GET CONNECTED
Organizations advocating for trans rights, social justice, health/self-care, and abolition of the prison industrial complex.
TGI Justice Project is a group of transgender, gender variant and intersex people—inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom. Members are low income transgender women of color and our families who are in prison, formerly incarcerated, or targeted by the police.
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.
The mission of the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health is to increase access to comprehensive, effective, and affirming health care services for trans communities.
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Transgender Law Center works to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression. We envision a future where gender self-determination and authentic expression are seen as basic rights and matters of common human dignity. Prison/police specific resources here.
Justice Now is a Non-Profit organization that partners with people in California women's prisons and local communities to build a safe, compassionate world without prisons.
The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area. Through mobilization, education and capacity-building, we work for community wellness and progressive social and economic justice.
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Black & Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and “free world” allies who support each other. Our work toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex is rooted in the experience of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are outraged by the specific violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ people, and respond through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing.
Southerners On New Ground (SONG) is a regional Queer Liberation organization made up of people of color, immigrants, undocumented people, people with disabilities, working class and rural and small town, LGBTQ people in the South.
FIERCE is a membership-based organization building the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color in New York City. FIERCE is dedicated to cultivating the next generation of social justice movement leaders who are dedicated to ending all forms of oppression.
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NCTE is a national social justice organization devoted to ending discrimination and violence against transgender people through education and advocacy on national issues of importance to transgender people. NCTE facilitates a strong and clear voice for transgender equality in our nation's capital and around the country. Prison/police specific resources here.
Just Detention International is a health and human rights organization that seeks to end sexual abuse in all forms of detention.
Rest for Resistance strives to uplift marginalized communities, those who rarely get access to adequate health care or social support. This includes Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Asian, Middle Eastern, and multiracial persons.
We also seek to create healing space for LGBTQIA+ individuals, namely trans & queer people of color, as well as other stigmatized groups such as sex workers, immigrants, persons with physical and/or mental disabilities, and those living at the intersections of all of the above. |
GET INSPIRED
Watch more films and videos addressing the intersection of gender, race, and incarceration
While filming MAJOR! we amassed an incredible library of interviews with Miss Major & the women in her community. There was far more truth & wisdom imparted in these interviews than we could fit in the final film, so we've created a series of shorts called MAJORettes: Excerpts of interviews not included in the final cut highlighting issues like activism, aging, health care access, & the impact of the prison industrial complex on trans lives.
"You have to find your own way to strike back." Black trans elder and legendary activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy describes how everyday personal acts fuel her political activism.
Released in conjunction with Trans Day of Resilience/Remembrance, this short, directed by Reina Gossett with art by Micah Bazant and animation by Pamela Chavez was produced by Reina Gossett, Hope Dector, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. |
TGI Justice members share their stories, including Miss Major and the short film "Bustin' Out: From Solidarity to Re-Entry" by Janetta Johnson.
On her way to the store with a group of friends, Chrishaun Reed “CeCe” McDonald was brutally attacked. While defending her life, a man was killed. After a coercive interrogation, CeCe was incarcerated in a men’s prison in Minnesota. CeCe's powerful story highlights the groundswell of voices questioning the prison industrial complex and calling for its disassembly.
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The Barnard Center for Research on Women hosts a programming series that explores a wide range of feminist and social justice issues like women's rights, gender and sexuality, democracy and voting, immigration and economics. Audio and video resources from these events are available on our website at bcrw.barnard.edu.
Criminal Queers visualizes a radical trans/queer struggle against the prison industrial complex and toward a world without walls. Remembering that prison breaks are both a theoretical and material practice of freedom, this film imagines what spaces might be opened up if crowbars, wigs, and metal files become tools for transformation. (directed by Chris Vargas & Eric A. Stanley, 2016)
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READ UP
History and discourse about the policing of race and gender in the United States
Michelle Alexander, 2010.
Toolkits, resources, links to back issues of The Abolitionist newspaper, and annual reports. "Critical Resistance (CR) is building a member-led and member-run grassroots movement to challenge the use of punishment to “cure” complicated social problems. We know that more policing and imprisonment will not make us safer. Instead, we know that things like food, housing, and freedom are what create healthy, stable neighborhoods and communities. We work to prevent people from being arrested or locked up in prison. In all our work, we organize to build power and to stop the devastation that the reliance on imprisonment and policing has brought to ourselves, our families, and our communities."
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Eric A. Stanley & Nat Smith, eds. 2nd ed 2011.
"In light of the dangerous implications of neoliberal prison reform and the marginalization of the current prison strike from the public political sphere, the Prison Abolition Syllabus (modeled after #FergusonSyllabus, #Charlestonsyllabus, #WelfareReformSyllabus and Trump Syllabus 2.0) seeks to contextualize and highlight prison organizing and prison abolitionist efforts from the 13th Amendment’s rearticulation of slavery to current resistance to mass incarceration, solitary confinement, and prison labor exploitation."
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Angela Davis, 2012.
Detailed listing of local and organizations working for supporting prisoners and working to dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex.
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2008, Lois Ahrens, Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Introduction), Craig Gilmore (Preface)
Includes "Still We Rise: A Resource Packet for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in Prison"; "Surviving Prison In California: Advice By And For Transgender Women"; as well as back issues of the TGI Justice newsletter Stiletto and annual reports.
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This study guide is always evolving. If you'd like to suggest an organization, audio visual project, or written work about the intersection of trans rights, social justice, health/self-care, and abolition of the prison industrial complex, let us know!
