Reemerging From Our Long Winter Hibernation

 Posted by A.E. on April 16, 2013
Apr 162013
 

We’ve been pretty quiet as of late, but we’re still here archiving and agitating like we’ve done since we started making a ruckus in 2009.  Our archives have grown by leaps and bounds as we work to include more older historical work as well as pieces from outside the United States.  We’ve even lent our voices to a number of written pieces like, “Marching Toward Equality in the Military—But at What Cost?” as well as participating in numerous radio and print interviews like this in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court hearings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Karma Chávez at Bluestockings Books in New York City. (photo credit: Santhosh Chandrashekhar)

Karma Chávez in NYC.   (photo credit: Santhosh Chandrashekhar)

AE was also recently informed that the book coming out of the After Homosexual conference in Melbourne, Australia, at which Ryan Conrad presented for AE over a year ago, finally got the green light.  A co-authored piece between Ryan Conrad, Yasmin Nair, and Karma Chávez, “Against Equality, Against Capitalism: Towards an Economic Critique of Gay Marriage,” will appear in the conference publication.  The trio also co-authored the introduction of another forthcoming Australia-based book project called To The Exclusion of All Others where our foreword titled, “Against Equality: From the Belly of the Beast to the Land Down Under,” will appear.  We are also currently working on a self-reflective piece for a queer archives special issue of the journal Radical History Review, tentatively titled “Against Equality: Radical Queer Memory and Action.”

Imagining Queer Justice Poster

Imagining Queer Justice

In addition to our writing and archiving, collective members have made a few in-person appearances.  On April 10, Karma Chávez spoke at Bluestocking Books in New York City to talk about Prisons Will Not Protect You, and on April 26, Ryan Conrad will appear on a panel at Wesleyan University titled Imagining Queer Justice: Prison Abolition and LGBT Hate Crimes Legislation along with author and AE contributor Eric A. Stanley and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project’s very own Reina Gossett (all thanks to the wonderful organizing of Margot Weiss). We continue to post about these events and others on our Facebook and Twitter pages, so make sure to join us there if you can.

More from us soon!

To celebrate the new year we are giving away our books!

 Posted by A.E. on January 8, 2013
Jan 082013
 
Although it’s been pretty quiet from us over the last few months we promise that there is a lot brewing for 2013.  Before we give y’all a full update with our big gay agenda for the new year, we thought we would do a little celebrating.  Independently publishing a book a year since 2010 on radical queer and trans politics was a huge undertaking for us as the entire publishing world seemed to be falling apart all around us.  While we did incur a hefty amount of debt in the process, we can’t help but celebrate our accomplishments!  With a little help from Goodreads (the nerdier facebook) we are giving away a one copy of each of the books in the AE trilogy.  Check out the links below to get in on the giveaway and we promise a more hefty update in the weeks to come!

Against Equality by Ryan Conrad

Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You (2012)

Edited by Ryan Conrad

Giveaway ends January 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads or enter to win here!

Against Equality by Ryan Conrad

Against Equality: Don’t Ask To Fight Their Wars (2011)

Edited by Ryan Conrad

Giveaway ends January 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads or enter to win here!

Against Equality by Ryan Conrad

Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage (2010)

Edited by Ryan Conrad

Giveaway ends January 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads or enter to win here!

 

Against Equality’s New Book Is Now Available for Order!

 Posted by A.E. on October 23, 2012
Oct 232012
 

Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You, the third and final book in the Against Equality Collective’s pocket-sized book series, takes a critical look at the celebrated passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 in the United States.

LGBT organizations have rallied around hate crime legislation (HCL) in an effort to address the violence faced by queers and trans people, but the writers in Prisons Will Not Protect You  point out that HCL only extends the reach of the prison industrial complex.  Hate crime legislation ostensibly provides added protections to minority groups and serves as a deterrent against future crimes by extending and enhancing penalties.

However, as the writers in this anthology show, hate crime penalty enhancement has no proven record of preventing anti-queer and trans violence.  Furthermore, HCL disproportionately targets the poorest populations, particularly people of color, who cannot afford the legal resources necessary to fight back against charges of having committed “hate crimes.”  Ironically, they are from the very same marginalized communities that HCL is supposed to protect.

