Poetry to Pay the Rent (and a new book project)

So as folks know, I recently left my job at Queers for Economic Justice. The hope is that this is a step towards my dream of becoming a full time writer and performer at some point in the not so distant future, but most definitely, in the immediate future, it is time to finish the edits on my novel, Eden Lost, and send that along to my publisher and to start pulling together the poetry (and more art from David Berube) for my second poetry collection: Songs My Ancestors Sing To Me When I Am Dreaming.

Making the first (little) big steps towards sitting in a cabin somewhere in the woods (but not too far from the city) and writing full time (ish)...is realigning the work that I am doing in the world to bring that eventual reality to manifestation.

The immediate repercussions of being unemployed is that I am also unencumbered of income to work on this project and pay for pesky things like food and rent.

And please don't get me started on the IRS and what they just did to what little money I had left.

So I am turning to you, my community, to help me make Songs My Ancestors Sing To Me When I Am Dreaming by asking you to support my work on this project over the next two months.

Thanks to the good folks at Tufts University, Rutgers University, and Bethany College, I will have by the beginning of December enough funds to cover most of my expenses from October and November from  invitations to speak at these institutions. It is my hope to use October and November, while I am in the hiring process for a new and exciting position, to write and really focus on this book project while the copy edits are being done on Eden Lost (and, a portion of the money I raise through this effort will go to support paying said copy editor, Kamal Fizazi). In order to really be able to focus on this work (and eat, have a phone and a place to sleep), I need to raise $3,000 from you, my readers and the folks that have, for so long, supported my work between now and December 1.

The benefit to you is this:

1. The good feeling of helping break the starving artist paradigm (its a myth, we love to eat).
2. For every donation of $25 or more, you will receive a personal haiku written for you!
3. For every donation of $50 or more, you will receive a signed copy of my book, It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt and a haiku!
4. For a donation of $100 or more you get all of the above as well as put on a list for an advanced signed copy of Eden Lost once it goes into publication!
5. And for a donation of $250 or more, you will receive all that, a bag of chips (really I will send you a bag of chips), PLUS your name listed as a funding partner in Songs My Ancestors Sing To Me When I Am Dreaming along with a signed copy once it too goes into publication.

Any support that you can provide from $5 to $500 will be greatly appreciated and valued. Investing in artists is good for the soul and it is also good for community. Poetry is part of our life blood but unfortunately poets are often spirit rich and dollar poor. If a poem of mine or anything else that I have written has spoken to you or your experience, please consider making a gift via PayPal today:

www.paypal.com and you can find me via my email address: brandonlacycampos at yahoo dot com.

 

Moving Forward?

Yesterday, I resigned from QEJ. QEJ is a vital part of the queer movement, and I know that it will continue to do great work as it struggles through this particular moment. I believe that the leadership of the board is strong and holds a strong vision and is comprised of some truly amazing people. Much love and luck to you. The choice was best for me and for QEJ, and I am looking forward to figuring out the next steps in my life path including reconstituting my life to focus on maintaining a healthy mind, healthy body, healthy spirit and healthy heart.

After this Summer and all that it has conjured, good and ill, my coping mechanisms are frayed, and it is time to seriously refocus on what is really important and to put my feet to walking towards, and quickly, the things that will help me hold in place the lessons from the last few months while not allowing them to be greater or smaller than they need to be.

It's time to get off the roller coaster.

There are the personal issues that I need to address and keep under control. I won't rehash them all here, as I have done so in numerous blogs over the last several years.

But here are the broad outlines:

1) Recommit to doing something every day related to self-esteem, addiction, and other mental health factors that have a nasty way of finding new ways of popping up when you least want them.  Even if it is pulling a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Phoning a Friend.

2) Gym. Enough said.

3) Meditation. With ADHD, this is going to be a slow development.

4) My relationship. Nico is coming home in a couple of weeks, and a lot has happened since he left, on both of our sides, reconnecting will be important, and I am deeply looking forward to that. Two months is a hell of a damn long time to be away from your boyfriend. With time differences, two different schedules, life moments, developing world technology reliability, and no ability to interact besides sound and occasionally sight, and the distance starts to feel like it is across the galaxy instead of across an ocean.

5) Maintain physical health, particularly related to HIV medication and mental health medication. As this transition unfolds, it will be important to make sure that these things are not casualties of finances or lack of structure. Time to revisit the good folks at ADAP.

6) Last but so not least, visioning clearly the work that I want to be doing as my job and the work I want to be doing as a volunteer or engaged in another way. It's time to do good work AND have financial stability.  And centering my writing as core component of my daily work.

I am reaching out and asking folks for support in each of these areas. I want to make the best possible choices and that means tapping the brilliance (and straightforwardness) of my community.


There are no coincidences in life. None at all.

An American Pandemic: The Murder of Black Trans Women

We all know that in this country, the value of a Black life as measured by the institutions that prop up and run this nation is measured only in meager labor. Slavery may have ended in 1865 (I use the date of Juneteenth to mark that ocassion), but we know that real wage slavery still exists even as the overt trappings of slavery and Jim Crow have been dismantled. We like our oppression to look neat and pretty, so Black folks that don't tow the line and keep in their place are placed in prison now. Much easier to lock them up than lynch us on a regular basis. And as my former boss and life mentor Paula Austin once told me, "You have to think and act smart. There is a place for angry black men in this world. It's called jail."

