January 2013 Update from Sister Amazon

After a few months we have a public update from Amazon for the site, as well as some additional writings added to the site on Amazon’s conception of insurrectionary anarky…

“Hello everyone!

I want to take the time to send a warm greeting from Cat and me to all the beautiful people out there who have been writing to let us know your concern and support and that our hearts beat as one in love and rage, to our resistance to prisons and the rest of civilization.  It feels so great to feel your vibes, warm embraces in a world of cold steel and musty concrete.  Our hearts and spirits likewise radiate at you.  And of course we want to also thank and commend the Gender Anarky crew out there that has set up the website and let the world know of our resistance in the prisons of America, a resistance that will surely contribute to America’s doom.  To our supporters [names omitted] — Thank you ever so much from the bottom of our hearts!  We love you!

We also want to let everyone know the latest with us.  As pointed our previously, Donovan prison changed tactics and so did we.  In Cat’s case, they decided to transfer her, allegedly because her custody points went down to a level-3 medium security range, and the yard we were on at Donovan is a level-4 maximum security yard.  In my case, I was put up for transfer to the Department of Mental Health based on a history of genital self-mutilation for want of sex-change surgery.  My request for surgery had been denied by the secretary of prisons years ago.  For the trans females in prison who can’t get surgery and need it, we get into a space where we just have to have it, and things get messy.  I was surgically castrated in 2009 due to medical complications resulting from continued self-mutilation through the years and decades of my incarceration.  Last year I tried to amputate my penis twice and was sent to a community hospital in Reno, NV, for days of treatment.  Initially they were going to amputate, but the organ responded to antibiotics and the diagnosis was changed.  It was no coincidence that the transfer recommendations came suddenly at the point of our resistance for our cell status and the pressure that our supporters were putting on the prison regarding our hunger strike.

We shifted our tactics from the hunger strike to attacking the transfer recommendations.  The prisoncrats gave us all the reasons we needed by violating their own rules in the way they went about it.  It’s what they do in all the administrative decisions made about every prisoner.  A very routine, underground way of running the prisons.  So we raised technicalities, but that is a process that takes months of moving the paperwork through the system and in the meanwhile I was transferred.  Currently I am in the Department of Mental Health section of the prison here in Salinas Valley.  It is just a warehouse.  No treatment is given.  I am to be here several months and then return to Donovan.  It’s “bus therapy,” just bussing us across the state with nothing accomplished.  I can be out of here in about two or three months.  I arrived in November.

Cat fared a lot better.  They had tried this with her years previous, before we met, ans she was filing paperwork against corrupt conditions at Donovan, including antifag hate from the guards.  At that time the attempt was abandoned because of family hardships if she were transferred elsewhere.  She has close ties with her parents.  Her family lives close to the prison and it would be a prohibiting burden to have them travel hundreds of miles to see her.  We filed an appeal with the warden, and her parents wrote to the warden with their concern.  In the meanwhile, Cat had gotten into situations that raised her points back up to a maximum security range so she is being kept at Donovan.  “I did them so I get be here when you get back,” she told me in a recent letter.  We always have an idea.

This is where we stand today.  Cat and I entered into an eternal union on October 20th, 2012.  Like me, Cat is a priesteess in the pagan ways.  She performed the ritual and consecration on sacred pagan ground at Donovan prison.

There will be more updates of our situation as we continue the insurrection against civilization from within prison.  I will also be speaking out more on the site shortly.

And so with this, a big hug and kiss to all!

For the annihilation of civilization,
Sister Amazon”

Support Niara!

In November of 2012, Niara was sentenced to 25-50 years in prison after she plead guilty to robbing and killing a john of hers and setting his motel room on fire.  Niara, who also goes by Peaches, has asked her supporters for letters after she was recently put in the solitary for getting into a fight with a transphobic man who was giving her shit on the inside.  She doesn’t know how long she’ll be stuck in solitary, so write her a letter and let her know that she has people supporting her!
Herman Burton #KU1265
PO Box 200
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania 17001-0200

Updated Version of Gender Anarky zine!

 

Click here to download the updated version of the zine

We’ve updated and changed our zine version of the selected writings of Gender Anarky!  Please distro this version rather than the older one if you’re interested in spreading Gender Anarky’s writing.  Thanks!

