Writing Marsha's biography over the last four years has been a true blessing. I learned that Easter was Marsha's favorite holiday and I personally think she'd cackle that this year it's on Trans Day of Visibility! Happy Easter Happy
#TDOV2024
Photo from Randy Wicker archive
Black trans women deserve more than just not being killed. We deserve to feel GOOD, to feel EASE and JOY. To move through the world fully ALIVE not worrying about anything!
The police have not always existed. In fact this slave patrol 2.0 is a relatively recent invention. So a copless future isn’t only possible, it’s precedented. We can dismantle systems designed to kill us. It’s happened before. It’s possible. It’s precedented.
ICE is committed to upholding an immigration detention system that prioritizes the health, safety, and welfare of all of those in our care in custody, including LGBTI individuals. (6/)
MY NEWS: The Museum of Modern Art acquired my film Salacia for their PERMANENT COLLECTION! Salacia premieres Thursday at 8PM on ! Produced by Keanu Reeves & starring Rowin Amone, Salacia re-imagines Mary Jones in 1830s Seneca Village. 📸Matt Harvey
Listen up. The law is not your friend. We do not need the state to criminalize the pandemic. Criminalization of illness and transmission has only ever had devastating effects on those already most vulnerable to the law. The law is not your friend.
Happy Pride! I love this photo of Sylvia in lace holding her cat while wearing pride & Marsha pins. It’s 1995 and she’s living in her Christopher St encampment in this moment. Photo by Mariette Pathy Allen
I grew up visiting my dad in prison and no resources to navigate that emotional experience. It caused me to have so much shame. Incredibly thankful for
@prisonculture
writing a children’s book to support young people with incarcerated parents.
There is no revolution with out Black trans women. We taught you your politics. showed up when no one else did. And so it doesn’t matter how many Assata chants you recite, if you police Black trans people’s gender at your protests you are faaaar from being revolutionary.
2020 asking you to leave behind the gender reveal, the gender binary, doctors and parents deciding gender based on genitals and anything less than gender self determination.
trans women, particularly TWOC in the US have routinely been forced to undergo sterialization procedures to do anything from get a passport, social security card/benefits. This whole reductive uterus as the only site of reproductive violence for women is garbage. Stop.
Covid19 is spreading rapidly in prisons, detention centers, jails. Putting people in prison during a pandemic means escalating the pandemic. That’s why so many are trying to get people out of prison rn. Any carceral response is the wrong response.
I deserve to be making art about pleasurable things not having anything to do with being killed. To be laughing with friends. These are simple ass desires!
About a month ago a whole lot of people learned about my work when Netflix created a Black Lives Matter category and placed their Marsha film in it. People spoke up on my behalf, reminded the public that Netflix's movie was possible because of my work, which is still not credited
I was an abolitionist organizer for a decade before I was an artist and filmmaker. One thing i learned is that some people really don’t understand the individuals doing the most harm are not stopped by the police, individuals doing the most harm *are* the police.
Writing Marsha P Johnson’s biography for the past 3+ years has been a lesson in how deep love can get! It’s been such an honor to be this close to her life *STILL UNFOLDING* and her Virgo magic. Happy birthday, Marsha! Photo by Randy Wicker
The first Pride started on purpose at the New York Women’s House of Detention, a jail where members of the Black Panther Party were incarcerated. Protesters arrived there shouting “Free our sisters! Free ourselves” Pride has always been BLACK PRIDE.
Unfriendly reminder that not everyone can march, be in huge crowds, speak at rallies and it’s an abliest organizing tactic to make people feel bad for not attending ur action.
#PrideNYC
Subways & buses should and could be free; NY spends billions on police prisons and jails. Stop funding shit meant to literally kill us, start funding safe and accessible public transportation. It’s not complicated.
If we aren't talking about trans, disabled, non binary people when we are talking about reproductive justice then we aren't talking about reproductive justice.
If you’re Black and disabled and feel like you’re missing the revolution cuz you can’t be in the streets, just remember it’s not revolution if it doesn’t include us!
My first solo show PLEASURE GARDEN opens today with
@chapterNY
at 126 Madison St, NY, NY. I’ll be featuring my film Salacia and introducing a series of five new photographs inspired by the world of the film. Free, open to the public with virtual programming coming soon!
this whole people with sperm should get a vasectomy just reproduces the logic of the state controlling bodily autonomy, reproductive self determination all the while reproducing the gender binary. stop doing that.