There is also a place for black bodies, over and over again, and that is six feet under at the hands of power, ignorance, and violence.  And in no community of black folks is that threat and reality more present than amongst Black transgender and gender nonconforming women.

There are a number of lists that honor the murdered dead by remember their names and sharing them with the community. There is one such list on Wikipedia. The same article suggests that according to global statistics, a transgender person is murdered every three days just on the basis of their gender identity. And the European based Trans Murder Monitoring Project has tracked 800 transgender murders globally in the last four years. As of March 2012, the United States has the fourth highest rate of transgender murders in the world (52 in the last four years), only slightly behind Mexico and Columbia, though distantly behind Brazil, which has had more than 300 murders of trans individuals in the last four year.

Just a quick Google search of transgender murders in 2012 offered up the names of these black women that were either killed in 2012 or their killers were acquitted or got off without justice: Brandy Martell (Oakland, CA), Paige Clay (Chicago, IL), Victoria Carmen White (Newark, NJ), an identified yet unnamed black transwoman was found murdered in Detroit last Monday morning (the police refuse to offer up a name), and I am sure there are more. Today we add another name to that list: Tiffany Gooden, 19 years old, Chicago, found not two blocks from where Paige Clay was killed earlier this year. Tiffany was stabbed and left in an abandoned building on the Westside.

I didn't know Tiffany. Until this afternoon when the article concerning her death was posted on my Facebook wall, I didn't know she existed. I promise you, however, that I will never forget her. Or any of the faces and names of trans folks from my community in NYC or my community globally that have been brought to my attention. Nor will I forget CeCe McDonald, who is serving prison time for killing an attacker that would have gladly added the name of that innocent black woman to the list of those taken down by hate, racism, sexism, and transphobia. 

And like every other non-white queer or trans person that is murdered, Tiffany's death will occupy precious little column space. She may get a quick mention on the evening news once or twice. But power doesn't care about black bodies. Power  most certainly does not care about black transgender bodies that are often classed, raced, and gendered out of the workforce and so therefore have no value to the power structure. Tifany will be forgotten along with so many others, unless we make an effort to remember her. To speak her name in our holy places, in our gathering places, in our places of community, at Trans Day of Action, in the offices of Queers for Economic Justice, in the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Justice, which is named in part for a black trans woman elder and a gender non-conforming white super butch and houses the Audre Lorde Project, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, FIERCE, and QEJ.

We know from experience that most of our own national organizations could actually care less about these lives lost as well. Even the best of them, the Task Force, is preciously weak on issues related to trans people of color. Apathy and disinterest is as much a factor in creating an environment where these deaths are permissible as is the structural oppression and hate that results in the physical destruction of the lives of our trans brothers and sisters.

And so to is the silence of black mainstream organizations. The NAACP and other black institutions are culpable as well for ignoring, silencing and closeting these most vulnerable members of our family. Our silence has never protected us from anything.

So today, I am remembering Tiffany and holding up her name in light. I hope she has found in the next life what was denied to her in this one: justice, dignity, honor, love, and the right to grow up.

Rest in peace Tiffany, while the rest of us rage.

Butch Bodied Femme and the Man Nod

A few months ago, I was sitting around the back tables at QEJ with Amber, Jay, some interns and some other folks and we were talking about our identities. Other than Jay and our awesome intern V, QEJ has now and always has been staffed and run by an overwhelming number of femmes---male and female.

On this particular day, we were all chatting about our plethora of identities, and when it got to me, I outed myself as a femme. Amber looked up and looked at me and said, "Your femme identified?"
And I responded, "Have you met me?"

For years, I have identified myself as femme. In Minneapolis, I was an early member of the Femme Mafia (sigh how I miss my hometown femme posse), and I have written about and spoken about what it means, for me, to identify as femme. Not since my twink days (see my recent blog post with pictures from that era), though, have I had a body type that is often associated with femme boys. To be clear, femme boys are often either thought of us very skinny types, the twinky femme, or the big girl femmes with large and in charge fierce bodies. But as my body has become more and more stereotypically "masculine," I have had to out myself as a butch bodied femme more and more and then explain what that means.

Here I go again.

I was raised, largely, by a single Mom, with an amazing step-Mom, and all of the most significant influential people in my life have been women. When I moved from Duluth, MN to Kansas City, MO and the kids in the neighborhood would form step lines, the guys never wanted me, so I learned how to step girl style. When I came out, it was into a fierce community of queer women at Warren Wilson College, and I was often proud to be the only boy ever invited to Girls Night Out with the hot Atlanta lesbians at Wilson. While, I do not carry myself in what many folks consider a stereotypically "femme" manner (which is problematic in and of itself)...the fact of the matter is that I am femme through and through with femme sensibilities, femme tastes, and femme expression in so many ways.

It just so happens that the men in my family are all broad shouldered with thick legs and bubble butts. It's a burden, but I will gladly bear it.

What is even more interesting, is that in my mind, I am clearly a femme and I am floored every time a straight woman flirts with me. I think I scream....HEY GIRL HEY....with every step.  But recently...I have crossed into new territory. Because of my body transformation and my size, now the straightest of the straight guys give me the "nod." That secret and mystical "what's up" head nod that says...."you are one of us." When the big ripped manly men trainers at the gym started doing it, I knew I had crossed into some new and strange and alien territory. Somehow, my body has transgressed and crossed over into an area of masculinity to which I have never before had access, and it makes me giggle my ass off. That somehow, the fact that I can lift a certain amount of weight or have a certain body type gives me stature in some primal, probably biological, way with other men is something that is absolutely fascinating to me. The trainers at my gym KNOW that I am gay, especially considering two of my exes also work out there and I have never been shy when it comes to PDA. But something in these men's heads has clicked on and they now give me a level of respect and recognition that I have never had from straight men ever.

