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Enjoy this week’s Sinister Snapshot, Sinister Wisdom’s biweekly newsletter with a featurette and lots of links. If you have suggestions for future editions of Sinister Snapshot, send them to info@sinisterwisdom.org.
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Tee Corinne's friends graciously gifted Sinister Wisdom three giclee prints of the image on the cover of Sinister Wisdom 3 to support Sinister Wisdom's fall fundraising campaign. Read more about Tee Corinne and enter the raffle to win one (tickets are already almost gone) here.
DEADLINE EXTENDED: Guest editor Allison Blevins is still accepting work until December 31 for an upcoming thematic issue highlighting Lesbians with Trans-identifying partners. Sinister Wisdom accepts general submissions on a rolling basis.
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Rose Norman is reading three books right now: Lost & Found, a memoir by Kathryn Schultz, The Fifth Season, a Hugo award-winning speculative fiction novel by NK Jemisin, and Back to the Garden, Laurie King's latest new mystery and a real page-turner. She also recommends the podcast #Sisters in Law.
Please note that Sinister Snapshot will be on hiatus in the month of January 2023. Keep sending tips and stories! We will have Snapshots filled to the brim when we return in the month of February.
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Defining Political Prisoners and Acting in Support of Them
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Originally called “Committee to Shut Down Lexington Control Unit for Women,” Out of Control was formed in response to the inhumane conditions of the Lexington Control Unit. This facility tested the larger carceral system’s conspiracy to use psychological abuse to target and dismantle ideas and movements deemed dangerous to the state. In the case of the Lexington Control Unit, the subjects of this test were women political prisoners.
In “Remembering Out of Control,” published in Sinister Wisdom 126, Blue Murov and Julie Starobin explain that, according to Out of Control, “Women [that] have been imprisoned for the following acts:
• providing sanctuary for Central American refugees
• antinuclear and antimilitary actions
• self-defense against sexual abuse
• fighting for Black liberation
• defending land and treaty rights of Native peoples
• refusing to testify before a grand jury in a government investigation
• fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico from the US
• defending the rights of lesbians and gay men”
are identified as political prisoners. They clarify that “A political prisoner is anyone incarcerated because of their self-conscious political actions against the government. We do not consider people who are in prison for right-wing actions to be political prisoners.”
After two years of campaigning for the Unit’s closure and a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons in the name of the three women imprisoned in the “prison within a prison,” the Unit was closed in August of 1988. Yet, the precedent set by the case, that prisoners could not be treated differently because of their political connections and beliefs, was overturned and other prisons throughout the country held women political prisoners and Prisoners of War in similar conditions. The Committee, now called Out of Control: Lesbian Committee to Support Women Political Prisoners, then broadened their fight to campaign against the creation of “special control units” for Prisoners of War and political prisoners, against the death penalty, for prison abolition, and various other causes. Because many of its members were Lesbian and former political prisoners themselves, the Committee placed emphasis on women and Lesbians to shed light on the existence of Lesbian political prisoners.
The largely grassroots organization raised money and awareness for women political prisoners for decades. Their efforts included reporting on international offenses against LGBTQ prisoners through their newsletter Out of Time, spearheading a movement to free Norma Jean Croy, backing the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and Black Liberation movement, and organizing an AIDS walk within a prison, amongst many other initiatives. The group marks the ending of their run as the final publication of Out of Time in 2013, but most of the members of Out of Control continue to engage in prison abolition work and other community work.
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Sinister Wisdom 126 co-editor Brooke Lober is also an editor of the Abolition Feminisms collection. The two-volume collection highlights a vibrant and urgently-needed compilation of feminist theory, archives of organizing, survival dispatches, visual art, poetry, and original research that demands the abolition of policing, prisons, and all forms of gendered violence. “Thanks to the thoroughgoing familiarity of the editors with the grassroots efforts that constitute the groundwork of abolition feminism, we are offered important tools that help us to recognize punitive logics within and beyond conventional carceral contexts and support us as we struggle for a world of mutual care, transformative justice and freedom.” — Angela Y. Davis
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In honor of Out of Control’s tradition to end with a call to action, here is what you can do to continue the work of Out of Control:
Sinister Wisdom 126: Out of Control is, unfortunately, out of stock, but Sinister Wisdom is working diligently to convert the issue in an ebook. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy. Remember how moving the launch event was?
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Sinister Wisdom is saddened to hear about the death of Arden Eversmeyer. Arden Eversmeyer was a part of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change and founded Lesbians Over Age Fifty and the Old Lesbians Oral Herstory Project. Read more about her life and listen to her oral history interview on The Out Words Archive.
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Read an excerpt of Yeva Johnson’s introduction to A Sturdy Yes of a People in The Bay Area Reporter. Yeva Johnson writes, "throughout the collection, women celebrate their full sexuality without shame. Joan reaches for openness, for acceptance of expansive views of gender, of lesbians, of what it means to be a woman, or a woman and feminist and a lesbian. . ."
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Read about Tee Corinne, one of the luminaries of Lesbian photography and a pioneer in the women's erotica movement. Sinister Wisdom has two prints left that need new Lesbian homes. Enter the raffle or place a bid here.
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Irena Klepfisz was cited as an example of a Lesbian woman in “Yiddish Literature: A Body Of Work By Jewish Writers In Yiddish.”
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Is sexuality fluid? Can women choose to be Lesbians? Lesbian psychology professor Carla Golden tackles these questions and others on The Journal of Lesbian Studies podcast. Listen here.
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The deadline to take the U.S. Trans Survey was extended to December 5.
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Emer Lyons writes about discovering Lesbian poet Heather McPherson while pursing a PhD in Lesbian poetry in New Zealand, learning to love, and Lesbianism as a commitment renewed daily in “Learning dykeness.”
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Read about the nexus of New Age religion, feminism, and decolonizing magical spaces in “The goddess of Moonee Ponds” published on The Monthly.
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The virtual L-Bar is closing on December 30. The immersive online experience recreates historic Lesbian bars and includes oral histories from people like Chrystos, Jewelle Gomez, Lillian Faderman, Joan Nestle, and others. Read an interview with the creator of L-Bar, Elana Rose, here. L-bar will be hosting a host of "Last Calls" until the end of the year.
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Read about the Latin American Movement of Mothers of LGTB+ Children, which lobbies for the elimination of prejudicial laws and the enforcement of existing laws against violence and discrimination of the Queer community.
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Eileen Myles cites Judy Grahn’s “A Woman Is Talking to Death” as an example of a poem that is simultaneously colloquial and nuanced in its dissection of society in “Writing With Political Meaning.” This piece, published on Lit Hub, is an excerpt from their book Pathetic Literature.
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If you would like to support Sinister Wisdom's thriving Lesbian community, please consider donating or subscribing. Your support is vital to our mission of profiling, supporting, and nurturing Lesbian culture as well as providing educational resources to women and Lesbians. Thank you to our sustainers for supporting the advancement of Lesbian art and culture!
Curated with community, history, and an understanding that every present moment is a nexus of many pasts. May these stories of Queer culture inspire, enthuse, and rouse you to Lesbian actions. We hope you've enjoyed this installment of Sinister Snapshot! Have a lovely weekend.
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