Bisexual Rights Activist

Eileen Hansen

Jean Hardisty
Author, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John
Birch Society to the Promise Keepers
Founding and Former Executive Director, Political Research Associates

Adam Haslett
Writer

Mary Haviland
Former Co-Director, CONNECT, New York City

Kris Hayashi
Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project

Silvia Henriquez
Executive Director, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

Robert-John Hinojosa
Field Director, Fairness for all Families Campaign, South Carolina
President, Palmetto Umoja, SC
Co-Director, SONG, North Carolina

Lou Hoffman
Board Member, Minnesota Bisexual Organizing Project

Ann Holder
Associate Professor of History, Pratt Institute

Amber Hollibaugh *
Senior Strategist, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Author, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home

Mary E. Hunt
Catholic feminist theologian
Co-director, Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual

Nan Hunter
Professor, Brooklyn Law School
Co-Author, Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture

Loraine Hutchins *
Co-Editor, Bi Any Other Name
Advisory Board, BiNet USA

Abbie Illenberger
Assistant Political Director, UNITE HERE!

Janet Jakobsen
Director, Center for Research on Women, Barnard College
Co-Author, Love The Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance

Amira Jarmakani
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Georgia State University

Lillian Jiménez
Executive Director, Latino Educational Media Center

Darnell L. Johnson
Organizational Manager, Fairness Campaign
Co-chair, 2004 Kentucky "No on the Amendment" campaign
Founder/past President, Common Ground, University of Louisville

Rebecca O. Johnson
Writer/Activist

Ronald S. Johnson
Former Associate Executive Director, Gay Men's Health Crisis

Kenneth T. Jones
Research, Community Activist
Board member, In The Life Atlanta

Lani Ka'ahumanu
Co-editor, Bi Any Other Name
Advisory Board, BiNet USA

Rachael Kamel
Education Coordinator, Community Relations Division, American Friends
Service Committee

Caren Kaplan
Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Chair of the Cultural
Studies Graduate Group
University of California-Davis
Co-Editor, Between Woman and Nation

Esther Kaplan
Author, With God on Their Side
Host, Beyond the Pale, WBAI

Morris B. Kaplan
Professor of Philosophy, Purchase College, State University of New York

Jonathan Ned Katz
Historian/Independent Scholar
Author, Gay American History

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
Author, The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and
Resistance
Former Executive Director, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

Bobbi Keppel
co-founder, Unitarian Universalists Bi Network

Hamid Khan
Executive Director, South Asian Network

Surina Khan *
Senior Program Officer, Women's Foundation of California
Former Executive Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission

Richard Kim *
Writer, The Nation
founding Board member, Queers for Economic Justice

Laura Kipnis
Professor of Radio-TV-Film, Northwestern University
Author, Against Love

Gwyn Kirk
Co-editor, Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives
Co-founder, Women for Genuine Security

Cathy Knight
Executive Director, Church Within a Church Movement

Debra Kolodny
Editor, "Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith,"
Exec. Dir., ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal

Kitty Krupat
Associate Director, Joseph S. Murphy Center for Worker Education, City
University of New York
Co-editor, Out at Work

Frances Kunreuther
Director, Building Movements Project
Former Executive Director, The Hetrick Martin Institute

Malachi Larrabee-Garza
Advanced Political Education Coordinator, The School of Unity and
Liberation (SOUL)
Board Member, Transgender and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP)

Deke Law

Arthur S. Leonard
Professor of Law, New York Law School

Asha Leong
Campaign Manager, South Carolina Equality Coalition

Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
National Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives

Jenifer Levin
Author, Water Dancer and The Sea of Light

Reverend Jacqueline J. Lewis
Senior Minister in Charge, The Middle Collegiate Church, New York, NY

Yoseñio V. Lewis
Board of Directors, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Writer/Performance Artist

Phoenix Lindsey-Hall
Volunteer Coordinator, The Fairness Campaign, Louisville, KY

Susan Lob
Director, Voices of Women Organizing Project

Kerry Lobel *

Scott Long
Director, LGBT Rights Program, Human Rights Watch

Lisa Lowe
Professor of Literature, University of California-San Diego
Author, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics

Craig Lucas
Writer / Director

Samuel Lurie
Director, Transgender Awareness Training

Chris Lymbertos
Oakland, CA

Pat Maher
Co-Director, Haymarket's People Fund

Martin Manalansan
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at
Champaign-Urbana
Author, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora

Rickke Mananzala
Campaign Coordinator, FIERCE!