Butch bodied femme is something else.

 I do have to say a shining moment came recently, at QEJ's major donor party, when the subject of femmes came up and my darling V came to my defense and proudly declared that I am a butch bodied femme. I just love it when the butches come to my aid. *swoon*

Gender, sexual orientation and gender presentation are a beautiful complicated mash up.....one day I will tell you of my insane love of butch bottoms....but that's a another blog. Until then....kiss a femme and appreciate all the work that goes into being just this fabulous!

 

Sex, Shirtless Pictures, Desire, HIV, and Leadership

Today, I changed my profile picture on Facebook. Like most of my pictures, it is one of me throwing a little bit of attitude at the camera, unlike several recent pictures, I happen to have my shirt on. Shortly after changing my profile picture, I received a very respectful email from someone that is not one of my FB friends but must follow me in some way, and he wrote:

Thank god your new profile photo finally has a shirt on. The ED of an amazing nonprofilt should not be shirtless.

I say this not because I am not sex positive (I am, and I am glad QEJ is too), but because shirtless photos look narcassistic. Which is fine for an individual, but not when that individual is suddenly the public face of the greatest queer organization around. ( I mean, there's lots of narcissism to be found on my profile, but i am not representing an organization ...)

Good luck in the newish position, sexy.

I wrote back to him this:

Thank you, [name deleted] for your note. I will take that into consideration in the context of my work.

Chances are though the pictures will continue to pop up. In the context of living loud and proud, reclaiming sex and sensuality for HIV positive bodies, challenging assumptions of leadership, redefining desire in the work and resexualizing the movement...with intention, integrity and joy, I will, without a doubt continue to do my work in the framework in which I presented my bid for leadership. Yes, narcissism exists but do not mistake me, my choices, especially when it comes to social networking sites are always and very intentional.

And ps I investigated your pictures, and I share back the sexy . Best to you.

That was the sum of the conversation, but, as many conversations do, it inspired me to write out my thoughts a little bit further, since if one person has had this thought, others must have as well. Let me begin by saying I am dedicated wholly to my job. From the time I get up until the time I go to bed, chances are I am spending at least part of every waking hour dealing with something related to QEJ, that's how you roll in a small radical nonprofit. Yes, I work on the weekends. Yes, I will be working this weekend. But, as much time as I spend working at QEJ, QEJ is my job it is not my work.

(In fact...it's 7pm, and I just got off a conference call....talk to me about office hours...shoot).

Let me explain. I do my work at my job but my job is not my work and not all of my work is done at my job. My work, in this world, is to be writer. It is to talk about the things that others sometimes can't. It is to bring desire and sex and joy back into movement building. It is to celebrate bodies in all their shapes and sizes and encourage folks to love themselves where they are and move themselves to where they want to be and be PROUD and share that work as they move along. It's why I stated my Sexy Positive Bodies photo project, to document the intentional change in my body

My work is also to hurt, love, fuck, cry, ask for help, give strength, accept strength given, sing, dance, and love some more. Because as a man I've been taught not to do those things, and if I do, not to do them openly...as I fuck up sexism by being an openly butch bodied femme boy that is afraid to be vulnerable and powerful and does it any damn way.

But most of all lately is that I have found my work falling in two places: desiring, sexualizing, and making folks hot as fuck for an HIV positive body, and bringing to light, space, and center other poz folks that are also fly as fuck (in all their shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities).  And opening space through my own process and being PUBLIC about being POSITIVE and through an clear, intentional sensualization and sometimes sexualization of my work and leadership (not lewdness but an intentional desiring of work and community and leadership). And the other space, that goes hand in hand with that, is intentionally putting sex BACK into sexual orientation and our movement for SEXUAL LIBERATION. Get in it folks.

I know how to play the game. I have been engaged in politics longer than folks twice my age from straight up electoral politics (and being recruited to be staff on campaigns) to at 28 being named a Young Wonk to Watch by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, I know my work. As my beloved Amber Hollibaugh, the woman who literally wrote the book on desire (My Dangerous Desires) once said, "Brandon has been groomed to be an executive director." And that shit is true. But groomed and guided as I have been, and loved and supported in this trajectory, I made my own decision that if I were going to do this work and do this work well, I was going to do it as me. Could I, if I put my shirt on and learned how to tie a tie position myself to be Executive Director of the Task Force and follow in the footsteps of friends and mentors Russell Roybal and Rea Carey...absolutely. But their work is different than mine. My work isn't at the Task Force. It's not at GLSEN. It's not at the helm of GLAAD. Where I go next after QEJ is anyone's guess, but I do know that when I move forward, it will be with a clear identity as a movement "leader," that expresses a particular politic that includes a sexual politic and ethic.

Don't get me wrong, I slap on a suit and tie and look really pretty when I need to do so. I am, mostly, clothed in the office (sometimes I do go barefooted), and my colleagues, interns, and community respect me....shirtless pictures and all. I am intentional in how I am building my leadership. I fully understand that there are those that may not agree with it. But I came to my position transparently and with plenty-o-shirtless pictures (along with a narrative of why they exist) to my interviews and right up to my hiring. Do I love this fabulous new body of mine, yes, but I love my work more, and I will do anything for my work and for QEJ...but the gift of leadership is that you get to define what that means and have a platform to uplift other ways of being, living, and loving that have just as much integrity as a corporate, suit and tie aesthetic...which I will not and have never desired to have.

