The text is from a poem by Black Lesbian poet Pat Parker (pictured) . My copy is from Naming The Waves Contemporary Lesbian Poetry - ed Christian McEwan 1988.
Photos of Nancy Valverde, a Chicana gender nonconforming lesbian who was routinely arrested for violating L.A.âs cross-dressing ban throughout the 50s and has been credited as helping overturn the ban. Valverde died at the age of 92 in March of 2024.
Valverdeâs death comes after the city of L.A. honored her last year with a dedicated square.
Here is the article I found on the life and work of Nancy Valverde for anyone interested! It was written by Caitlin Hernandez, a queer Latine journalist. You can find more of their work through their profile on LAist (the website linked) or their profile on Twitter/X @ caitlinherdez
In 1934-1936, trans brothers Mark and David Ferrow of Yarmouth, UK, both transitioned at age 13 with full parental support. Mark medically transitioned first in 1939 at 17 and his brother soon followed. âThough we have been girls, we have both felt men at heart,â Mark told a reporter. Their stories show that trans youth can grow up to be happy, celebrated adults.
David lived in their hometown of Great Yarmouth, UK for the rest of his life. He became a local icon. At 15, he started selling books. He later ran a wildly successful bookshop until death in 2006, age 81, 68 years after transitioning. He had a daughter, Jan, who supported his work. The whole town adored him. Why, yes, that is a mug of his face.
Mark, always passionate about art, joined the Kirby Muxlue Players troupe as a writer and traveled throughout the UK. His David Gower painting is currently in the UKâs National Portrait Gallery! His art still hangs in collections all over the country - although itâs almost never recognized as being by a trans artist. Mark married Edna Hall in 1942 and died in 1991, age 68, in Leicester.
Itâs important to mention that itâs unclear if both men are intersex despite the reports. At the time, it was customary for non-intersex trans people to claim intersex conditions in order to access care (e.g. Roberta Cowell). Regardless if they were trans or intersex and trans, I would hate their underreported stories to be forgotten!
so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books theyâve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! theyâre mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think thatâs super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!
Feeling a sudden desire, for whatever reason, to add some diversity to your bookshelf? Want to put a few bucks in the pockets of authors of color? Hereâs a sampler platter to get you started.Â
Tananarive Due
A film historian and a hot name in horror fiction, Due is an outspoken academic and prolific author. Start with The Good House, a 2003 Gothic, if youâre a fan of haunted house stories.
Wrath James White
A former athlete, White is a hugely prolific author of hardcore horror. You can start with The Resurrectionist, but honestly, with more than 35 books to choose from, youâve got plenty of options.
Victor LaValle
LaValle has only written four novels so far, but theyâre well-regarded and rich narratives. The Changeling is the usual recommendation for a starting place.
Brandon Massey
Southern Gothic themes woven through horror, suspense and urban themes - thatâs Masseyâs brand in a nutshell. Heâs plenty prolific, so youâve got a bunch to choose from. Maybe start with this yearâs new release, The Quiet Ones.
Chesya Burke
A prolific short story writer, Burke writes speculative fiction and comic books. If youâd like a collection of stories all in one place, try out Letâs Play White. If youâd rather do a novel, read The Strange Crimes of Little Africa.
Jemiah Jefferson
Do you like pulpy erotic vampire horror? You donât have to answer that. Just buy Jeffersonâs books if you do. Thereâs a series, so youâll want to start at the beginning with Voice of the Blood.
Michael Boatman
An actor and screenwriter, Boatman is also a novelist. He writes splatterpunk that Joe Lansdale has praised, which is as fine an accolade as they come. The Revenant Road was his first novel. He also shows up in a ton of anthologies, so keep an eye out.
Helen Oyeyemi
Oyeyemi is a rising star, Shirley Jackson Award finalist, scholar, a world traveler, among other things. Her most recent book, Gingerbread, came out in 2019. I think it would not be out of line to compare her to Angela Carter.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
A debut novelist, Ruffinâs work launched with a bang in February. His book We Cast a Shadow was long-listed for a stack of prizes, and as a scathing cultural sci-fi horror, it fits right in with the work of folks like Jordan Peele.
Nnedi Okorafor
A Nigerian-American writer, Okorafor writes for both children and adults, and her stories have earned a whole stack of awards. She is, for the record, also disabled. Sheâs got a whole stack of YA and adult books to choose from, as well as comic books. Binti and its sequel are as good a place as any to start, though.
Jewelle Gomez
Philanthropist, playwright, poet, author â Gomez dabbles in a lot of things, and sheâs an outspoken voice for LGBTQ women of color. Check out The Gilda Stories if youâve always wanted to read about a black lesbian vampire (and, letâs be honest, who hasnât?)
