by Lisa Strawn
From PHN Issue 30, Fall 2016
I’m writing to give people in prison advice on how to put together a memorial or celebration. In June, I put together a Celebration of Life for the Orlando shooting victims at the facility where I’m housed. Continue reading “How to Organize a Memorial or Celebration”
by Mrs. Ge Ge
From PHN Issue 28, Spring 2016
Hello friends,
My name is Mrs. Ge Ge. I am a trans woman incarcerated in PA. I am also the founder of an LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender–plus) organization called L.I.G.H.T. We aim to educate readers about DOC policies that protect them, laws, health and politics. We use this information to strengthen our ability to fight the prison industrial complex, by using its own policies against it. I am writing simply to spread some knowledge on how to get gender affirming health care in prison. There are several useful tools you can use to accomplish this. I will list some addresses at the end of this article. Continue reading “Accessing Gender-Affirming Health Care in Prison”
by Fatima Malika Shabazz
From PHN Issue 27, Winter 2016
Peace and Love. I hope this letter finds all my brothers and sisters in the never-ending fight for our rights doing well. I have a great deal of faith in the strength and resilience of people like myself.
First steps of a lawsuit
For those who don’t know, I filed suit recently against the state of California’s Department of Corrections for denying me the chance to get genital sex reassignment surgery. It had already been denied by the prison’s medical department, and all appeals were denied at every level. I mailed the petition to the Central District of the California federal court, and it was received on August 13. Continue reading “Fatima’s Fight”
by Fatima Malika Shabazz
From PHN Issue 26, Fall 2015
Dear Reader,
My name is Fatima Malika Shabazz. Some of you may be familiar with my name through a previous article I wrote. I want to thank all of you who in one way or another have reached out to a trans woman or trans man in any prison in America. I am currently doing time in the California prison system. In a state that is supposed to be very progressive in regard to LGBTQ rights, it would appear that the secretary of prisons has not gotten that memo. Continue reading “Fight for Health Justice in Womanhood”
by Fatima Malika Shabazz
From PHN Issue 24, Spring 2015
My name is Fatima Malika Shabazz. I am an African American transwoman currently incarcerated in the gulags of California. It is great that we can get feminizing hormone treatments in the system now. But there is still the problem of presentation. That is, being able to present every day as a woman, beyond the breast growth that comes along with being on hormones. Continue reading “Presentation”
by Jose de Marco
From PHN Issue 19, Winter 2014
I’m Jose de Marco. My father was Latino, my mother was African-American. I’m a man that loves other men.
I believe if people were more accepting of who they are, they would not care when other people criticize them about who they love. But you have to get to the point where outside influences—whether it’s church, your teacher, your mother, or your brother—your happiness cannot depend on the permission of other people. Continue reading “There’s No Shame in Love”
by Suzy Subways
From PHN Issue 10, Spring 2011
Ronnie Stephens is an HIV outreach advocate and consultant in Austin, Texas. He has been HIV positive for 10 years and a worker in AIDS services for 14 years. His life’s work is with people who are at risk for HIV because of homophobia, racism, and imprisonment. “I try to target the population that I was locked up with,” he explains. Stephens has been in drug recovery for ten years and gives it much of the credit for his survival. But to him, recovery from drugs is only part of the picture. Like preventing HIV and staying out of jail, it goes beyond the individual. Communities have to do this work together.
Q: What do you mean by “recovery from injustice”?
A: A lot of people who do AIDS strategy don’t really get the idea of social injustice. When they talk about substance abuse and prison, I say, well, half of these kids got beat up down there. They beat you up, and [the prison guards] say, “Well that’s because of what you are.” So what do you have to offer our clients coming out? These kids have been abused. Some of them have been raped, some of them have no family to go to. What do you do for those individuals who are coming back into society and don’t have any family to turn to? That’s kind of traumatizing. That hurts. Continue reading “Recovery from Injustice: An Interview with Ronnie Stephens”
By Najee Gibson
A lot of inmates from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community feel lonely because either their families gave up hope for them, or they’re so caught up in the system that they feel like there’s no hope for them when they come out. So they stay back in the same addictive behaviors when they come out, which is not healthy for someone living with HIV.
I did 5 ½ years. I heard about Hearts on a Wire like 2 months before I got released from prison. They were doing an anonymous questionnaire for members of the LGBT community in state facilities: Were you getting health care? How were you being treated? I took the survey and informed them that I was going to be released in April. So they opened their arms and told me to come into the office. That’s how I got plugged in, and from there, things started to blossom. I liked what I heard. All of us need to be understood and cared for, and someone to identify with our hurt. Hearts on a Wire could identify with my hurt, and the bullshit that I put up with being incarcerated, being a person of color – the no-nos, the punishments.
Hearts on a Wire is about 2 years old. We cater to inmates in state facilities in Pennsylvania. We meet every Wednesday, and you pass on what was given to you. We make cards that say, “Keep your head up,” and send them to inmates.
Prison Health News 