And it's all about desire.

Queers for Economic Justice and Black and Pink Announce Partnership

 Immediate Release

May 8, 2012

Contact:

Brandon Lacy Campos – brandon@q4ej.org

Jason Lydon – blackandpink99@gmail.com

Queers for Economic Justice With Black and Pink Announce Partnership

(New York City and Boston, MA) Queers for Economic Justice, together with Black and Pink, are pleased to announce a budding partnership. In the wake of CeCe McDonald's prosecution and plea agreement, the connections between mass incarceration, LGBTQ communities of color, and economic disparities cannot be ignored. While CeCe is an outstanding individual, the circumstance of her arrest and prosecution are part of a systemic attack on LGBTQ peo ple, people of color, and poor people. Among the tragedies of CeCe's case is that it is but one of hundreds of thousands each year. 95% of all criminal convictions come from plea agreements, like CeCe's. This reality is one of many points in the criminal punishment system that leads to the warehousing of Black and Brown people behind concrete and steel. It is in the fight to end this system of violence that Queers for Economic Justice is welcoming Black and Pink as a fiscally sponsored organization.

Black and Pink's statement of purpose describes them as, “an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and free world allies who support each other. Our work toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex is rooted in the experience of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are outraged by the specific violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ people, and respond through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing.” Black and Pink was started by a formerly incarcerated white queer man who began with the intention of simply staying in touch with the people he was locked up with. It has since grown to reach 1,300 LGBTQ prisoners across the United States each month with a prisoner written newsletter. The programming of Black and Pink is continuously transforming as requests come in and resources become available. This partnership with Queers for Economic Justice will strengthen Black and Pink's capacity. This partnership will bring power and possibilities to both organizations and their missions.

“It is thrilling to think of the potential this new relationship can give to both organizations,” Rev. Jason Lydon, founder of Black and Pink, said. “QEJ's commitment to eliminating poverty and highlighting the voices of LGBTQ poor folks is directly parallel to the work we do at Black and Pink,” he continued. “As the United States penal system thrives on the targeting of poor communities, we are delighted to partner with Black and Pink,” stated Brandon Lacy Campos, Co-Executive Director of QEJ. There are 2.4 million people in United States prisons/jails, 5 million more on probation and parole; LGBTQ and HIV+ people are disproportionately impacted by criminalization, convictions, and incarceration. This partnership between Black and Pink and Queers for Economic Justice will lay the groundwork for more LGBTQ prisoner organizing, stronger advocacy toward abolition, expanded community education, and transformative direct service.

Queers for EconomicJustice is a progressive non-profit organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation. Our goal is to challenge and change the systems that create poverty and economic injustice in our communities, and to promote an economic system that embraces sexual and gender diversity. We are committed to the principle that access to social and economic resources is a fundamental right, and we work to create social and economic equity through grassroots organizing, public education, advocacy and research.

We do this work because although poor queers have always been a part of both the gay rights and economic justice movements, they have been, and continue to be, largely invisible in both movements.

This work will always be informed by the lived experiences and expressed needs of queer people in poverty.

Black and Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and free world allies who support each other. Our work toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex is rooted in the experience of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are outraged by the specific violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ people, and respond through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing.

Queers for Economic Justice Announces New Co- Executive Directors Amber Hollibaugh and W. Brandon Lacy Campos

New York City, March 26, 2012: The board of directors of Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ) is pleased to announce the selection of Amber Hollibaugh and W. Brandon Lacy Campos as co-executive directors of QEJ. The board chose the two as their leading candidates after a rigorous six month search.

Hollibaugh and Campos both have long histories with QEJ, including most recently having served as the interim executive director and development director respectively. Amber is a founding member and former board member of QEJ, and Brandon has worked with various QEJ initiatives for a number of years before joining the staff.

At the end of 2010, hard hit by the recession, QEJ faced the very real prospect of closing its doors. Amber agreed to step down from the board to serve as Interim Executive Director and in doing so brought a fresh vision and energy to QEJ along with economic stability. . Through her leadership and with the support of QEJ's first ever professional development staff person, Brandon, QEJ ended the year with an operating surplus, surpassing fundraising benchmarks for 2011. QEJ also strengthened and expanded the Shelter Program work led by Jay Toole, and laid the foundation for a new framework for radical queer and trans organizing: The Queer Survival Economies Initiative.

“This is an extraordinary moment to be at QEJ”, said new co-director, Amber Hollibaugh. “ I helped found QEJ and have been with it in one way or another through its entire history. To now be a part of the team placing QEJ’s voice at the center of the economic crisis facing LGBTQ people at this moment in history, is an honor. To do this work with Brandon Lacy Campos as my partner, is a gift”.

“ Amber carries a profound and transformative vision of the world, of bringing ourselves as full and flawed human beings to the work of justice and believing that every person is deserving of liberation and love. It is this abiding passion drawn from a life deeply lived that made me fall in love with Amber and her work. To have the opportunity to work with such an amazing organizer and visionary is a true gift. Now, during QEJ’s 10th anniversary year, I am honored to work with Amber to lead QEJ into its next phase,” enthused newly minted co-director, Brandon Lacy Campos.