Prisons Will Not Protect You, edited by Against Equality co-founder Ryan Conrad, analyzes the inequality and violence perpetuated by hate crime legislation and its role in perpetuating the prison industrial complex. This archival anthology features an original introduction by Dean Spade, the prominent trans legal scholar and author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law (2011).  

These essays also examine cases of violence towards queer and trans people, including the New Jersey Four and the Texas Four, demonstrating the vulnerability of gendered, raced, and classed queer bodies within law enforcement.  Prisons Will Not Protect You exposes deadly links between state-sponsored violence, homophobia, transphobia, and the criminal punishment system while articulating the need to build better solutions to end all forms of violence.  Arguing that hate crime legislation only helps funnel massive numbers of people into the profit-driven prison system, this book details abolitionist alternatives to harsh sentencing and rethinks our responses to crime and violence.

Eric A. Stanley, filmmaker and co-editor of Captive Genders (2011), writes that the essays “detonate the LGBT mainstream’s argument that justice hinges on imprisoning the “correct” bodies and reaffirm that imprisonment itself is the antagonism of our collective liberation.”

Proceeds from all book sales underwrite Against Equality’s policy of sending all AE titles to LGBTQI prisoners at no cost.  The book is available from AK Press and Amazon.com, and will be available from our own website shortly.

Our newest anthology on critiques of hate crime laws will go to print soon!

 Posted by A.E. on September 1, 2012
Sep 012012
 

Cover design by Chris E. Vargas

We are happy to update yall about our newest anthology due out this fall.  We have been working hard all summer to bring you the third and final installation of our archival trilogy. With this book Against Equality once again demonstrates that another queer and radical world is possible.  The essays in this volume take a critical stance against the prison industrial complex and the system of inequality and violence perpetuated by hate crimes legislation, formally passed in the United States in 2009 as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Prisons Will Not Protect You, a compilation of archived work, is located at the difficult and traumatic point where the violence of the state against queer and LGBT people colludes with the violence we are always trying to escape. The pieces here question the gay community’s fealty to the prison industrial complex, arguing that hate crimes legislation, which enhances penalties and can even be used to bring in the death penalty, only serves to funnel massive numbers of people into prisons with increasing lengths of time served and the use of tortuous methods like solitary confinement. This has significant racial and economic implications in a country that houses five percent of the world’s population but nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners and where prisons have become, for many impoverished area and people, the only source of livelihood.

Click for more details…

Check Out Our New Back to School Anti-Marriage Tote Bag!

 Posted by A.E. on July 24, 2012
Jul 242012
 

We’ve been busy working on our third anthology and a few other essays and interviews, but now seemed like a good time to take a short summer vacation from writing/ editing to churn out some hilarious new things for our online store.  Late one night/ early one morning in a humid fourth floor studio that remains a balmy 85 °F after dark, we hatched this idea…

This back to school tote bag, based on the logo design for Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No to Drugs campaign, playfully reminds us that heterosexuality (and all its attendant traditions) is indeed the opiate of the masses.  This reusable tote is sure to impress all your recently gay-married friends in the state of New York who are already searching for divorce lawyers.  It will likely raise a few unfriendly gay eyebrows in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington where gay marriage will be put before voters this fall. It will also surely impress everyone at your local food co-op, farmer’s market, library, or anywhere else where you need a bag for carrying your items.

We did a limited run of fifty hand-printed totes that we sourced from a local American company.  These bags are made from natural cotton canvas and measure 11″ x 13″ x 4″.  Each three-panel tote bag is uniquely stitched and printed by hand, so the exact size and print will vary from tote to tote.  But they all look the pretty much the same as seen here.  To get your hands on one of these limited edition tote bags, get on over to our online store and check out our complete line of conversation starters.

Spring / Summer Updates from A.E.