PS: When you order, donât waste your money on Amazon. Instead, use a service like https://bookshop.org/ that distributes your hard-earned cash to independent booksellers. Keep money in your community.Â
PPS: I love Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler and also left them off the list because theyâre well-known already and because I think itâs really important right now to support living artists, but you should check out their work too.Â
âTo protect their careers, lesbian government workers moderated their behavior to avoid suspicion. They refused to socialize with other lesbians in public, attended social functions with gay men as their âdates,â and carefully chose their wardrobes and makeup to project a feminine persona. Male employees who resented reporting to a female boss could trigger an investigation into her sexuality.â - Robert J Corber âCold War Femmeâ
this era was called the lavender scare and was both a direct result of mccarthyism and the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness during ww2. over 10,000 lesbians and gay men lost their jobs and as a result the daughters of bilitis (the first ever lesbian activist group in the u.s.) formed in order to protect themselves and gay men
Our current landlady is the very image of one of those landlords whoâd be spared the guillotine.
Sheâs an older, polite, maternal (white, middle class) woman who just happened to have enough money to buy a spare house, and is renting it to top up her pension. She reads The Guardian and asks after my family and does the occasional repair when necessary. Sheâs not one of those evil landlords.
She also just repeatedly lied to our faces about our contracts to try to get us to forfeit most of the rights we have as tenants. She also visits frequently, criticising how we live and reminding us that our home belongs to her. She also condescendingly and unnecessarily explains to us how boilers and washing machines and carpets work.
She explains to us how renting works.
She explains it with an indulgent smile, like a grandmother talking to a child, as if sheâs being terribly patient about correcting our misunderstandings.
And she lies.
She lies because as much as she wants to convince us, everyone else, and even herself that sheâs a good person, our entire relationship is based on the power she holds over us. She uses her wealth and position in society to extort payment from us, who have nowhere to live. We sacrifice to her the majority of the income we spend our lives earning, just so we can have a roof over our heads. But any time we donât show proper deference to her, she could have us out on the street in weeks or months. Weâd lose our home, because to her it is merely an asset which in no way belongs to us, the people who live there.
Today she repeatedly lied to us about our contract, and about the law, because she wanted us to have the minimum legal power possible. If I didnât organise with a local tenantsâ union, I wouldnât have known my rights. And if I didnât have the security of being a member of that union behind me, I never would have had the guts to challenge her. My housemate had no idea she was lying, and would have trusted her, signing away what few rights we had under the law.
As part of this tenantsâ union, Iâm always fighting with the worst landlords - the ones who keep people living in squalor, the ones with a dozen properties, the ones who are violent and abusive. But today has reminded me that even the âniceâ landlords are still scum.
A genuinely good person who has enough spare money to buy a spare house (which is a lot of money! they wouldnât need more!) would just let people who need a home live there, not bleed them of their income for the privilege of a warm place to sleep.
Never trust a landlord.
But more importantly, join a tenantsâ union, and take back the power they hold over you. It was one of the most empowering things Iâve ever done.
In London, I recommend London Renters Union.
In Scotland: Living Rent.
In the rest of the UK: ACORN.
+ there are tenantsâ unions all over the world, and housing co-ops where everyone who lives there part-owns their home and thereâs no landlord to answer to
âThere is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a shipâs, smooths and contains the rocker. Itâs an inside kindâwrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of oneâs own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.â
â Toni Morrison, from Beloved (Alfred A. Knopf, 1987)
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been illegal in Tanzania since 1998. But every year thousands of families still plan to have their daughters cut, an ordeal that could cost them their lives. The âCutting Seasonâ takes place during the December school holidays.
During this time hundreds of girls are saved from FGM by the police, the government and the work of the Safe House. It is run by Rhobi Samwelly, who was herself a victim of FGM, and now, not only does she valiantly run the safe house but she also works with the local police to rescue and protect girls at risk while arresting the parents and cutters.
But they have a tough and dangerous job and old customs die hard. Men believe that girls must be cut to reduce promiscuity and cut girls command twice the bride price in cows as uncut girls. Girls like Rosie, just 12 years old, have had to make the most difficult choices of their young lives - run away from home, not knowing if they will ever see their families again, or submit to female genital mutilation and child marriage.
These brave and courageous young girls are fighting against a tradition that goes back thousands of years. They are standing up for their human rights and fighting for change in their community.
