Impact of Elections in St. Lucia on LGBT Workers; Pacific By-law Referendum; & Analysis of Sex Worker Decriminalization Legislation

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Published: 27 July 2021

Voters on the small Carribean nation of St. Lucia will deliver a verdict in it's parlimentary elections held yesterday July 26th.

Both the main parties are considered conservative by activists we talked to there. The more conservative United Workers Party has held power in the last few years. Some news outlets on the island think the opposition St. Lucia Labor Party (SLP) may win. Activist Maria Fantenelle explains in brief some of their differences and what it may, or may not mean for LGBT people there.

Pacifica by-law referendum results

 Sex Workers  RJ Thompson and Zola Bruce Analyze Sex Worker Decriminalization Legislation.

        RJ Thompson and Zola Bruce of the staff of the Urban Justice Center's Sex Worker Project. discuss differing approaches to decriminalization of sex work. They support complete decriminalization of consensual sex work and oppose laws that purport to decriminalize sex workers but continue to criminalize buyers of sex and others involved in the sex trade.

Intersex People to Protest Non-consensual Intersex genital operations at Weil Cornell.

“Intersex” is an umbrella term for differences in sex traits or reproductive anatomy. Intersex people are born with these differences or develop them in childhood. A large Intersex human rights rally will be taking place on Saturday, August 7 at 2pm at St. Catherine’s Park, 68th Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan. This rally is calling an end to non-consensual intersex genital operations such as clitoral reductions, a practice being ceased at hospitals nationally. Almost 700 members of the healthcare community have signed a petition condemning non-consensual genital surgery and clitoral experiments on 5-7 year old children. For more information, go to twitter.com/IntersexJustice. 

1970s Lesbian Grand Jury Resister Jill Raymond; & LaVelle Ridley on Academia and Black Trans Women

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Published: 19 July 2021

Out-FM is a weekly progressive queer show on listener-sponsored, noncommercial WBAI/Pacifica Radio. It airs at 99.5 and wbai.org, generally on Tuesdays from 8-9 PM.  Please support us during our pledge drive. Become a member for $25 or a BAI Buddy (sustainer) for $5/month or more. Go to wbai.org or call 212-209-2950 and let them know you listen to Out-FM.

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Aired on Tues., July 20, 2021

1970s Lesbian Grand Jury Resister Jill Raymond, the Lexington 6 & their support network

On July 20, Out-FM co-producers Naomi Brussel and Bob Lederer brought you another installment of our Queerly Defiant series, commemorating key moments of LGBTQ courage in the face of U.S. government repression. We will present Part 2 of a two-part series about two related legal cases in 1975-76 that set the standard for lesbian and gay resistance to U.S. government abuse of the grand jury system. It was part of the FBI’s effort to track down and punish two lesbian fighters who militantly opposed the U.S. war on the people of Vietnam and Indochina. Those cases became known as the Lexington Six - five lesbians and a gay man in Lexington, Kentucky - and the New Haven Two - two lesbians in New Haven, Connecticut, who were subpoenaed – in other words, ordered to testify before – federal grand juries in those cities. All 8 were young white progressives who refused to testify and served various amounts of jail time. In Part 1 of our series, aired on July 6, we interviewed Josephine Donovan, professor emerita of English at the University of Maine at Orono and author of the definitive history of these cases, a book titled The Lexington Six.

In 1975, the two grand juries were investigating the whereabouts of lesbian activists Susan Saxe and Kathy Power, both federal fugitives on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Both were being hunted for their involvement in an underground group militantly opposing the war against Vietnam. including with bank robberies to provide funds to the anti-war movement and thefts from armories to sabotage military trains. In 1975-76, the cases of the Lexington 6 and the New Haven 2 became a cause celebre in the lesbian-feminist community nationwide, with support committees and projects forming in various locations. Two progressive national legal groups, the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights, took up the call to denounce grand jury abuse, and women activists organized the Grand Jury Project to provide support.

Our guests included one of the Lexington 6, lesbian anti-war activist Jill Raymond. After her release from 15 months of incarceration in 1976, Jill worked for the National Prison Project of the ACLU and the National Moratorium on Prison Construction and was active in the DC Area Feminist Alliance. Our second guest was Julie Schwartzberg, a white lesbian who has been active in the fight for LGBTQ rights and social justice for over 40 years. She was a cofounder in 1975 of the Grand Jury Project and the Lesbian and Gay Issues Committee of a municipal workers union.To hear Part 1, in which Bob Lederer interviewed Professor Josephine Donovan, author of the book The Lexington Six, visit https://outfm.org/liberation/

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LaVelle Ridley on Academia and Black Trans Women

“We don’t live in a world that’s hospitable to Black Trans Women. We know this because we are one of the largest groups that get murdered every year because of the specificities of our  existence” – LaVelle Ridley

Takoda Patterson of Black Trans Media interviewed guest LaVelle Ridley, a queer black trans woman and PhD candidate in English and Women’s studies at the University of Michigan. In this interview we hear LaVelle’s views on abolition, the role that Black Trans Women play in achieving it, the experience of being a Black Trans Woman in the world of academia and more. Her article "Imagining Otherly: Performing Possible Black Trans Futures in Tangerine" is in 2019, 1 november - Vol. 6, Issue 4. Follow her on instagram at academicfish.