William Mann
Writer and Historian

Beth Maples-Bays
East Tennessee Bureau Chief, Out and About Newspaper
Co-President, Greater Knoxville LGBTQ Leadership Council
Vice President, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
Tennessee Nashville) Chapter

Armistead Maupin
Writer/Producer

Pam McMichael
Director, Highlander Research and Education Center
Founding Co-Director, Southerners on New Ground

Terrence McNally
Writer

Alice M. Miller, JD*
Ass't Professor, Clinical Population and Family Health, Columbia
University, Mailman School of Public Health

Marshall Miller
Co-Founder, The Alternatives to Marriage Project
Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living
Together as an Unmarried Couple

Gwendolyn Mink
Co-Coordinator, Women's Committee of 100
Charles N. Clark Professor, Studies in Women and Gender, Smith College
Author, Welfare's End

Donna Minkowitz
Journalist
Author, Ferocious Romance

Nasreen Mohamed
Writer & Activist, Minneapolis

Jeffrey Montgomery
Executive Director, Triangle Foundation
Board Member, Woodhull Freedom Foundation

Richard W. Morrison
Executive Editor, University of Minnesota Press

Shadow Morton

José E Muñoz
Associate Professor and Chair of Performance Studies, New York University
Author, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of
Politics

Yasmin Nair
Activist, Educator
Member, CLIA (Chicago LGBTQ Immigrants Alliance)
Writer, Windy City Times

Scot Nakagawa
Grants and Program Director, Social Justice Fund Northwest

Holly Near
Singer/Activist

Joan Nestle
Lesbian Herstory Archives

Heba Nimr
Program Coordinator, Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action

Reverend Dr. Penny Nixon
Senior Minister, MCC San Francisco

Robin Nussbaum
Educator/Activist
Former Coordinator, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Queers
for Justice Program

Robyn Ochs
marriage equality activist
Editor, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World

Margo Okazawa-Rey
Research Consultant, Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling

Doyin Ola
Welfare Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice
Working Group Member, TransJustice, a project of the Audre Lorde
Project
Steering Committee, Uhuru-Wazobia, LGBT Africans

Ana Oliveira *
Executive Director, New York Women's Foundation
Former Executive Director, Gay Men's Health Crisis

Nancy Ordover
Author, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of
Nationalism

Reverend Freeman L. Palmer, Minister
Congregational Life and Development, Middle Collegiate Church, New York, New York

Cori Schmanke Parrish *
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Cindy Patton
Professor of Sociology, Simon Fraser University
Author, The Invention of AIDS

Clarence Patton
Executive Director, The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence
Project
Acting Director, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs

Gerry Gomez Pearlberg
Poet/Editor

Ann Pellegrini
Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Religious Studies, New York University
Co-Author, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance

Denise Penn
Past President, BiNet USA
Board Member, The American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB)

Rosalind Petchesky
Distinguished Professor, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, City
University of New York
Author, Abortion and Woman's Choice

Suzanne Pharr *
Author, In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation and
Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism
Former Director, Highlander Research and Education Center

Judith Plaskow
Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College
co-author, Why We're Not Getting Married

Nancy Polikoff *
Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law
Author, Valuing All Families (forthcoming, Beacon Press, 2007)

Elizabeth Povinelli
Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
Author, Empire of Love: Toward A Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy and
Carnality

Achebe Betty Powell *
Activist / Educator
Consultant, Betty Powell Associates

Lisa Powell
Attorney and activist

The Rev. Cecil Charles Prescod
Director, Public Voice for Peace and Equality Project, Love Makes A
Family, Inc.

Jasbir Puar
Assistant Prof. of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

Christopher Punongbayan
Advocacy Director, Filipinos for Affirmative Action

Susan Raffo
Editor, Queerly Classed: Gay Men and Lesbians Write About Class

Chandan Reddy
Assistant Professor Department of English, University of Washington,
Seattle

Betsy Reed
Executive Editor, The Nation

Reno
Performance Artist

Ruby Rich
Author of Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film
Movement
Community Studies Dept, UC Santa Cruz

Holly Richardson
Out Now

Ignacio Rivera *
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Founder of Poly Patao Productions / performance artist

Colin Robinson
Founder, Caribbean Pride
Former Executive Director, New York State Black Gay Network & Gay Men
of African Descent

Ruthann Robson
Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law

Juana María Rodríguez
Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, UC Davis
Author, Queer Latinidad

Loretta J. Ross
National Coordinator, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health
Collective

Rev. Nori Rost
Executive Director, Just Spirit: A Center for People of All Faiths

Maggi Rubenstein
Co-founder, the San Francisco Bisexual Center
Founding member, Bay Area Bisexual Network

Graciela Isabel Sánchez
Director, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Ronni Sanlo ED.D
Director, UCLA LGBT Center
Founding Chair, National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in
Higher Education

Ann Schranz
Unitarian Universalist minister

Joan Wallach Scott
Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
University

Rinku Sen
Executive Director, Applied Research Center
Publisher, Colorlines Magazine.