 Posted by A.E. on June 13, 2012
Jun 132012
 

It has been a while since there was any news from us.  We were all so busy working on projects, we didn’t have much time for updates.  We’ve had a lot going on this Spring: touring in the Midwest, re-opening our online store, starting a Twitter, and we have even more exciting things coming up this Summer!  Check out the details below (or follow us on Twitter!) to stay in the loop about all the things we are up to with A.E.

>>>Upcoming Events>>>
In just a few weeks we will do a book launch for Against Equality: Don’t Ask To Fight Their Wars at the New Museum in New York City as part of Carlos Motta‘s We Who Feel Differently project.  The event takes place on June 21st, 2012 at 7:30pm on the 5th floor of the New Museum: 235 Bowery in Manhattan.

We also just got some great news that A.E. will be doing a panel this fall at Radically Gay: The Life & Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay, a conference hosted by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY from September 27th – 30th, 2012.  Our panel is titled “Eat Your Fetish!: Against Equality and the Politics of Queer Cultural Production and Appropriation” and features presentations from Karma Chavez, Yasmin Nair, and Ryan Conrad.  We are sure to ruffle at least a few tail feathers.

>>>Upcoming Publications>>>
Against Equality has written work appearing in upcoming publications including 5th Estate magazine, AREA Chicago, and After Homosexual, an anthology inspired by the Australian conference by the same name at which A.E. presented back in February 2012.

>>>Project Updates>>>
Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You, the third book in our pocket-book series, is coming together in time for publication this fall.  This book critiques the demands by gay and lesbian organizations seeking LGBT inclusion in hate crimes laws and looks more broadly at the prison industrial complex as a site of harm and violence that disproportionately affects queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people.  Chris E. Vargas will be designing a fabulous cover for us once again and Dean Spade will lend his voice to do the book’s introduction.

A.E. is also still working on a new anthology of erotic fiction called Fuck Equality and we’ve extended the deadline through the end of the year! We’re looking for submissions of original, unpublished stories between 1500 – 2000 words that incorporate our political agenda of challenging mainstream gay and lesbian politics (ie. marriage, military service, and hate crimes legislation) into the storyline. We’re always trying to find new ways to animate our politics; what more fun and sexy way to share our political project than with naughty tales of queer debauchery and gender terrorism!?  Details here.

New Postcard Prints for Against Equality Coming Soon!

 Posted by A.E. on April 23, 2012
Apr 232012
 

After mulling over more than twenty submissions from our most recent call for art for postcard designs we finally chose the three will will print this year.  Many thanks to all who submitted designs to our call for submissions.  We are really happy to have so many to chose from, but unfortunately we can’t print everything we receive.  Like we said last time we printed postcards, we would love to print all the lovely submission we received, but we don’t have a stash of gold coins and rubies in a safe out back like the Human Rights Campaign.

Without further delay, the designs:

Cristine Drach, (New York)

Ryan Conrad, (Maine)

Sam Wallman, (Melbourne)

This new series of postcards will be available to order from us next month when we relaunch our online store on May 1st.  Thanks again to all who participated and special thanks to Cristine, Conrad, and Sam for sharing such great work with us!

Reminder: Postcard Call for Art Due March 31st 2012

 Posted by A.E. on March 24, 2012
Mar 242012
 

designed by Liz Kinnamon for AE

Just a reminder that Against Equality is still looking for your sassiest, snarkiest, silliest and most sarcastic designs for our second postcard project.  On our website, we have continued to archive critical writing that encourages others to rethink the rhetoric of equality and inclusion as deployed by the mainstream gay and lesbian organizations and campaigns around gay marriage, hate crimes legislation and military inclusion.  Sadly, we have had a bit more difficulty finding critiques that employ visual culture (photography, video, print, performance, painting, film, etc), so we thought we would encourage more creative work around these through this postcard project.

A few selected designs will be printed on 4” x 6” postcards and the images will be added to the AE digital archives.  These postcards will be distributed internationally through our low-cost online store.  Designers whose images are selected will be compensated with a stack of fifty of their own postcards as well as a handful from the rest of the designers!  Submissions should directly address one or more of the themes from our digital archive (italicized above).  All entries must be received by email on March 31, 2012 as 300dpi .pdf files with all colors converted to CMYK.  And don’t forget to leave an 1/8” bleed on all sides!

