TGI JUSTICE ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR THE DEMANDS OF THE CA PRISONER HUNGER STRIKE

Check out this statement about the CA hunger strike from our sibling organization the Transgender Gender Varient Intersex Justice Project!

TGI JUSTICE ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR THE

DEMANDS OF THE CA PRISONER HUNGER STRIKE

July 25, 2013                         ·          Oakland, CA

TGI JUSTICE stands in solidarity with the mass hunger strike action inside of the California imprisonment system that started earlier this month.  As an organization of trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex people– both inside and out of prisons and jails– we support the demands to end long-term solitary confinement, abolish de-briefing/ change gang validation criteria, end group punishment, provide educational, vocational and self-help programs, and to provide adequate nutritious food.  There are women locked up in many of California’s men’s prisons, and men locked up in many women’s prisons, along with gender non-conforming folks and intersex people, caught in the bind of binary administrative violence.  TGI people are in the dehumanizing facilities along side strikers, participating in the strike, experiencing the firm foot of increased CDCR repression along with everybody else inside.  Additionally, as TGI people we are all too familiar with the common practice here in CA, and across the country, to put TGI people into Ad Seg, SHU or solitary confinement units under the logic of “protection from the general population.”  In our hearts we know that true justice and actual safety come from accountable and strong communities.  For this reason, too, we know that working in coalition with non-TGI, straight, gay, or lesbian people to improve the conditions of and to end the existence of these torture units is in our own personal best interest as well as our broadest collective best interest.  Whether its being punished for being yourself or for asking to be treated humanely, isolation is a repressive tool of the prison industrial complex.  Already some of the strikers, and especially the leaders, have been moved to extra segregated isolation and are being blasted with frigid cold air.  Ultimately, we know that justice will require a fundamental shift in the distribution of power in society even if these demands are met.  We applaud the audacity of the strikers, wish the CDCR and Governor Brown to quickly meet the demands, and raise our fist in unity with all our folks, TGI and non-TGI, who are working for self-determination, freedom of expression, and racial, gender and economic justice.

TGI JUSTICE                   1201 46^th Ave Oakland, CA 94601              510-533-3144