Board co-chairs, Terry Boggis and Amanda Lugg, were elated about the appointment and said, “"We are tremendously excited. Amber and Brandon have robust activist histories in queer liberation work, unswerving commitment to QEJ's values and ideals, and achievable, cutting-edge ideas about what QEJ can and should become. They both understand movement intersections, and will ensure QEJ's work remains focused there. They are the ultimate queer left power couple, and we welcome them into this shared role."

Over the next year, QEJ will continue to expand it's shelter work, and launch its Resident Action Group project, a part of QEJ's Shelter Safety Campaign. In the Fall of 2012, QEJ is poised to roll out a bold initiative: Queer Survival Economies in broad community partnership with local labor, HIV organizers, immigrant groups, queer and trans people of color allied organizations, working poor, queer elder coalitions.

Amber Hollibaugh brings more than 40 years of organizing experience to her role at QEJ, and Brandon Lacy Campos has worked in the queer movement, beginning as a youth organizer, for 19 years. It is anticipated that with this new team of co-directors QEJ will emerge in the second decade of the 21st century, stable, productive and an innovative presence and voice in the LGBTQ movement.


About QEJ

Queers for Economic Justice is a progressive non-profit organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation. Our goal is to challenge and change the systems that create poverty and economic injustice in our communities, and to promote an economic system that embraces sexual and gender diversity. We are committed to the principle that access to social and economic resources is a fundamental right, and we work to create social and economic equity through grassroots organizing, public education, advocacy and research. We do this work because although poor queers have always been a part of both the gay rights and economic justice movements, they have been, and continue to be, largely invisible in both movements. This work will always be informed by the lived experiences and expressed needs of queer people in poverty. For more information: www.QEJ.org; 212564.3606

It's Time to Say I Do to the LGBTQ Giving Challenge

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine, Bill Lyons, contacted me about a bold new initative. A recent report emerged saying that the average LGBTQ individual gives LESS than $35 a year to LGBTQ organizations. With individuals making up the BULK of giving annually, less than 2% of giving goes to LGBT causes. If we are at least 10% of the population, then the numbers just don't add up.

If we don't support our own organizations and work for liberation, then how can we expect anyone us to join us in our fights? If we don't prioritize social change work and giving (at whatever level...from $5-$5,000)....then we also do not have the moral or political ground to stand on to demand justice.

In this Recession, queer families, moreso than their straight counterparts, are struggling to make their ends meet. But we also know that in times of hardship giving from those that makes less than $50,000 a year INCREASES. In fact, most of the money given out in these several states comes from families making less than that amount each year...even in the best most affluentt times. Why? Because poor folks understand the need for critical social and political organizations that are often the only ones focused on the issues that most impact their/our lives.

It is time for LGBTQ indivudals to stand up and give up a month worth of Starbucks, two nights out at the movies, or three cocktails. It's time for those of us whose bills are paid yet we still complain about being broke to rethink our priorities and do something selfless (or, actually extremely self interested) and give and give until it hurts just a little...that level of giving is individual...I watched a homeless woman recently give a 50 cent tip to a worker at Starbucks...for her that 50 cents meant the world....for you it may be $50. But it is important that we support our community and thus ourselves. We are our own best saviors.

An easy way to start your giving is to take the LGBTQ Giving Challenge Pledge. Pledge to give at least $35 to one or more LGBTQ organizations this year. The organization for which I work, Queers for Economic Justice, is one of the organizations set to benefit from this pledge as are GetEqual, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, The Astraea Foundation, Transgender Law Center, and Faith in America. Find out more about each organization, the challenge,the pledge, and to make your committment today.

It's time to say I do to giving.

One Liner of the Week Award: Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

If you don't know who Miss Major is, you better ask somebody. This giant of a woman not only was at Stonewall and was the fabled tranny that took off and threw her shoe, but she was also at Attica (as an inmate) within days of the riots. It was at Stonewall and more so at Attica that Miss Major was politicized, and for 40 years she has been kicking ass and calling names all across the land.

I first met Miss Major a few years ago when she was honored by Queers for Economic Justice at QEJ's annual award reception during the Creating Change Conference. Last week, I was with Miss Major and about twenty five other individuals, representing 14 organizations, at the ROOTS meeting in Minneapolis. Over the course of the two days of meeting many witty and impactful zingers were let loose by the mostly people of color queer and trans folks in the room (we found out later that two of our favorite people in the room were actually straight....I was flabbergasted...but we love our straights doing the work as well). But at one point, Miss Major, when referring to opening her home from time to time to her "girls," when one of them finds themselves without shelter, she said,

"It's not that I don't have boundaries, it's just that the motherfuckers keep moving."


Having an elder both in age and in relationship to the movement let loose with that line made my everlasting life. And that trannies and gentleman, is the One Liner of the Week.

A Queer Argument for a Minimum Liveable Wage: QEJ Testimony to the NY City Council

(The following testimony was written by Brandon Lacy Campos and Amber Hollibaugh and presented during a hearing on a bill to establish a minimum liveable wage in New York City).

LIVING WAGE Hearings in NY City Council
Queers for Economic Justice Statement
October 22nd, 2011

In a time of economic crisis such as the one now happening in the United States, the need for a living wage just to be able to survive, is critical. This Living Wage bill begins to frame crucial and basic economic standards which would generate a salary that allows people to not remain in poverty even as they work to maintain a living.