The Safe House is the one safe place they can escape to.
i remember how she / wd fuck me
like a train / inexorably on & on
like the cannonball run
casey at the throttle / & at bat
(but never striking out)
john henry slamming home that sledge /
whipping that machine / pistons driving driving
she wd have me / like that
like stagecoach mary / ambushing my pussy at the pass
(& no i wasnât just along for the ride)
all wet & sweaty like the horses
our flanks heaving / nostrils flared
inhaling that womanfunk
her juice waz my oats my sweet hay
my clover & sugarlump / all rolled into one
all rolling into one hilarious hayride of a fuck/
one breakneck gallop / pony express donât stop
till we bring it to you / of a fuck
the way bill picket dogged that runaway bull/
till he dropped / & nat love rode that bronc/
the way we rode each other till one of us gave in or out
& gave a war whoop
& feathers flying/
& engine pumping/ & us pumping
& she fuckin me/
like the last steam locomotive
hellbent for pleasure
â Storme Webber, poem accompanying the article âBattle Stations: The Stations Collective Arms Itself on the Front Lines of Creativity,â OutWeek Magazine No. 6, July 31, 1989, p. 37; originally published in Serious Pleasure: Lesbian Erotic Stories and Poetry, Sheba Feminist Publishers, 1989.
Now that abortion has become a front page issue once again, thanks to the Supreme Courtâs unfortunate decision in the Webster case, itâs time for gays and lesbians, and particularly gay men, to restate our committment to the rights of women to unrestricted accesss to safe, affordable abortion.
Some gay men question why abortion, which they think affects primarily straight women, is a gay issue. The answer is simple. Abortion is primarily about power, the power of society to control what a person, in this case a pregnant woman, can or cannot do with her own body. There is a clear, direct parallel between societyâs desire to exert control over women through abortion restrictions and its desire to criminalize gays and lesbians through sodomy laws and legalized discrimination.
We should all recognize what our enemies have long known: There is either a right to privacy or there isnât. If society accepts the fundamental freedoms that a right to privacy implies, then it is obligated to accept both the right to abortion and the rights of gay men and lesbians. If there is no such privacy right, society has no such obligations.
Itâs no accident that those who seek to restrict abortion are also at the front lines of the anti-gay movement, for both conservative goals are basically the same: to roll back the gains of the sexual revolution, throwing women back into the kitchens and back alleys and gays back into the closet. Anti-abortionists are essentially anti-sex, and there is a strong flavor of punishment and retribution in their ideology. They believe that sensual pleasure is a crime, the punishment for which should be enforced pregnancy, or prison, or AIDS. Their ideology has caused centuries of silent suffering for gay men, lesbians and all women. It still causes suffering today.
Some thought that the abortion issue was settled forever by Roe v. Wade. The reality is that the issues of both abortion and lesbian and gay rights will never be settled. There will always be those who fear sex, who hate women and their bodies, who, in their repression, wish to oppress others. We will always have to fight. What we must learn to do is fight together. Lesbians have been prescient in recognizing their stake in fighting AIDS. They understand the basic interconnectedness of AIDS, lesbian rights and their struggles as women. Gay men should be no less intelligent. Abortion is as important a gay manâs issue as any we have before us today.
â Editorial, OutWeek Magazine No. 6, July 31, 1989, p. 4.
Harsh Ice Age conditions may have favoured the selection of genes which allowed some humans to focus on tasks in great detail for long periods, scientists believe
Offices across the state conduct operations under the guise of saving victims of human trafficking. But the vast majority of people detained, including sex workers, are charged with prostitution.
At around 11 p.m. on May 15, Lauren pulled into the parking lot of a Hilton in Lakeland, Florida. The air was damp and cool, and the 32-year-old was nervous: She was there to meet a couple who had responded to an ad she posted that day advertising sexual services. Lauren was new to sex work. She had a 2-year-old child at home, and money was tight.
Inside the hotel room, Lauren leaned against a dresser. âI gotta be careful,â she remembered saying. âIâm glad you guys are who you say you are.â
At one point that evening, Lauren went to the bathroom to freshen up. But after she finished, she opened the bathroom door to detectives from the Polk County Sheriffâs Office who arrested her.
To maintain her privacy, Lauren requested that her real name not be used.
The day before Laurenâs arrest, the sheriffâs office vice unit initiated âOperation No Spring Flingâ in which undercover officers posted and responded to ads soliciting sex work. âThe primary goal,â Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference after the sting ended on May 19, âis to rescue victims of human trafficking and to arrest people that are buying human beings, and thatâs what these guys were doing when they were seeking the services of these ladies.â
Yet according to a press release from the sheriffâs office, only three people out of the 154 arrested as a result of the sting were considered possible victims of human trafficking. Of those, two women, a 17-year-old and a 23-year-old, were charged with unspecific crimes.
The vast majority of people arrested, including Lauren, were charged with solicitation, and their mugshots were displayed on a banner during the sheriffâs press conference and subsequently published online by local newspapers.
After officers read Lauren the Miranda rights, she told them she was âdown on her luck and needed money to buy diapers for her child,â according to the affidavit for her arrest. Several women caught in the sting also seemed to be engaged in survival sex work. A 22-year-old said she had posted an ad online because she lost her job earlier in the day and needed money immediately to pay her bills. A 45-year-old single mother said she needed money to support her children.