Gender Anarky prisoners end hunger strike with news of retaliatory transfers of the prisoners

A press release we received from Amazon and Cat today announced the end of the Gender Anarky hunger strike at R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility:

“Prison’s latest move changes battleground

the transsexual hunger strike at the r.j. donovan prison in california that was the initiative of gender anarky has ended.  the two girls on strike, amazon and cat, are now eating.

the change in the battlefield came as the prison moved to transfer both girls.  at this, a tactical decision was made to end the strike and shift tactics.  it would have been futile to oppose the transfers, as prison rules and courts give great discretion to prisoncrats in matters of transfers.  it also gives them leeway to act tyrannically with transfer to disrupt and retaliation against in-prison activism.  the girls are known to be radicals who struggle for transsexual medicine and human rights.  they are also aware that cat and amazon are partnerss, lovers, and resent it.  so by transferring the girls out they got rid of radicalism and lesbianism in a single stroke.  the transfer hearings were a sham and a farce, typical kangaroo court, as prisons everywhere are notorious for.  but it will not deter the girls in their insurrection against prisons, government, and civilization.  the girls have accepted that they will be separated soon, for how long they are not sure.  it could be one or two or more years that they end up on the same yard together again.  amazon is a lifer with some years to go, cat will be getting out in about eight years.  but they also keep uppermost that the insurrection is not about individuals but about masses of people.  they will mourn when they are separated, while continuing to sharpen their weapons of resistance to the tyranny of government and prisons, they the civilization that spawned them, utterly degenerate and putrid to the core and deserving not an iota less of merciless destruction.  wherever they are sent, the girls will continue on the path of anarkist insurrection, spreading the word, and always recruiting.

amazon and cat send their affectionate love and admiration to all who resist civilization, and a special embrace to all those who sent letters and cards and zeens during the hunger strike and so much love and support, letting them know that they were not alone.  your concern for them is matched with theirs for you.

to be sure, the girls continue to conspire and hopefully can maneuver themselves back together.  the details of this cannot be revealed publicly lest the enemy know.  but for the purpose of this communique the hunger strike is hereby terminated.

messages about the developing situation with amazon and cat will be posted in future press releases.

**the prison has begun to harrass our mail from supporters.  a letter from [a comrade] in oakland was marked ‘return to sender’ by the pig in the housing block and sent back to the mailroom for no noted reason.  but the mailroom sent it back to the block again and it was only after a comment to cat by another pig that cat was able to track it down and get it.  if anyone gets mail you sent us marked ‘rts’ simply resend it.  these kinds of things are a typical fuck-with-them ploy on the part of the prison department’s counter-insurgency.  it will fail.

love and hugs to all,

amazon and cat”
Help keep support for Gender Anarky going!

We’ve scammed and paid for a good amount of stuff in order to keep letters, funds to publish Gender Anarky’s zine on the regular and send them out to other trans women in prison, phone calls, money to send GA girls the books they wanna read, but we’re also broke as hell and can’t keep spending all our money   Just a couple dollars for a few people here and there would make a HUGE difference in terms of Gender Anarky and their consistent support network’s ability to survive in the long-term.  Thanks to everyone who responded to our calls with the utmost urgency during the strike, your actions have kept us ever more motivated to destroy this miserable world.

Donate here:

Support Gender Anarky//

The Hunger Strike Continues As Amazon Refuses to Take Water

“We are holding up as strong as ever and can feel the support radiating at us.  We will continue.  We will win.”

–Amazon and Cat, 10/11/12

What follows is a detailed summary of the Gender Anarky hunger strike thus far, written entirely in the words of Amazon and Cat.  Read it, and be ready to keep calling every day until their demands are met:

“In September 2012, Sister Amazon and Cat began a hunger strike to protest the prison’s refusal to allow them to be cellmates, while allowing male gender-identity prisoners to cell up with whoever they want.  The strike began when Amazon’s case worker, Ms. Lignell, began to give sham reasons for not initiating the administrative process that would make it possible for Amazon and Cat o be cell-mates.  Amazon has been on single-cell status for 14 years due to in-cell abuse and violence on her by men.  Upon her arrival at Donovan in early August, the warden advised her to “find a partner” so that she may be double-celled.  Apparently, the prison wanted as many beds available as possible, and making it possible for Amazon to have a cellmate would lend itself to this.  Otherwise, she is the sole occupant in a cell with two beds.  Amazon was agreeable.  Soon, she informed case worker Lignell that she and Cat wished to be cellmates, and requested committee action for double-celling.  She also corresponded this to the yard captain, whom the warden had advised to review Amazon’s cell status.