Too often invisible in this mix of vulnerable workers needing a living wage are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender workers. In the popular media framing about LGBTQ communities, we are too often presented as very affluent, with high disposal incomes and as a community largely unimpacted by the current recession. Yet the reality is that a majority of LGBT people are workers who are LGBT and immigrant, LGBT and HIV+, LGBT and older, LGBT and homeless, LGBT and working class. Also missing in the way we are presented is the reality that as workers, we have our own biological and chosen families to try and support. That is simply left outside of the discourse altogether, so that the need to care for our children, our parents, our partners, our extended chosen or biological family members remains hidden. And while there has been heartbreaking analysis of the enormous economic setbacks suffered by Black and Latino communities from this recession, which agrees that Blacks and Latinos have seen their communal assets and joblessness revert to almost to pre-Civil Rights era levels, the devastating impact on queer and trans communities who are often a part of these communities of color, has largely gone unnoticed and undocumented and as such, there have been few remedies proposed to alleviate the economic burden on this group of overly impacted workers and their families.

In a 2010 report documenting adult LGBT homelessness by The Center for American Progress, it states, “Besides disporportunate rates of homelessness as youth, a root cause of lower incomes and poverty among adult gay and transgender Americans is the high rate of workplace discrimination they face. This discrimination includes unequal pay, barriers to health insurance, unfair hiring and promotion practices, and verbal and sexual harrassment that create hostile and unsafe working enviroments. Studies show that 16 percent to 68 percent of gay and transgender individuals experience this type of discrimination at some point in their lives”. This forces LGBT workers to take any job that is available, regardless of its pay or protections. To be very clear, LGBTQ families are uniformly less well off than their straight counterparts and LGBTQ individuals are more likely to work in non-unionized and unprotected classes of labor due to the extensive stigma and discrimination that remains regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. A similar study as quoted above by the Williams Institute in 2009, clearly outlines not only the economic reality of queer families but the impact of poverty on LGBTQ communities. According to the Williams Institute report, it states “the misleading myth of affluence steers policymakers, community organizations, service providers, and the media away from fully understanding poverty among LGBT people or even imagining that poor LGBT people exist.” Add to this reality that LGBTQ workers are often found working in jobs that are “tip” labor, entry level retail, home care workers, as sex workers, or involved in other street economies, all of which are unprotected as a class of workers who are either explicitly excluded from the right to organize or are effectively excluded by the nature of the work, and you are left with an inherently unstable economic base that is absolutely beholden to minor shifts in the economy and which have been eviscerated by the current economic climate.

Finally, New York City is home to a large consumer economy rooted in LGBTQ and marginalized communities. A network of bars, cafés, restaurants, clothing stores, personal services, boutiques, salons and sex work businesses services the city’s middle and upper class gays. These businesses employ thousands of working class queer and trans people, and many are people of color and immigrants. They are almost invariably nonunionized, with few labor protections. As many of these staff face racism, poverty, homophobia and transphobia, employees are often forced to stay at low-wage, low-security workplaces with poor conditions and abusive treatment. Similarly, many working class queer people of color are employed in the city’s HIV service sector. These low- and moderate-income queer people at gay businesses and service nonprofits have been particular vulnerable through the financial crisis, the rising anti-immigrant hysteria and the constriction of New York’s consumer businesses and nonprofit sector. These working poor LGBTQ people are often without strong employment alternatives, or access to adequate social safety net services. They are instead left vulnerable to homelessness, HIV and AIDS, and violence.

Without the structural support of worker collectives, such as unions who support and advocate for LGBTQ workers rights, LGBTQ workers cannot rely on legal remedies to mangae fairly any resulting labor disputes. The means to advocate as a worker remains effectively out of reach and impossible for many LGBTQ workers. The result is that many LGBTQ low wage workers cannot afford challenging unfair labor practices, low wages or hostile work environments for fear of losing their jobs altogether.

We punish people in this country for being poor and we punish homosexuality and gender non-conformity. When both are combined, it does more than double the effect: it twists and deepens it, gives it sharper edges, and heightens an LGBT workers’ inability to duck and cover or slide through to a safer place. It often forces LGBT workers to live more permanently outside a stable economic reality than either condition dictates.

One notable exception has been a recent program created by the Office of the Mayor of Washington, DC that recognizes that poverty and unemployment rates have reached such devastating levels in the transgender community that direct government intervention has become necessary. The Mayor created the first ever job training and placement program for transgender individuals. Unemployment and poverty rates in NYC are no better than those in DC, and when adjusting for race, they are worse.

A liveable minimum wage is the first step towards truly undermining unfair labor practices that rely on a combination of fear and underpayment to maintain a pliable underclass of workers that neither have the resources nor space to address or redress workplace human rights violations, including intimidation and firing for organizing for better work environments including a just wage.

By enacting a minimum liveable wage for all New Yorkers, the New York City Council would be providing significant support to LGBTQ individuals and families, create fairer work environments, and alleviate the effects of the recession on a hard hit population. In an atmosphere that is actively hostile to collective bargaining and the recognition of the human right to organize labor unions, this is a positive, pro-active, and just step towards supporting the queer and trans community.

When Things Feel Easy, You are Doing Right

(This blog is dedicated to JT Mikulka, Amber Hollibaugh, Jay Toole, Reina Gossett, Carlos Blanco, Doyin Ola, and Felix Gardon...thanks for doing the work with me and helping me do my own)

Let me tell you a little bit about something I know a whole lot about: A HARD HEAD MAKES MORE A SOFT BEHIND

To translate that from Country Negro into High Whitey: if you keep doing the things that you know are going to get you in trouble, you end up getting your ass kicked. That phrase was one that was used quite often by my Mom and step-Dad when I was growing up. My Mom is blonde as one of those little evil children from the Village of the Damned, but she speaks fluent Negro and several dialects of Country and Ghetto, so she easily adopted this saying early in my life.

