Listen to Part 2 of our interview about the Ohio Black Pride 4 produced by Black Trans Media for OUTFM with Wriply Bennet, a Black Trans Woman artist, organizer, and one of the Ohio Black Pride 4; a group of 4 Black Queer and Trans people who were arrested at Columbus (Ohio) Pride in 2017 for blocking the march to address racism and transphobia. In Part 1 Wriply spoke with producer Sasha Alexander about the tension within the community that led up to Pride, including the violence against Black people like Philando Castile. a young cis Black man killed by the police, which in part sparked the action she and others took at Pride that year. Here in Part 2, Wriply talks more about her arrest, the case, and what it was like that day at Pride being criminalized and arrested as a Black Trans Woman. We discuss what she learned and her vision for the future of Pride and beyond. 

                                                 Author Josephine Donovan

1970s Lesbian/Gay Political Prisoners (Pt 1)​

In another episode of our Queerly Defiant series, Out-FM producers Naomi Brussel and Bob Lederer interviewed Professor Josephine Donovan, author of the book The Lexington Six, about two major legal cases in the 1970s that set the standard for lesbian and gay resistance to U.S. government abuse of the grand jury system as part of the FBI’s attempt to find and imprison lesbian fighters who militantly opposed the U.S. war on the people of Indochina. Those cases targeted two hubs of progressive lesbian-feminism at that time. 7 lesbians and a gay man in Lexington, KY and New Haven, CT refused to testify and served jail time ranging from one month to 15 months. Their cases became a cause celebre in the lesbian-feminist community nationwide, with support committees and projects forming in various locations. In this segment we will draw out lessons for queers – and all progressive people – in opposing repression today.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series on lesbian/gay political prisoners in the 1970s. For Part 2, click here.