The Iconic Black Lesbian Socialist-Feminist Combahee River Collective

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Published: 16 December 2025

Out-FM show aired on Tues., December 16, 2025

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Please note: Listener-sponsored WBAI is in its annual year-end fundraising drive, continuing until Dec. 31. We urge you to be generous in helping keep our grassroots, kick-ass station -- and Out-FM in particular -- on the air. Please donate either a one-time amount, or better yet, become a sustainer, a "BAI Buddy" -- either option at buddy.wbai.org. More details on other ways to make your donation at the bottom. If you donate, we hope you will mention Out-FM as your favorite show.

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The Iconic Black Lesbian Socialist-Feminist

Combahee River Collective

Members of Combahee River Collective at the March and Rally for Bellana Borde against Police Brutality (Boston, January 15, 1980). Photo credit: Susan Fleischmann.

The Combahee River Collective (1974-80) was a Boston-based group of Black lesbian socialist-feminists that blazed trails of mutual solidarity, forged bold new Black feminist theory (particularly their 1977 Collective Statement), and led important struggles against racism, sexism, and homophobia. The Collective pioneered the development of the concept of overlapping oppressions that Kimberle Crenshaw would later coin as "intersectionality." (They took their name from the Combahee River (SC) Raid, an 1863 military action led by Harriet Tubman that freed 750 enslaved people.)

On this Out-FM program, you will hear co-founder and leader Demita Frazier recount and analyze the events leading to Combahee's founding -- sparked by a combination of widespread racism in the mostly white-led mainstream feminist movement; sexism and homophobia by Black men in the Black Power movement; and the lack of support for socialism or lesbian freedom in the then-new National Black Feminist Organization. She also talks about the important work done by the Collective.

Demita Frazier spoke in October at the Lesbian Lives Conference, hosted by Sinister Wisdom (a multicultural lesbian arts and literary journal),the Journal of Lesbian Studies, and CLAGS: the Center for LGBT Studies at the City University of New York. This was part of the continued celebration of the 50th anniversary of Combahee. We thank Lesbian Lives for permitting us to broadcast this important presentation.

Demita Frazier at the Lesbian Lives Conference

DEMITA FRAZIER'S BIO (from Lesbian Lives): Demita Frazier, J.D., is an unrepentant lifelong Black feminist, social justice activist, thought leader, writer, and teacher. She is a founding member of the Combahee River Collective who has remained a committed activist in Boston for over 44 years, was a radical even as a child. While a high school student in Chicago, she helped organize a student walk out in protest of the Vietnam War. She has worked in coalition with many organizations on the issues of reproductive rights, domestic violence, the care and protection of endangered children, urban sustainability issues affecting food access in poor and working-class communities, and a host of other important issues affecting communities of color. She has been an organizer and architect behind the scenes of many movement initiatives including the Chicago Black Panther Party’s Breakfast Program, Jane Collective, and more. After receiving her JD from Northeastern University, Frazier contributed to local and national campaigns for gender and racial justice. For more on Demita’s extraordinary activist journey, please see Keeanga–Yamahtta Taylor’s How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. She has been a consistent advocate for the unequivocal freedom of Black women so that we can get on with the urgent business of freeing the world.

A short history of the Combahee River Collective is available here. 

Dean Spade on Love in a F*cked-Up World; & Quentin Crisp, The Queer Gender Pioneer

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Published: 08 December 2025

Out-FM show aired on Tues., December 9, 2025

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Press play to stream show or green down arrow to download mp3 file.

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Please note: Listener-sponsored WBAI is in its annual year-end fundraising drive, continuing until Dec. 31. We urge you to be generous in helping keep our grassroots, kick-ass station -- and Out-FM in particular -- on the air. Please donate either a one-time amount, or better yet, become a sustainer, a "BAI Buddy" -- either option at buddy.wbai.org. More details on other ways to make your donation at the bottom. If you donate, we hope you will mention Out-FM as your favorite show.

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Love in a F*cked-Up World: A Conversation with Trans Fighter Dean Spade​

Tune in for a rebroadcast of Bob Lederer’s interview this past February with prominent trans liberation fighter Dean Spade. In an earlier interview, he laid out important principles to follow when mounting resistance to Trump’s vicious attacks, especially including rejecting anticipatory obedience by institutions serving the public. In this segment, we discussed some of the themes of his new book, Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together. In particular, we talked about the ways of building lasting social-change organizations based on a commitment to respectfully and lovingly working through differences, while we all stay focused on our common goals. 

Our listener-sponsored station is also in the midst of our end-of-year fund-drive. We urge you to show your support, so we can raise the money needed to keep this ever-more-vital Resistance Radio on the air. Details on how to donate below.

Dean Spade is an activist, attorney, educator, and public speaker who for two decades has been a leading voice for trans liberation, prison abolition, and mutual aid. Besides his new book, Dean is author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of the Law. He’s also the director of the documentary “Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!”

You can follow Dean's work at his website.

From the Publisher of Love in a F*cked-Up World (Hachette Book Group):

In this inspiring self-help handbook, a trans activist dares us to be the change we want to see--both out in the world, and amongst our closest connections.

Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because people treat each other poorly, trying desperately to live out the cultural myths about dating and relationships that we are fed from an early age.

How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems? How do we bring our best thinking about freedom and justice into step with our desires for healing and connection?

Love in a F*cked-Up World is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world.

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