Muhlaysia Booker, a Black trans woman who was filmed fighting back against attackers last month was shot and killed yesterday. I could not be more heartbroken. Rest in power.
#SayHerName
I wrote a piece in the
@nytimes
with my dear friend Thomas Lax about replacing Rikers Island, the living monument to white supremacy, with pleasure gardens. Out in print this weekend but you can read it today online, on Marsha P Johnson Day:
colonialism brutally *imposed* the gender binary and biological essentialism on its subjects. Stop defending biological essentialism as a legit way to connect with the ancestors.
I called Miss Major on her birthday & she encouraged me to vote this year despite us both being sick of/from this system. Grateful to the Black radical legacies like hers that exceed electoral politics, center non-voters & use an abundance of tools to create what we need.
We shouldn't only have to ask for the things we need to survive. People like me need to be safe, and housed, and loved, and protected -- and we also need to have fun, to take risks, to laugh, to feel beautiful, to be playful.
Neoliberalism says: “lack of personal responsibility is why we are in the midst of a pandemic!”
conveniently erasing the real root causes that brought us here. So while it might be easier to blame “irresponsible” individuals, creating lasting structural change is what we need.
What if prisons were used not just for punishment, but to actually help prepare people for life after incarceration? We believe it's time to
#ReimaginePrison
.
I love seeing us remember we don’t need to reproduce austerity in our social movements! We get to ask for & desire beyond our immediate survival needs. For frivolous & pleasurable things. For rest. For joy. For sex. For filthy dms and fancy cars. That’s literally the point.
Congratulations to our newest class of Guggenheim Fellows! These 184 individuals represent the best of their respective fields, ranging from applied mathematics and political science to choreography and translation. Check out the full announcement here:
my memoir will be a marxist feminist reproductive labor analysis of how star wars fits into my life and supports my abolitionist work, sluttiness and filmmaking practice.
Learn about the ongoing criminalization of HIV transmission in the US. These laws -like all that fuel the prison system- are based on the idea of punishing irresponsible individuals. The impact of this continues to be disastrous. We don’t need to reproduce this logic any further
I love storytelling that reminds me that I chose this moment to be alive not because I need to fix a broken world but because there is so much possibility for even greater transformation.
I love that we are learning there is enough to go around. There is enough for us to flourish. And we don’t have to have done big things to be deserving of this pleasure.
Fun journalism project: instead of only writing about which celebrity or Hollywood lot is affected by the fires do a lil investigating on its impact on people in prison/jails/detention centers/hospitals/homeless shelters & how the ability to flee is deeply regulated.
Black trans women have always been at the front of this fight. Back in 2007 when I was a baby organizer Miss Major gathered a group of us to strategize about ending police and prisons. You can & watch and learn from her here:
Spent the last month w T Lax creating a tour of sites in Manhattan where Black folks and trans people have dreamed and created beyond what we were told was possible. With contributions from Robin DG Kelley, Mariame Kaba, Cynthia R. Copeland & Laraaji ❤️🔥
prisons as a violent force of climate change & collapse, as forced migration. prison as the biggest perpetrator of sexual violence, reproducing the gender binary, furthering capitalism, enacting ableism. prisons aren't solving any problems. stay dreaming worlds without prisons
Did you know that Pride was started by Black people? Pausing on Pride in order to focus on Black life = whitewashing Pride. Instead just center Black trans and queer life in your celebration of Pride.
Whether it was the Y’all Better Quiet Down speech that I digitized and uploaded or hand written interviews I found in archives typed and put on Tumblr, so much of what I shared spread like beautiful, virtual wildfire.
My film Salacia being acquired into
@MuseumModernArt
permanent collection is an art dream come true. Thank you for all the love you have showered on me and Salacia! Today is the last day to watch online for now, see it here:
Black Art is a whole lesson in making beauty out of supposed lack, of funding, of platform, of prestige. But recently I remembered that I don’t make short films. I make cinematic edge play films. Leave you wanting more films. This is all you can digest from me right now films!
there's so much knowledge about reproductive autonomy that isn't rooted in ableism, colonialism, transphobia, anti-blackness, the gender binary, biological essentialism. plz do better when responding to the next national outrage, its coming and we need everyone.