Gendercast Episode 35: Dis/ability Justice & Queer and Trans* Community

Local Seattle activists and organizers, Hel and Jude, join Jesse and Sean, to talk about disability rights and disability justice and the disabilty rights movement from a historical perspective and its roots in people of color (POC), queer and poor people spaces.  Hel and Jude discuss intersections of disability justice and queer and trans* justice movements as well as local working being done in the pacific northwest that intersects with racial and economic justice organizing.  They will offer some ideas about allyship and solidary with people experiencing a disability.

Special thanks to Marisa Hackett for assisting Gendercast with the interview questions and frame.

Guest Bios

Hel Gebreamlak is a black, first generation Eritrean american, trans and multiply disabled writer, organizer and educator living in Seattle. Hel works at the Q Center at the Univ of Washington, where they do education around gender, race, class and disability, through teaching an introductory course on queer intersectional issues offered through the Q Center and the Comparative History of Ideas Department. Hel also develops and facilitates anti-oppression trainings and community centered workshops.  Hel is the co-founder of Writing Resistance, a Seattle-based writing and art project for multiply marginalized sick and disabled folks and those who are on the receiving end of ableism and audism. Hel is also working collaboratively on a checklist for creating more accessible events.

Jude Watson is 21 year-old community organizer, nerd and awkward dancer hailing from Seattle, WA. He identifies as white, trans/genderqueer, disabled, and somewhere in that weird place between youth and adult. Jude currently spends most of his time hanging out with amazing people at All Girl Everything Ultimate Program, and organizing with WISH against the building of a new youth jail in Seattle's Central District.

Links

Hel's blog BLACK, BROKEN & BENT

Writing Resistance, the writing project Hel co-organizers, fb page and the Call for Submissions fb event with the deadline extended to April 1.  (The project, thus far, encompasses the start of a writing circle and a submission based zine exclusively for sick, disabled and Deaf folks)

"In Passing...", the zine that Jude mentions, fb event Call for Submissions here

D Center at the University of Washington website and fb page and the fb event for their Grand Opening on April 5, 2013

The Icarus Project (info on radical mental health)

Leaving Evidence, the blog by Mia Mingus and her blog post on Changing the Framework: Disability Justice

The group Jude mentions, Washington Incarceration Stops Here (WISH), website and fb page

Feminists with Disabilities website that Jude mentions as a good resource for terminology 

Some other resources for reading and education from our Guests

·  Eddie Ndopu - “Musings from a Queercrip Femme Man of Color”

·  Eli Clare - Exile and Pride, www.eliclare.com

·  Joseph Shaprio - [BOOK] No Pity: People With Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (this book is a really powerful history of disability organizing!)

·  Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - www.brownstargirl.org

·  Aurora Levins Morales - http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com