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Tag: Activism

LGBTQ Nation: Frisco, Texas Is Erasing Diversity & PrideIn a heated confrontation, Proud Boys in their yellow uniforms confront a group facing away from the camera. One in a yellow Proud Boys mask points angrily at us.
Flickr/Geoff Livingston
August 20, 2024
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LGBTQ Nation: Frisco, Texas Is Erasing Diversity & Pride

Posted in Journalism

When the municipal government of Frisco, Texas, made its only Pride declaration in June of 2022, the event made headlines for a different reason than that historic first: it drew out the Proud Boys. 

The extremist right-wing group has made opposition to LGBTQ+ expression – especially drag and Pride – a cornerstone of its violent movement. In Frisco, the Proud Boys harassed a key organizer and followed him and other supporters to a celebration at a restaurant after the proclamation. 

Justin Culpepper, 36, one-half of the married couple who founded the nonprofit Pride Frisco, said the extremist group threatened to assault him. “I went into the restaurant, and the people who worked at the restaurant protected me,” he recalled.

Read moreLGBTQ Nation: Frisco, Texas Is Erasing Diversity & Pride
Texas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be HeardAn outdoor photograph of a person wearing a purple mask, with brown hair past their shoulders. They are wearing a white dress with black polka dots, and supporting themselves with a cane. Tattoos are visible on their arms.
Jordan Vonderhaar/Texas Observer
March 25, 2024
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Texas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be Heard

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Most people survive the Coronavirus with their kidneys intact. But not 34-year-old Austin resident Vanessa Ramos. 

An experienced community organizer with nonprofits like the Sierra Club, Ramos was healthy and active before she got infected. Then she caught the COVID-19 virus in December 2021, and symptoms lingered through the new year despite her efforts to focus on healing and recovery. 

“I was trying to prioritize my physical health because I couldn’t lift things; I couldn’t open things,” Ramos recalled. “I didn’t understand why I was getting weaker.”

Read moreTexas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be Heard
Deceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW ConferenceProtesters lock arms at the front of a conference roon, holding a banner reading Andre Dickens GOP Stooge. Stop Cop City
Kit O'Connell
March 12, 2024
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Deceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW Conference

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and SXSW

On Monday, a group of protesters at a conference in Texas challenged  the mayor of Atlanta over the city’s ongoing plans to build a massive  training center for police and other law enforcement agencies,  eventually forcing Andre Dickens to leave the event entirely.

The direct action took place at South by Southwest (SXSW),  an annual conference, film, and music festival in Austin, Texas, at a  ballroom of the downtown Hilton hotel (one of several sites where the  conference occurs). The panel discussion was intended to be about conflict between city and state governments. Instead the audience received a very different lesson in civic engagement, as the Austin chapter of the Weelaunee Defense Society, an activist group devoted to the national “Stop Cop City” movement, would soon dramatically change the agenda.

Read moreDeceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW Conference
Before ‘Lawrence’: From Sodomy to Queer LiberationA man waits for customers behind the front desk of Dallas' historic Village Station gay bar, in this black and white photo.
(Courtesy of Dallas Gay Alliance)
February 9, 2023
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Before ‘Lawrence’: From Sodomy to Queer Liberation

Posted in Journalism, Media, Reviews, and The Texas Observer

On August 17, 1982, LGBTQ+ Texans celebrated “Gayteenth,” as activists called it at the time—a reference to Juneteenth, which commemorates news of slavery’s end reaching Texas. On that day in Dallas, a district court judge ruled in favor of plaintiff Don Baker in Baker v. Wade, declaring our state’s sodomy law unconstitutional. Baker, who lost his job with the Dallas Independent School District after coming out on TV, had sued the state for violating his right to privacy and equal protection under the laws.

“I want gay people in Texas to understand that this is their victory—that they should internalize this and feel good about themselves,” declared Baker, who became a figurehead of the struggle to decriminalize queer relationships.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision. The Supreme Court, which had recently ruled such laws constitutional in Bowers v. Harwick, declined to hear the case. Anti-sodomy laws in Texas and elsewhere would remain on the books and in effect until Lawrence v. Texas 21 years later.

Read moreBefore ‘Lawrence’: From Sodomy to Queer Liberation
Birdsite Blues: My Twitter Origin StoryTwo activists in zombie facepaint march while carrying a simple Occupy Austin banner made with black spraypaint on a white sheet.
From Occupy to Today, Twitter was there through it all. (Charlie Llewellin / Flickr, CC SA license)
November 14, 2022
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Birdsite Blues: My Twitter Origin Story

Posted in Gonzo Notes, and Occupy Wall Street

Over the weekend of Halloween in 2011, 38 people were arrested at Occupy Austin, the local outgrowth of Occupy Wall Street, a national, mostly anticapitalist movement targeting systemic inequality and corporate influence. I wasn’t involved in the movement yet, but this incident, and a certain social network, set off a chain of events that launched my journalism career.

I joined Twitter in 2009 after attending a technology and sex conference in San Francisco. I noticed everyone using their phones and laptops in a new way to communicate with each other about the conference, even if they hadn’t met before. So I was virtually watching two years later, when dozens of people got arrested in my town in a single night over sharing food.

Like most Democratic cities, officials voiced initial support for the activists camping at Austin City Hall, until two things became clear: one, that Occupy was not focused on pushing the Democratic Party’s agenda or candidates, and two, that the movement made the city’s growing poverty problem impossible to ignore by bringing unhoused campers to its front door. After that, they tried every possible trick (constitutional or otherwise), along with escalating police violence, to dismantle the encampment and undermine the networks springing up around it.

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Christofascism Is Everyone’s ProblemRev. Carter Heyward, an older white woman with white hair, speaks into a bullhorn, wearing a safety vest, with a rally for abortion access behind her.
Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward wants white Christians to stand up to Christian nationalism. (Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward)
November 3, 2022
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Christofascism Is Everyone’s Problem

Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer

In a time of national crisis, when human rights and democratic ideals are under threat, it’s everyone’s responsibility to take a stand—but those of us who benefit from the harmful systems fueling the emergency have an even greater moral obligation to act. For the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward, a groundbreaking feminist theologian, that means Christians need to play a much bigger role in the fight against fascism. 

Today’s Republican Party seems intent on transforming the United States into a grimly theocratic nation, inspired by a deeply capitalistic form of Christianity. Though Trumpism offers a novel twist on old bigotries, its roots run deep in our country’s history. “Nothing we are witnessing in the 21st century is new,” Heyward writes in the introduction to her book, The Seven Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism: A Call to Action, released in September. “In the past several years, however, our problems have come to a boil.”

Heyward is an Episcopal priest, a lesbian, and a lifelong activist for social justice, granting her a unique perspective on the current emergency. In her book, she skillfully contextualizes our political moment, connecting it to our country’s history of colonization, the genocide of Native Americans, and the enslavement of Black people. In each case, religion, specifically Christianity, was used to justify inhumanity. 

Read moreChristofascism Is Everyone’s Problem