What this has meant for me as an adult is that when I am doing something that I am not supposed to be doing, or even less actively fucking up but still doing what I WANT to be doing instead of what I really SHOULD be doing, things get unnecessarily hard, complicated and eventually painful. When I go on ahead and do the things that I might not, perhaps, like to be doing in that moment but are the things that I was meant to be doing or should be doing or agreed to do or are in my best mental, physical, spiritual interests...then...magically...life and everything in it seems to run as smoothly as a river running downhill.

Lately...I have been doing my damndest to do what I believe is right as opposed to what I believe is in my best interest or...even better...what would benefit me as opposed to those around me, WHILE, at the same time, taking the time, space, place, and interest in myself enough to make hard choices, hard decisions that have ultimately played out to be the absolutely right choices to have made (even with some less than healthy detours).

Delayed gratification has become a source of ULTIMATE satisfaction in my life lately. Some of you know of what I speak.

Lately, I have learned that by being present, firm, steadfast, honest, vulnerable, scared, hopeful, and showing up as best I can and being transparent about the outer limits of what that means has lead me to some amazing insight and brought me into some truly humble and uplifting spaces. It has also deepened my relationships with old community and new community...and there have been such moments of unexpected care and joy, silliness and happiness, depth and celebration that I truly am feeling blessed right now today.

This doesn't mean shit has been easy. In the last six weeks, I have gone through a hard and damaging break up. I have made dumb choices. I have had to check my own instincts and desires around folks in my life that I care about. I have had to ask hard questions and sit with uncomfortable answers. I have had to let others around me have their own process without trying to control it or myself, and I have had to hear the word no, not now, and not yet in times and places when I have wanted to kick my feet and scream like a wee little bizatch.

Temper tantrums were so much easier when I didn't weigh 185 pounds and stand at six feet tall.

In the end, this business of growing up is not just about acting right (or acting as right as you can as best you can) but it is about welcoming blessings into life and accepting them as yours. I am blessed...I am way blessed...and when I can get up the gumption to get the Hell out of my own way...those blessings flow and surge like the River Nile flooding its banks and bringing life giving sediment to the surrounding landscape. Flood on Mama Nile...my landscape is ready.

QEJ Condemns the Police Murder of Yvonne McNeal

QEJ Condemns The Killing of A New Providence Shelter Resident

Queers for Economic Justice is shocked and outraged at the police shooting of Yvonne McNeal, 57, a resident of the New Providence Women’s Shelter in midtown Manhattan on Sunday evening, October 1st, 2011. QEJ has been working with residents and staff of New Providence Women's Shelter since 2003, and Yvonne was someone whom had become a part of QEJ's extended family.

After an altercation inside the shelter that moved to the sidewalk outside of New Providence where the police shot Yvonne McNeal, killing her. Yvonne’s killing on Sunday underscores the reality that the police cannot be relied on to respond compassionately to low income LGBTQ people when it concerns issues of safety in our communities. At QEJ, we are asking again how many potentially dangerous situations every year have to end up in a police shooting? It cannot be accepted that calling the police can be deadly for low Income LGBTQ New Yorkers.

Even in aggravated situations, the police have a choice to use non-lethal deterrents. A 57 year old woman with a cane that is attempting to re-enter a building, should not be the target of lethal violence. Like Oscar Grant in Oakland, the police had a choice; they chose to kill instead of preserve life. When police targeted largely white Occupy Wall Street protesters, they used pepper spray. When faced with a vulnerable woman of color, they chose to use lethal force as their first option.

“I feel that as homeless people, we don’t have a justice system,” said Gykyira Rodriquez, a member of QEJ’s LGBTQ support group at the New Providence Women’s shelter.

QEJ works at the intersection of sexual orientation and gender identity to do organizing and advocacy around LGBTQ poverty, homelessness and economic survival.

Ms. Rodriguez, who is a QEJ volunteer and support group leader, echoed the sentiments of many shelter residents, including other active members of QEJ's support group community. QEJ has seen this repeated pattern of racism and disregard for human life when the police are dealing with issues of violence because we are poor, from communities of color and may also be lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or perceived as such.

A report released last year by Queers for Economic Justice Welfare Warriors Collective in conjunction with the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that calling or interacting with the police can be dangerous: 19 percent of 171 low income LGBTGNC survey responders in NYC had been physically assaulted in the past two years. Among those who were currently homeless, the number jumps to 24 percent. These numbers reflect broader national research that shows that LGBTQ individuals often find themselves victims of police violence when reaching out to the police for safety (NCAVP, 2008).

One QEJ study participant said, “I feel if you call the cops, the cops are going to think you are the criminal (when) they come.”

At QEJ, our hearts are broken at the senseless loss of Yvonne’s life. We are proud to remember Yvonne as she marched with us in the Gay Pride March this year. Earlier this summer, QEJ launched its Shelter Safety Campaign, directed by organizer Doyin Ola in partnership with Shelter Program Director Jay Toole. The violence inside and outside of the shelters, the threat from law enforcement and the wounding that comes from the prison industrial complex illustrates the absolute need for a project of this nature. The Shelter Safety Campaign will honor Yvonne by working to end the senseless and brutal violence bred by racism, poverty, transphobia and homophobia and aimed at the working poor, those in poverty, people of color, women, immigrants, mental health issues and the LGBTQ community.

