De-criminalize Queerness and HIV: A Roadmap for Change!

"QUEER PRISON WALLS"

art by Margie Diddams / Photography by Margaret Jean Plews

Phoenix, AZ February 2013

Over the course of the past 12 months or so, I've had intensive correspondence with a number of gay men and transgender women imprisoned in the AZ Department of Corrections. Of all the stuff I've read on the LGBT community and criminalization, the best stuff seems to come from the prison abolitionists, like Dean Spade. This PDF is worth reading if you're studying or planning to act on issues related to the criminalization of LGBT people and people living with HIV.

A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People with HIV by Catherine Hanssens, Aisha C. Moodie-Mills, Andrea J. Ritchie, Dean Spade, and Urvashi Vaid

the following graphic from American Progress introduces the document well...

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Infographic: Why Are So Many LGBT People and People Living with HIV Behind Bars?

American Progress

By Aisha C. Moodie-Mills 

May 7, 2014

The pervasive profiling, arrest, and incarceration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, people and people living with HIV, or PLWH—especially those who are people of color—are not simply a response to higher rates of illicit behavior within those communities. The range of unequal laws and policies that dehumanize, victimize, and criminalize people because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status perpetuates these high rates of contact with the criminal system. In fact, one study found that a startling 73 percent of LGBT people and PLWH have had run-ins with police in the past five years. 

Police, for example, often profile transgender women and use possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution-related offenses and grounds for arrest. Additionally, PLWH in 36 states can be charged with felonies for having consensual sex, biting, and spitting—even when there is no transmission of the virus. And LGBT youth are more likely to be arrested for status offenses—charges that relate to family rejection and hostile school climates, such as running away, sleeping outside, violating curfew laws, and truancy infractions—than criminal activity.

What’s more, LGBT people and PLWH often experience police misconduct such as false arrests and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse while in police custody. They also face harsh sentences, experience a lack of appropriate healthcare, and are sometimes placed in solitary confinement as a safeguard—although this isolation is often more punitive and stigmatizing than protective.

These cycles of criminalization and discriminatory treatment of LGBT people and PLWH often trigger a lifetime of economic and social instability. We can and must dismantle these cycles through federal policy measures that address abusive policing practices, improve conditions
for LGBT prisoners and immigrants in detention, decriminalize HIV, and prevent LGBT
youth from coming into contact with the system in the first place.

Learn more: A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People with HIV by Catherine Hanssens, Aisha C. Moodie-Mills, Andrea J. Ritchie, Dean Spade, and Urvashi Vaid

Aisha C. Moodie-Mills is a Senior Fellow and Director of the FIRE Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

Guilty of walking while trans in Phoenix: Activist Monica Jones.

At the 2014 Phoenix Pride Parade

this cop actually threatened to arrest me for chalking him- 

which means he was ready to put me in cuffs and drag me off against my will, 

and could have legally killed me if I resisted or tried to flee. 

Hell, he'd probably get a promotion for killing me.

Anyway, how is it that cops think arresting people isn't violent?

Moreover, how could all these social workers and community non-profits 

dedicated to serving marginalized people 

stand by and not call that out as violence as well?

 

I will save my comments for a separate post in which they won't be directly linked to  SWOP-Phoenix or Monica Jones, because I don't speak for either and I won't be as polite as this press release is about the injustice I witnessed today. Monica, however, was an awesome witness and advocate for human rights in court today, and is dealing with the verdict with more grace than I could ever hope to muster. 

Blessings to all the good friends who turned out to support today, and those around the world who have been raising hell about the violence that is ASU's Project Rose! 

Oh, and come to this talk on April 17th with all your questions and concerns for the ASU school of Social Work. The talk is by the architect of Project Rose; what a fitting conclusion to ASU"s "2014 Humanities Lecture Series", as we all have so much to learn from her.

"Dominique Roe-Sepowitz will conclude the spring 2014 Humanities Lecture Series at ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus with her presentation, “Sex Trafficking In Arizona.” Hosted by the School of Letters and Sciences, the lecture starts at 6:30 p.m., April 17, at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, room 128, 555 N. Central Ave., Phoenix." (https://asunews.asu.edu/20140409-az-sex-trafficking-lecture)

See you all there!

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BREAKING from SWOP-Phoenix

Contact: Margie Diddams, 480-553-3777,

swop.phx@gmail.com

Guilty Verdict for Monica Jones Reveals Broken Legal System: 

Urgent Need For Action

PHOENIX--- Over 50 supporters rallied in front of the Phoenix Court house this morning in support of ASU student and anti-1062 activist Monica Jones. Ms. Jones was facing unjust charges of “manifestation of intent to prostitute,” a vague and discriminatory law that criminalizes activities like waving at cars, talking to passersbys, and inquiring if someone is a police officer. The ACLU of Arizona joined Jones’ lawyer in contesting the constitutionality of the manifestation statute. Dan Pochoda of the ACLU explained in his arguments, “The statute eviscerates first amendment rights.” In a packed courtroom filled with supporters wearing “I Stand With Monica Jones: Stop Profiling Trans Women of Color” t-shirts, the judge found Ms. Jones guilty based solely on the statements of the police officer who targeted Monica for her race and gender. Supporters across AZ and the nation are in an uproar about the injustice of this ruling.

