February Articles....

Blacklight Online

Lisa Moore

Four months after mounting what some call an historic Black LGBT event, the Fire & Ink Writers Festival, Lisa Moore sits on the floor of her new apartment in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. and takes a moment to reflect. "As I think on it now, I think it was a fabulous event," she says with enthusiasm. "Historic and timely. Look at some of the things that came out of it. The response is overwhelmingly positive." And so it is. The Gay press and the word on the street gave the event positive reviews. But Ms. Moore doesn't spend much time reminiscing these days. She's working two jobs; recovering from a fire that left her homeless; and facing $36,000 in leftover debt from the writers festival. [Read More]

Fired Up
Photos of Samuel Delany, Thomas Glave, Cheryl Clarke, and other writers at the festival.

FAMILIAR STRANGERS:
OUR STORY UNTOLD
By Jasmyne Cannick

Barely Breaking Even Productions (BBE Productions), a division of Bamboo Media, has embarked upon a three-prong project to include a documentary film, a photography book and a photo-text exhibit. The project is a collaboration between journalist and publicist Jasmyne Cannick and long time activist and writer Charlotte M. Young “My personal goal is to incite the black family to start talking more openly about sexual orientation and I believe that once we see the diversity of gay people and hear their stories, this in itself will help to combat homophobia in the black community and more specifically in the black church,” comments Young. [Read More]

TRANSGENDER AGING INSTITUTE ANNOUNCED
By: Loree Cook-Daniels
Director, Transgender Aging Network
For the first time, service providers and advocates will be able to devote a full day to lectures, exercises, and small group discussions of transgender and SOFFA (significant others, friends, family and allies) aging issues at the Transgender Aging Institute to be held in Washington, D.C., on February 14, 2003.

The Institute is sponsored by the Transgender Aging Network (TAN), since 1998 the only international organization devoted solely to trans/SOFFA aging issues. TAN exists to improve the lives of current and future trans/SOFFA elders. [Read More]

More on the Transgender Aging Network: http://www.forge-forward.org/TAN/

On FemmeNoir

Ode to Columbia and a Salute to Our African American Astronauts
Yes, I will admit to being a NASA space junkie. Since the first flight of Columbia in 1982, I’ve been hooked on the space program. My brother who was then training to be a pilot once said the two hardest times for a pilot is take off and landing. Well, we lost the Challenger and its crew on take off and we lost Columbia and its crew as they were coming home. When Columbia landed at Edwards in 1981, my brother recorded the landing and I remember the song the station played for Columbia’s landing – Elton John’s Rocket Man – how appropriate. When NASA termed Columbia “lost,” Rocket Man was the song I played that morning.

My Trip To Nia With Christine
Article and Photos By Gayle Fuhr

There was a beautiful alter set up and so on the first night when we were asked to say our name and where we were from, I did and I mentioned that I had brought a very big Nia supporter with me, Christine. I asked if I could place her urn on the alter for the weekend and leave her there until we were ready to have a ceremony for her on Sunday. I was asked to bring Christine’s ashes with me the next morning for the opening ceremony and was asked to talk about her. My first reaction was that there are so many women here who knew her so much longer than I and maybe they should speak. I was told that I was entrusted with her and so it would be more appropriate for me to do so.

Fear of a Black Lesbian Planet
By Samiya Bashir

"It's the big pink elephant in the middle of the room. Everyone knows it's there — and we quietly tiptoe around it, afraid that even acknowledging its existence would throw off the delicate balance that exists in our pretending it isn't standing there, grazing on our avoidance. If we do choose to look at the elephant's skin, we see that she carries the tattoos of racial division — exclusion, nasty feelings, words, and actions, the unspoken rules of separation.

Black lesbians trying to find out who we are both as women of color and as lesbians find the invisible wall we bump up against while trying to find access into the lesbian community even harder to bear. White women may feel equally bruised by a situation where they don't feel they are being exclusionary at all. Some black women, reeling from accusations of being overly sensitive, question whether or not we are just imagining foul play.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised --
Thoughts on the Election
Last night, I had a dream. In the dream, I was visiting my mother in a foreign land, her home, where she lived. In the dream, I found my thoughts and words were somehow heard from behind the closed doors and windows of her house. This country where she lived was one you had to conform, you had to think as they thought, you had to live as they lived and somehow, I drew attention to my mother’s house by my thoughts. At one point in the dream, a helicopter swooped down near her home and flew, very slowly, past her window. My mother said “they heard you.” I was astonished that my thoughts could be heard not only from outside my body, but from within her home. I felt a foreboding feeling envelop me – this is not freedom, I thought, this is oppression. Just because someone has feelings that oppose the current system should not be cause for attack. I awoke wanting to leave my mother’s house and her country.