Mark M. Sexton and W. Kirk Wallace

Svati P. Shah
Member, South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association
Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, Center for the Study of Gender and
Sexuality,
New York University

Julie Shapiro
Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law

Eveline Shen
Executive Director, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice

Carl Siciliano
Founder/Executive Director, Ali Forney Center

Kathy Skaggs
Writer

Anna Marie Smith
Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University
Author, Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation (forthcoming)

Rita Smith
Executive Director, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Sarah Sohn
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice
Former Legal Fellow, Immigration Equality

Alisa Solomon
Director, Arts & Culture MA, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia
University
Former Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY

Dorian Solot
Co-Founder, Alternatives to Marriage Project
Co-Author, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living
Together as an Unmarried Couple

Dean Spade
Founder, Sylvia Rivera Law Project

Judith Stacey
Professor of Sociology, New York University
Author, Brave New Families

Erich Steinman
Co-Editor, Bisexuality in the Lives of Men: Facts and Fictions

Gloria Steinem
Founder and original publisher, Ms. Magazine

Jessica Stern
Researcher, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program,
Human Rights Watch
Board Member, Queers for Economic Justice

Jacquelyn Stevens
Associate Professor, Law and Society Program, University of
California-Santa Barbara
Author, Reproducing the State

Julia Sudbury
Professor of Ethnic Studies, Mills College
Founding member, Critical Resistance
Editor, Global Lockdown: Race, Gender & the Prison-Industrial Complex

Ashley Tellis
Asst. Professor, English, Eastern Illinois University
Queer Immigrant Rights Project

Beth Teper
Executive Director, COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere)

Jennifer Terry
Associate Professor and Director of Women's Studies, University of
California-Irvine
Author, American Obsession: Science, Medicine and Homosexuality in
Modern Society

Kendall Thomas *
Activist
Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University in the City of New York

Juhu Thukral
Director, Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center

Judith Thurman
Writer

Bonnie Tinker
Executive Director, Love Makes a Family, Inc.

Jay Toole
Shelter Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice

Barbara Turk
Former Executive Director, YWCA of Brooklyn

Judith E. Turkel
Turkel Forman & de la Vega LLP, New York

Sharon Ullman
Associate Professor of History, Bryn Mawr College
Author, Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America

Tony Valenzuela
Writer / Gay Men's Health Advocate

Paula Vogel
Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative
Literature, Brown University
Playwright, How I Learned to Drive

KC Wagner,
Director of Workplace Issues, Cornell-ILR, NYC

Leonie Walker
Philanthropic Activist

Carla Wallace
Fairness Campaign Leadership Council, Louisville, Kentucky

Suzanna Walters
Chair of the Department of Gender Studies, Indiana University
Author, All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America

Michael Warner
Professor of English, Rutgers University
Author, The Trouble with Normal

Denise Wells

Cornel West

Robin West
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Center of Law

Marcy Westerling
Founder and Executive Director, Rural Organizing Project, Scappoose, Oregon

Kay Whitlock *
Writer/Organizer
Former National Representative for LGBT Issues, The American Friends
Service Committee

Robyn Wiegman
Professor and Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women's Studies, Duke University
Author, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender

Maya Wiley
Executive Director, Center for Social Inclusion

Penelope Williams
NE Regional Coordinator emeritus, BiNet USA
Co-organizer, People of Color Institutes, Creating Change

Andre A. Wilson
Organizer/Activist, Trans Health Advocate
Co-founder, Transforum of University of Michigan
Member, Pride At Work - Michigan

Joe Wilson
Program Officer for Human Rights, Public Welfare Foundation
Documentary Filmmaker, qWaves Productions

Ellen Willis
Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
Director, Concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism, New York University

JoAnn Wypijewski
Columnist, Mother Jones
Independent Journalist

Jesi Yager
Artist/Activist
Former volunteer, 2004 Kentucky "No on the Amendment" Campaign
Former Director, 2004 National Coming Out Day Works on Shirt Project,
Louisville, KY
Former Administrative Staff, New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Campaign

Miriam W. Yeung, MPA
Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, The Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual & Transgender Community Center

Kenji Yoshino,
Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Rebecca Young
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Barnard College

Karen Zelermyer
Executive Director, Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues

Beth Zemsky *
GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota
Former Co-Chair of the Board of Directors, National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force

World Pride

2006-07-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

World Pride is set to take place in Jerusalem in August and as a Jewish/Arab-American lesbian I have strong feelings about the choice of this location. I have even stronger feelings about the defining silence I experience from U.S based queers that are not collectively outraged by World Pride taking place in middle of a bloody and unjust occupation.

I am often asked if being Jewish and Arab creates conflict and inner turmoil for me. Some people have even suggested that because these identities are "so contradictory" that my existence somehow defies logic since there is nothing about Jewishness and Arabness that can equally co-exist. The truth is that being Jewish and Arab provides me with tremendous clarity.

