Stanley-Eric-Captive-Genders-Trans-Embodiment-and-Prison-Industrial-Complex

Captive Gendersvariant groups of people, and people living with viral diseases would be amore sustainable and harm-reducing model, compared to the costly andviolent results created by the PIC. Accomplished by peers, the empiricalknowledge can address social as well as health and economic concerns thatspeak for those specific groups of people. Also, political and monetarysupport for decriminalizing prostitution efforts can cut overtime hoursof cops currently directed toward violent policing tactics that are paid forby taxpayers.These are some economical and educational prison abolition stepswe can take to empower our friends, our neighbors, and ourselves. Inparallel, groups like Write to Win (a grassroots collective that creates epistolaryrelationships between incarcerated gender-variant people and thecollective members, many of whom are gender-variant) offer emotionaland resource solidarity to their pen-pals; it acts as an alternative accountabilityparadigm in concert with other abolition groups. As a volunteergroup, it doesn’t fear losing funding or compromising its politics, as isunfortunately seen in many non-profit agencies. 5Movement-building that creates innovative models of justice that donot pimp prisoners for the success of capitalism are possible. It is time toview the current US economic hardships as an exit opportunity away fromdependency on conservative foundations and government funding vehiclesthat bar groups from work that threatens pharmaceutical industries orgender/sexuality norms. Transformative justice models that empower lovers,friends, and groups of people to be accountable to one another ratherthan rely on unjust and unsustainable US systems, can work to abolish theprison industrial complex. We can, and are, creating these in forms thatfacilitate a domino effect of cultural and economic churnings.NOTES1. Laura McNighe. Project Unshackle/CHAMP. http://www.champnetwork.org/unshackle. Personal phone interview, April 14, 2009.2. Community Health Mobilization Project. This Philadelphia-based organizationis a national initiative building a powerful community-based movement bridgingHIV/AIDS, human rights, and struggles for social and economic justice—which we call HIV Prevention Justice. http://www.champnetwork.org. Also see,Transgender Health Information Project (TIP). TIP is a comprehensive HIVprevention and health education project designed by and for transgendered,transsexual, and gender-variant people in Philadelphia. http://www.preventionpointphilly.org/services/services-trans.html.230