MY LAST ELECTION
REFLECTIONS ON DISENFRANCHISEMENT IN 2002
By Alicia Banks

I am very proud of every person who voted last Tuesday, even if we all did so in vain. I know that millions of voters, of all races and classes, were denied a chance to vote. They were deliberately sabotaged by incompetence, error, and evil nationwide.

And, unlike in 2000, when the exact same voter abuses were exposed en masse, in 2002 all national news agencies decided to simply ignore these travesties. Millions of us are reading about voter outrage and municipal lawsuits in our local papers. But, this news will appear nowhere else....

Black gay Fire & Ink

BY RHONDA SMITH
Washington Blade

A distinguished group of gay and lesbian writers of African descent gather, and in the very act of doing so find themselves making a political statement

FOR ABOUT FOUR years now Lisa C. Moore, the founder of RedBone Press, the only black lesbian publishing house in the U.S., and a handful of friends in her literary circle have been talking about sponsoring a national conference for gay writers of African descent.

The conversations traditionally unfolded after they left OutWrite, a now-defunct national lesbian and gay writers' conference held in Boston. While OutWrite gatherings would attract as many as 900 gay writers, Moore and a close colleague, poet and writer G. Winston James, said it was a mostly white crowd and issues of concern to many black writers there were often overlooked.

The Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame

Home

The Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame is both a historic event and an exhibit. through the Hall of Fame, residents of Chicago and the world are made aware of the contributions of Chicago's lesbian and gay community and the community's efforts to eradicate homophobic bias and discrimination.

With the support of the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations, the Advisory Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues established the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in June 1991. The inaugural induction ceremony took place during Gay and Lesbian Pride Week at City Hall, hosted by Mayor Richard M. Daley. This was the first event of its kind in the country.

Passing The Torch
What is Activism?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'Activism' as "a doctrine or policy of advocating energetic action", and an 'Activist' as "an advocate of activism". The Random House Dictionary furthers the definition of 'Activism', defining it as an "involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc.".

Much can be learned at the feet of an activist; those who have walked the walk and talked the talk. The following are men and women, straight and gay who have been in the trenches of activism, have suffered the wounds and who have enjoyed the libations of success. They are presented here for you to hear their words and be inspired. You may consider yourself one person, but one person can inspire many people, or many nations.

Falling for Straight Women
by Sonya Shields

Sonya Shields is an African American lesbian, who came out ten years ago while living in Washington, DC. Within a few years of her coming out, she took a position with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. For over six years, she held a senior position within the organization, joined several national boards, and participated in other community activities. But despite her professional career as an activist working to achieve social justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, she settled for affairs and relationships with too many straight women. This is her story.

World View: Native Americans
Sex and Spirit: Native American Lesbian Identity
Native American and First Nations lesbians have to deal with unique issues as a result of their history, cultural status, and perceptions as Natives. They come out of a history of genocide; their people have been persecuted, killed, kidnapped, and assimilated for hundreds of years and still face lingering aspects of genocide. They face homophobia and sexism from their own people; racism from lesbians; and racism, homophobia, and sexism from the dominant society, not to mention the classism many Native Americans have to deal with.

World View: Brazil
Brazil's Hate Crime Murders Number 132 in 2001

This year, with music blaring from more than 20 sound trucks, hundreds of thousands of people danced and marched through Sao Paulo Sunday, June 2, in what was billed Latin America's biggest gay pride parade. Organizers attributed the huge turnout to the presence of heterosexuals who sympathize with the gay rights movement.

BUT, Brazil is still the World Champion in the murder of homosexuals. Every 3 days a gay man, transvestite or lesbian is brutally murdered in Brazil. [Read More]

World View: Africa
Forging a representative gay liberation movement in South Africa

The history of gay liberation in South Africa reflects the history of the country: South African gays were divided along race, class and gender lines despite their common experience of sexual oppression.1 For decades, the public face of the South African gay liberation movement was white, middle-class and male and as a whole it failed to link itself to the broader liberation struggle. From today's vantage point the gay movement was at best equivocal in opposing apartheid, and at worst complicity in supporting it.

Article also features African lesbian activists, artists and storytellers. [Read More]

World View: Reclaiming Gay India
with Ruth Vanita (Gay Today)

I called Ruth Vanita on a lazy winter afternoon about a month ago. I had just finished reading Same-Sex Love in India, a book that she co-authored with Saleem Kidwai. Our conversation was less of an interview and more of a cozy, timeless cosmic chat of the kind that's called 'adda' in Bengali, which covers everything from cabbages to kings and spans centuries.

Since she used to teach at an elite women's college attached to Delhi University, a college that was a sister college to my own alma mater St. Stephen's, we discovered many common acquaintances and friends. I felt transported back in time to the courtyard of the Delhi University coffeehouse where, in the comforting shade of an ancient banyan tree, I would engage in passionate political, literary, and philosophical discussions with teachers and fellow students.

[Read More]

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