Given this gift of clarity, let me break a few things down:

The U.S. has a deep and long history of perpetuating and supporting Anti-Semitism nationally and internationally. Anti-Semitism is alive and kicking in this country and in movements for social justice. We often do not talk about it nor do we, as LGBT activists, have the political education we need to understand how insidious it is in our society and in our movement building work.

The U.S. has a deep and long history of perpetuating and supporting anti-Arab racism and Islamaphobia nationally and internationally. Anti-Arab racism and Islamaphobia are alive and kicking in this country and in movements for social justice. The silence about the oppression of Arab and Islamic people in this blindly pro-Israeli country and LGBT movement is deafening.

Lastly, if the LGBT community is committed to justice and ending all forms of oppression than we need to get a backbone and stand just as strongly against Anti-Semitism as we do against anti-Arab racism and Islamaphobia. There is nothing contradictory about challenging oppression wherever and whenever it exists.

This brings me back to World Pride.... How can US based queers think that joining a party in the middle of an occupation furthers our vision of justice? It is inconceivable to me that as LGBT people, who are fighting for our own social and economic justice, we cannot connect our struggles to those of thousands of Palestinians who are suffering under this occupation.

The US based queer movements support of World Pride is a "perfect" example of how disconnected the mainstream LGBT movement is from other movements for social and economic justice. Yet, I would be remiss if I did not honor the history of queer folks--particularly queer People of Color--who have done some of the deepest and most intersectional work across every movement for social justice. This aspect of our queer movement continues to work to end the occupation of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, challenge Anti-Semitism and organize for workers rights, environmental justice, reproductive justice and disability rights.

It is time for the LGBT rights movement to get with it! Remember: silence equals death not only for the LGBT rights movement but also for all communities that experience oppression.

Spring 2006

2006-05-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since Creating Change in November 2005. Two key changes are: that Lisa was hired as Director of Capacity Building within the Movement Building department at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; that Ana was in Austin, Texas working with the Austin Project and has been writing and performing with other artists and organizers in Texas. Ana's first novel, Erzulie's Skirt, is forthcoming from RedBone Press.

This year we began and finished a long dialogue about socio-economic class in our movements. We initially broached the subject last Spring (2005), and began a series of email exchanges that brought us to April 2006. In these exchanges, we've explored our personal relationships to class, our movement experiences, our social and political experiences and some of our thinking about how the paradigm or framework of binary busting does NOT in fact address the particular challenges of class-based oppression. It's been interesting to see the limits of our own framework, and to understand its other side. The results of this dialogue and our thinking were posted in May: both Ana's Story, Lisa's Story and our critical writing piece: Busting the Lens, Collapsing the Binaries: Reframing Class.

Simultaneous to this new writing and all the other changes, we've been working on developing curriculum for trainings and workshops on binary busting. We've also been gathering writings by organizers in our movements that speaks to the binary busting framework and that makes connections between the different issues affecting our multiple communities (send your writing in - we'd love to read it). We've updated our website to accomodate both our limited technological capacity and desire for accessibility.

The work of binary busting has also extended beyond the website. For both of us, it has been exciting to have conversations with artists, scholars and organizers in our daily lives and interactions where we have opportunities to see connections being made and where our own growth has been pushed as well.

There's more to come. This summer we'll be working on finalizing some workshops curriculum and publishing even more writings. Stay posted.

Creating Change, Oakland 2005

2005-11-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

We just got back from Creating Change. Both Lisa and I were there this year - she was there for the entire week, and I was there for the last two days of the conference. It was held in Oakland and there were a ton of people. We got to connect with some folks (if you're out there and reading this - it was great to see you) and hand out a ton of postcards. We also got to speak to some people about submitting pieces to the website. Love it!

Highlights included the POC and sexuality workshop - talk about living out a busted binary - that was awesome. We touched upon a ton of stuff including: gender identity, religion, polyamory, incest, mixed race identity, class, lesbian feminism, s&m and much, much more. Wow. Other highlights included Urvashi Vaid's call to the movement. Maybe one day we can get a copy of her statements up here.

And, there are other highlights which we will touch upon later. Peace.

Week Two

2005-11-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

Well, we are going on two weeks that our website has been up and live. We've had the opportunity to get the word out by email. Next week, we will be handing out postcards at Creating Change, in Oakland and hopefully connecting with all the wonderful folks from around the country.

We'll also be doing a mailing the week after. If you would like to join our mailing list, please send an email to bustingbinaries@yahoo.com.

Thank you to the folks who have provided such wonderful comments.

Welcome to the Busting Binaries Weblog.

2005-10-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the weblog. This page is to provide a space for comments and insight from those of you who visit our website. We also plan on posting information related to developments in our work, including upcoming workshops, talks, etc.

Feel free to post your comments here.