In Arizona and across the country, trans women of color like Ms. Jones are routinely profiled and swept up in the criminal justice system on prostitution-related charges, due to a phenomenon many call “Walking While Trans”---a widely held belief by law enforcement and others that all transgender women are criminals.  Because of the injustice that leads people to take pleas against their best interest due to lack of community support, Ms. Jones decided she was going to fight the charges, so that no more trans women, sex workers, or people profiled as sex workers would have to face these injustices. Ms. Jones has remained adamant about her innocence, and that sex workers need rights, not arrests. Ms. Jones stated after the verdict, “As an African American and as a woman, the justice system has failed me.”

In light of this devastating ruling, SWOP Phoenix (Sex Worker Outreach Project) and Monica Jones will fight the case in an appeals process, while building national and international momentum against unjust policies that target trans women, people of color, and sex workers. SWOP Phoenix is calling on people from around the country to keep demanding justice for Ms. Jones. Meanwhile, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders is monitoring the trial as an example of discriminatory policing and retaliation on activists organizing for human rights.

Ms. Jones states, “I am saddened by the injustice that took place at my trial this morning, but we are not giving up the fight. It’s time that we end the stigma and the criminalization of sex work, the profiling of trans women of color, and the racist policing system that harms so many of us.”

Still standing with Monica Jones: Trial tomorrow!

UPDATE (3/18/14): MONICA'S TRIAL POSTPONED UNTIL APRIL 11, 2014 DUE TO CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES. STAY TUNED!

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STAND WITH MONICA JONES!

Friday, March 14 8:00am /  Phoenix Municipal Court / 300 W. Washington St. PHX 85003

Thanks to Darby Hickey and the Best Practices Policy Project for their support!

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Monica Jones and the Fight Against Racial and Gender Police Profiling in the U.S.

DARBY HICKEY
huffington post
3/12/2014

On March 14, Monica Jones goes to court. She will plead not guilty to manifestation of prostitution. And she will be making history in the process.


Monica is fighting back against a system that normally churns people through the cogs of justice with little resistance. Across the U.S., individuals (most of them women, many of them trans, but men too) arrested and charged on prostitution-related charges usually enter guilty pleas. When evidence consists of a police officer's word against yours, combined with social stigma towards sex workers or those profiled as such, plus overburdened and ill-prepared defense lawyers, you don't go to bat for your own innocence. You take the plea and hope for the best.

But Monica wasn't having that. She was arrested after protesting Arizona's harsh criminal justice system, which includes exceptionally stringent provisions on prostitution. She was protesting a program in Phoenix that ostensibly helps people involved in commercial sex to avoid criminal prosecution and get help, but instead sends the majority of them to jail after they "fail" the program. But as a black trans woman, she might well have been arrested anyway, thanks to a phenomenon we call "Walking While Trans." If you are a trans woman or have ever worked with us, you likely know this phrase. It describes the experience of constantly being harassed and sometimes arrested by police, who assume, simply by your existence as a trans women (particularly if you are a trans woman of color) that you must be engaging in commercial sex. All the time, everywhere.

In other words, "Walking While Trans" is a succinct summation of the interconnected biases against trans women (and trans people more broadly, sometimes called transphobia) and against people who trade sexual services for money or other things (sometimes called whorephobia) and bound up in that special sauce of racism.

The ground-breaking part is how Monica is fighting back against all of this. Her case is emblematic of how law enforcement violates people's civil rights on a regular basis not only in Phoenix but across the U.S. She is challenging the criminalization of herself and her community, the criminalization of trans people and black people and sex workers and people of color.

Monica and other human rights defenders in Phoenix are taking their fight not just to U.S. courts, but also to the United Nations. They have already submitted a report to the UN on the U.S. government's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). And advocates working with Monica will be in Geneva for the UN Human Rights Council's review of U.S. obligations under ICCPR the same day that Monica will be in court in Phoenix. It will be a day of action to confront racist and sexist policing.

Monica and others are also calling out those who claim to want to help sex workers, by treating people in the sex trade as victims instead of criminals -- and who think arresting sex workers is how you "help" them. New collaborations between police and non-governmental organizations, such as Project ROSE in Phoenix, allege to provide alternatives to incarceration for people involved in sex trade. Perversely, these efforts actually increase the numbers of people arrested under prostitution laws through street sweeps and mass online sting operations. In the case of Project ROSE, part of the process of "helping victims" involves taking them to a church where they interview with police and prosecutors but aren't allowed to speak with defense lawyers. Arrestees all but plead guilty in joining the program, and if they fail to meet attendance requirements -- as 70 percent of them do -- they end up in jail.

The rights violations that police commit in the course of enforcing anti-prostitution and other "quality of life" laws are so pervasive and those targeted so stigmatized that the system is rarely challenged. Which is why Monica's stance is so important.

She is part of a fierce legacy of resistance and resilience. Like countless others who have fought back against discriminatory policing, she has been targeted precisely for speaking out. Monica is fighting for her rights, but she is also acting for the rights of everyone, in Phoenix and across the country, to be free of such abuses. Let's join her in that struggle on March 14th.

Monica Jones illustration by Micah Bazant.

Follow Darby Hickey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DarbyBPPP