Once case worker Lignell saw that it was two transwomen who wanted to be cell with each other she began a series of deceptive maneuvers to avoid and prevent the process of taking Amazon off single-cell status.  It is the political opinion of Amazon and Cat that Lignell is a feminist of the type hostile to Transsexual women.  For example, at one point Lignell told Amazon that all committee hearings had been cancelled for two weeks, for the entire yard.  She had no explanation for this, stating she did not know why this happened.  However, when Amazon’s therapist called Lignell about the situation Lignell said that she needed two weeks to do an evaluation report before Amazon can appear at committee, and that this was the delay.  When questioned about the inconsistency, Lignell assured Amazon that she would be the first to go to committee in two weeks and that her and Cat would be celled up.  But the girls were not persuaded, and at this point began their hunger strike, on Sept. 21.  They submitted medical form 7362, Health Care Services Request Form, to the Clinic to inform of their strike and asked for daily monitoring of their health while on strike.

On September 23, a sergeant and psychiatrist interviewed the two girls, who reiterated their strike reasons and what was needed to resolve it– their celling together.  Daily monitoring of their vital signs began.  On September 24th, three days into the strike, Cat began to vomit liquid, as the girls were only drinking water.  On Sept. 25th, Cat vomited green bile (possibly due to her medication) shortly after vital signs were taken by an RN in the nearby medical office.  Amazon immediately informed a guard of Cat’s condition, and the guard informed the RN on duty, Roucher.  However, the RN refused to see Cat again, requiring her to fill out another 7362 form to be seen.  But daily monitoring of the girls’ health was covered by the initial 7362 form informing of the hunger strike.  RN Boucher was simply trying to cover up the incident, hush it, and was punishing and harassing Cat for being on a hunger strike by requesting another 7362, and to delay treatment to cause her to suffer more and to charge her an additional $5 for medical services with a new 7362.  The girls refused to go along.

On Sept. 26th, he fifth day of the strike, the warden, who was aware of the strike since day one, appeared at the girls’ housing unit.  Warden Paramo heard the girls out, Amazon reminding him of his instruction to her to find a partner for double-celling, that her and Cat were in agreement to cell up, and that Lignell was unduly delaying and avoiding the process.  Warden Paramo then gave his word to the girls that he would look into the situation and take appropriate action, and asked the girls to begin eating in a good faith gesture.  That night, the girls ended the hunger strike and ate dinner.

By the following week, however, no action had been taken, and while committee hearings were being held Amazon was not summoned.  This flew in the face of Lignell’s promise that Amazon would be taken off single-cell status, and flew in the face of the Warden’s promise to resolve the matter.  Therefore, on October 5th, 2012, the sisters once again went on strike.

As of this writing, Oct. 9th, the girls have been on strike for five days.  On Oct. 9th, they also stopped taking water, informing medical via 7362 of this escalation of their strike.  On Oct. 5th, Amazon weighed 202 lbs. at 6’1″.  On October 6th, she weighed 195 lbs.  On October 7th, 192.  On October 8th, she maintained 192 lbs.  On October 9th, 189.  A loss of 13 lbs in four days.  Cat has also lost weight drastically, and is struggling with disorientation and fatigue.

The girls have noticed that RN Boucher has been fudging the entries of their vitals, inaccurately recording their actual weight, misstating their reason for hunger striking, and not entering in the flow sheet that records hunger strike information that Amazon is no longer taking liquids.  When she pointed out this omission to Boucher, he left a “yes” response to the question of whether liquids were being taken by her and entered in the brackets that she claims she is not drinking water.  A couple of times Boucher forgot completely to weigh the girls.  So they have taken to recording their vitals themselves on notepads for their own information, and keep a strict log of everything going on with them while on the strike.  Depending on the course of things, they may eventually file a lawsuit about it, and the accuracy of the facts will be critical.