When reached for comment, the Polk County Sheriffâs Office directed The Appeal to video of the press conference, where Judd insisted that many of the women arrested were victims of human trafficking. âI suggest that those that are on social media or any other media saying, âWell, itâs just a business relationship by two consenting adults,â donât understand or donât want to understand or donât care,â he said. âWe care. We care about every one of those folks, and we care enough to arrest them if they donât behave. We care enough to help them if theyâll let us help them. But we will not give up, thatâs our promise.â
***
Operations that purport to target human trafficking but yield mass arrests for prostitution-related offenses are commonplace in Florida counties.
On Feb. 19, multiple sheriffs offices and police departments raided spas across Floridaâs east coastâincluding the Orchids of Asia Day Spaâresulting in nearly 300 arrests. The operation garnered international attention because one of the arrestees at that spa was New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was charged with soliciting prostitution. âItâs manifestly obvious to us that this is human trafficking,â Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said of the massage parlors in late February. But in mid-April, prosecutors acknowledged that nobody arrested in the Martin County raids had been charged with human trafficking. âThere is no human trafficking that arises out of this investigation,â said assistant state attorney Greg Kridos.
On June 21, the Hillsborough County Sheriffâs Office announced the arrests of 85 people in âOperation Trade Secretsâ which targeted massage parlors, hotels, strip clubs, and adult bookstores. âThe only way to get proof of victims of human trafficking is to do an operation like this,â Sheriff Chad Chronister said. âYou donât know whoâs there on their own free will and whoâs being forced to have sex.â But about half of the people taken into custody were booked on prostitution-related offenses. Only one was arrested for sex trafficking.
Despite the failure of such investigations to identify human trafficking, Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed into law a requirement that spas and hotels instruct staff on how to spot signs of sex trafficking and that law enforcement officers complete four-hour training on how to investigate trafficking. The law also creates a database of individuals who are convicted of soliciting prostitutes.
***
Florida is just one front in a national targeting of what one anti-trafficking nonprofit calls âillicit massage businessesâ that advocates say make women more vulnerable. Womankind, a New York-based service provider for Asian survivors of trafficking, told The Appeal last year: âThe reality we still face is that policing, regardless of how creative and collaborative the approach may seem, does not tackle the root causes of vulnerability and exploitation.â
The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges is likely to bring a renewed focus to trafficking that could yield even more arrestsânot of billionaire predators, said Kate DâAdamo, a sex worker advocate and partner at Reframe Health and Justice, but working-class women.Â
âPredators donât get caught in johns stings,â DâAdamo said, because they target people who wouldnât feel comfortable talking to police. The way to catch these men, DâAdamo said, is to form connections with the sex worker community, but âthat doesnât happen when your connection to them is arresting them for a low-level crime.âÂ
Instead, DâAdamo said such investigations often punish women who have no option but to engage in survival sex work. âWhat happens when you go in to find a job to try to stabilize your life and your name gets Googled and what comes up is a prostitution arrest?â DâAdamo said. âTheyâve taken someone for whom that [sex work] was the best option for meeting what sounds like incredibly basic resource needs ⌠[who is] traumatized by violence, and now [has] a criminal record thatâs going to leave them in economic instability for a very long time.â
***
After Laurenâs mother posted her $2,000 bond at the Polk County jail, she struggled to find transportation to her home in Hillsborough County, about 30 miles away. Officers had seized her phone, and because a search of her vehicle allegedly yielded a pink pouch containing syringes with cocaine, the sheriffâs office also impounded her car.
Lauren now faces two misdemeanor charges for solicitation, a misdemeanor charge for possession of drug paraphernalia and a felony charge for cocaine. If convicted, she could spend up to five years in prison plus probation and have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
âIâm so fortunate that I had my mom to help me get out,â Lauren said. âSome of these girls donât have that option. Theyâre literally gonna be stuck in jail, doing time, and theyâre gonna come out with nothing. Theyâre not gonna know what to do but what they did before. Theyâre literally having to start over.â
any company or advertisement that makes a gimmick out of not wearing foundation but redirects that focus into âskincareâ isnât focusing any less on standards of preternatural perfection for women but rather keeping the standards the same & giving you even fewer tools to try to attain them with
âSomething similar is going on today with a certain popular beauty look, which we might label âInstagram model.â The look evokes both nakedness and airbrushing and is made possible by technology. A lot of the work formerly performed by makeup has been redirected into products and proceduresâeyelash extensions, micro-current facials, injections of all kindsâleading to, and prompted by, an aesthetic of militant naturalness surrounded by an unambiguous aura of money and work. Itâs a regime posing as a regimen. âRules of taste enforce structures of power,â Sontag wrote. The beauty industry runs on its ability to redefine ânaturalâ at increasingly higher prices.â
âJia Tolentino, âThe Year that Skin Care Became a Coping Mechanismâ
tangentwithtanner
titsay
stormborns
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