For information on the Shelter Safety Campaign or the Shelter Organizing Project contact Doyin Ola, Shelter Safety Campaign Organizer, at "doyin at q4ej.org" or Jay Toole, Shelter Program Director, at "jay at q4ej.org".

For information on QEJ and our work, please direct yourself to our webpage: www.q4ej.org.

For questions or comments on this statement, please contact Amber Hollibaugh at "amber at q4ej.org" or via telephone at: (212) 564.3608

Really Gay Racism: Aunt Jamima and Mr. Wong's Dong Emporium (SAY WHAT BITCH?)

In the last month, there have been two events to which I have been invited via Facebook that have made my blood pressure go from normal to cardiac arrest in less than a nanosecond.

One event was called "Aunt Jemima Brunch," which was to be held at the Yotel. The second was "Mr. Wong's Dong Emporium," which was to be held at Vlada.

Please note that I am using past tense, and while I was not responsible for bringing down either of these events, I am extremely proud that I played a key part in raising such a motherfucking ruckus that both events posted apologies, said some noncommittal white people shit about not meaning to offend people, and changed the names of their events.

Let me give you some background before I really let ya'll have it about privilege white gay men in New York and their benign yet blatant racism.

(Cue flashback sequence here)

The first event came to my attention when I was perusing my invitations to various events. When I saw the invitation at first, with a photo of Aunt Jemima from the 50s (black woman in a head wrap)...I seriously didn't know what to think. I was at work, and I called a colleague over and asked if this was being ironic or should I be angry. I sincerely had a series of confused feelings. Then I proceeded to read the various wall posts related to the event. With each reading my temperature rose until I got to the bottom of the page where one of the four white gay male planners had posted a Youtube video clip of the ITALIAN-AMERICAN WOMAN IN BLACK FACE that originated the role of Aunt Jemima in Hollywood. There was no analysis. There was no irony. This was straight up racism, and the worst thing about it is that the hosts thought the shit was funny and were relating Aunt Jemima to childhood memories of pancakes and home cooking. Nevermind that by the time any of the hosts had ever tasted a drop of that nasty ass syrup the Negress in the Do-Rag had been exchanged for a vaguely British white woman walking and talking syrup bottle....the planners insisted that their naming of the event for Aunt Jemima was just a walk down memory lane.

If any of them had been in arms reach, I would be typing this from jail with a new boyfriend named Big Larry.

And the best part of the engagement with the organizers of the Aunt Jemima event was when one of the organizers posted a note saying that, and I quote, "I am from Canada and we don't have racism there." I almost shat daggers and threw one directly at his throat.

But, after I posted a respectful note on the wall of the brunch invite and also posted a note on my Facebook page, about 200 of my closest, bestest friends went ape shit on the page and within hours it was down.

And then, in a stroke of universal justice, Hurricane Irene hit and shut the whole damn thing down anyway. #BOOM

Now...my naive self thought that perhaps the Aunt Jemima Brunch was just one of those momentary blips of white gay male racism that bubble up from time to time. Generally, I feel, that there is usuall some good time/space in between when the stupidiy settles upon the brow of another benignly racist white gay man/men....but...in contradiction to that old bromide that lightening doesnt strike the same place twice....within a couple of weeks a bright WHITE bolt of stupid lightening struck again...and in the same neighborhood.

Not two or three nights past, a couple of friends of mine sounded the alarm and sent me messages about another party happening in my neighborhood. This time it was "Mr. Wong's Dong Emporium featuring Sum Hung Dancers and the Happy Endings Massage Parlor."

I can honestly say that I have never experienced so much racism in one invitation ever. EVER.

Now...I can honestly say that with the Aunt Jemima party, I was civil and never lost my temper. With the Mr. Wong's party I went King-Kong-Climb-A-Building-Ape-Shit. Yes I did. I called upon all the powers at my command...largely because I actually am acquainted with one of the promoters, and he lives in my neighborhood, and I happen to know that while he is not brown he is a member of another oppressed group...so my rage was amplified expontentially. And it was met, matched, and exceeded by the awesome powers of GAPIMNY (Gay Asian Pacific Island Men of New York). And, after flip tripping on the two benign white racists that were hosting the party, the name was changed post haste.

Ta da.

Now, let me say, I don't think and I do not attribute any overt malintent to any of the clueless human creatures that promoted these parties. I DO, however, attribute to them that they, at the very least, knew that these themes would be risque and raise some behind the hand giggles, like when all the white boys are together and someone makes an "off-color" nigger joke. But whatever the intent the impact on brown queer folks remains the same: it reconstructs, reconstitutes, and reifies the same systems of oppression in the straight world in our own white washed rainbow world.

And, lord have mercy, if I ever ever ever ever ever hear another white faggatron again say that they can't be racist because they are gay, I am going to stick my size 10 1/2 directly down their throat and then twist at the ankle. I. Am. Just. Saying.

Thank the Lord above that there are organizations such as the Audre Lorde Project that are out there reminding folks that brown queers exist and we aren't to be fucked with and Queers for Economic Justice that organizes broke, brown, and angry queer and trans folks. In fact, QEJ is going to throw a party to show these white gay benign racist how to party without the racism. Stay tuned in for QEJam: The Party without Oppression at Bartini coming to you soon in the next month or so.

Word to your anti-racist Mama.