Send questions, comments and submissions to: againstequality@gmail.com
or visit us on facebook!

Fuck Equality: Erotica for Rowdy Queers

 Posted by A.E. on February 14, 2012
Feb 142012
 

Against Equality is putting together a new anthology of erotic fiction, so we need your help!  We’re looking for submissions of original, unpublished stories between 1500 – 2000 words that incorporate our political agenda of challenging mainstream gay and lesbian politics (ie. marriage, military service, and hate crimes legislation) into the storyline.  We’re always trying to find new ways to animate our politics; what more fun and sexy way to share our political project than with naughty tales of queer debauchery and gender terrorism!?

from “Born in Flames” publication by Kaisa Lassinaro

We want to hear about your wildest fantasies of raucous anti-war organizing, lesbian wolf packs fighting to end anti-queer violence (Born in Flames tribute anyone?), trans prison librarians organizing erotic poetry writing groups, seducing marriage equality interns to the dark side, and lots more!  These are just a few examples to get all your juices flowing.  And remember: political erotica (when is erotica not political?) doesn’t have to be dull and didactic – let your imaginations run wild!  Facebook event page for the Call for Submissions available here!

Submissions are due May 15th by email to againstequality<at>gmail<dot>com; we hope to complete the editing process early in the summer.  Each contributor selected for publication will receive two copies of the book as compensation.  Submissions should be formatted as either .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .txt files. Please include a short 50 – 100 word bio.

AE Wrap Up from Down Under

 Posted by A.E. on February 13, 2012
Feb 132012
 

Since Conrad had such a blast in Australia meeting new folks and sharing Against Equality’s work, we figured we should give an update with all the goings on from down under.

AE Book Launch at Hares & Hyenas

The day before the After Homosexual: The Legacy of Gay Liberation conference, Conrad did hour-long interviews with the radio programs Word for Word on Joy 94.9FM and Queering the Air on 3CR community radio station.  These interviews will be aired in Australia in the coming weeks and will be available for podcasting soon.  Conrad also did a print interview with the Star Observer and has another one with the Gay News Network this coming week.  All this is to say, we’ve had a lot of air time and we will be sure to share all the links with y’all as soon as they are live.

At the fantastically-organized conference, Conrad gave a presentation largely based on the work he did with Yasmin Nair for the journal We Who Feel Differently.  The Against Equality presentation was one of the most well-attended events of the weekend, but apparently we were a bit too controversial for Jeffrey Weeks, one of the conference keynote speakers, who walked out in disgust just three minutes into it.  Following the presentation was a lively discussion that included both critique of our position as well as many thanks for holding our ground on the issue.  Against Equality will also be contributing to the anthology publication coming out of the conference, edited by none other than two of the brilliant After Homo conference organizers, Mark Pendelton and Carol D’Cruz.

Conrad with the Hares & Hyenas Crew

The following day, February 5, Conrad did a book launch with the wonderful folks at Melbourne’s queerest bookstore and café, Hares & Hyenas.  The event was packed with over fifty in attendance and we sold out of books before the talk even started!  The audience once again jumped in with insightful questions and comments relating the work of Against Equality to the geographically and politically-situated Australian context.  Some in attendance were surprised that no one from the gay marriage mainstream showed up to protest our event, but thankfully that was one headache we didn’t have to deal with.  Hopefully H&H will be restocked with books soon!

In addition to sharing our work, we got to learn about all sorts of cool people and neat projects happening in Australia.  There are some really rad folks working on print magazines like Dirty Queer and DUDE who y’all should check out.  Activists presenting from The Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives, Organization Intersex International – Australia, and Minus 18 were pretty kickass too.  And of course there were the wonderful folks at Hares & Hyenas as well as the babes keeping it real on the radio with Queering the Air that treated us so well.  We couldn’t have asked for sweeter folks to host our project overseas.  Thanks Aussies, we look forward to seeing you again!

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