It is worth noting that the guards have been trying to entice the girls into ending their strike.  One guard offered to let them visit in Cat’s cell for a few hours if they start eating.  The insinuation was not lost on the girls, that their real motive for the hunger strike was to have sex with each other.  They considered the proposition an insult and utterly rejected it.

For decades hundreds of Transsexual women throughout California prisons have been undergoing brutal violence and rape because prisoncrats refuse to implement a Transsexual housing policy wherein such girls are safely housed and celled among themselves, and instead house them in dangerous environments where they will be abused and hurt, possibly killed, driven to suicide, going to solitary confinement to preserve their lives.  Or stuck on single-cell status for endless years.  For many girls it is a life of desperation not worth living.  It is a genocidal policy, intentional, meant to punish and terrify the girls just because they are girls.  We will not allow this happen or continue unchallenged.  We will take up the challenge and resist with all our might, tooth and nail, and with our minds, sustained only by our kind and by an uncompromising spirit that glows within and keeps our resistance aflame, alive, throbbing, vibrating.  The struggle for safe housing and for exclusive Transsexual housing for those who prefer it is a single aspect of Transsexual resistance in the California prisons.  It is a human rights issue.

Gender Anarky Party stands for the union of all oppressed genderfags and for aggressive resistance against our oppressors, whatever disguise they wear.  In this we will not take one step backward.  The Transsexual resistance movement that is Gender Anarky advocates militant uncompromise and daring measures in the endless struggle  for our peace and freedom.  We are in the trenches of society, in the trenches of prisons, zealous in our confrontation with the oppressor, assured of victory, welcoming Martyrdom.

We urge our supporters to continue to confront Donovan Prison Warden Paramo and the Secretary of Corrections in Sacramento, California, to allow Transsexual women to cell with each other, and to establish exclusive Transsexual housing units for their safety.  Join this resistance.  Make your voice heard.

Resist for Transsexual Human Rights, Transsexual Peace, and Transsexual Freedom!

Action builds resistance!  Build up the resistance!

To Transsexual Women Everywhere:

Do you resist?  If not, why not?  If so, join Gender Anarky.  Begin a Gender Anarky column in your area.  Dare to struggle and dare to win.”

 

To download the pamphlet, click here.

We hastily put together a small pamphlet of some of Gender Anarky’s writings for distributing in conjunction with spreading word about the hunger strike.  Click through to download it, and don’t forget to keep calling every day!

Portland: March Attacks Banks in Solidarity with Gender Anarky hunger strike, PNW Grand Jury Resisters

From pugetsoundanarchists:

If the Portland Police thought they could stop people from breaking shit by making an example of Pax, they were WRONG!

Last night, with only 12 hours notice, a crowd of about 50 people assembled for a march in solidarity with Leah and the other grand jury resisters. We gathered in a park between Belmont and Hawthorne around 8:30pm. Someone unfurled a banner that read “BURN PRISONS – HUG CATS – YOLO (A) ACAB,” then someone else shouted “Leah, Matt, and KteeO are in prison. That’s fucked! Let’s show the state what happens when they put our friends in prison!”

With that, we were off. We took a left onto Hawthorne and as soon as we rounded the corner, BANG. Rocks through windows of Umpqua Bank. We easily held the two eastbound lanes and continued marching. Newspaper boxes, trash cans, and sandwich boards alike were thrown in the street. Someone repurposed a metal chair sitting outside a cafe, and sent it flying through a large window of Wells Fargo Bank. It was truly a glorious sight to behold. With every broken window came applause and cheering.

At Cesar Chavez Boulevard, rocks went through Chase Bank windows and we took a left, now holding the two northbound lanes. Two more rocks went through the street-side windows of US Bank, making this the third time since February that this location has been attacked.

We took a right onto Belmont and the motion-activated sliding front door of Walgreens was smashed. The opening and closing broken door was pretty funny.

A few blocks from there, we heard police sirens in the distance and decided to disperse on our own terms to claim a small victory, rather than wait for the pigs to bust us up. When the cops finally reached the area everyone had scattered. They detained a few people they managed to find, but had no reason to arrest anyone.

Solidarity with all of the grand jury resisters; comrades arrested in San Francisco this past weekend; and Amazon and Cat, two trans women imprisoned in California on hunger strike for an end to single-celling of trans women, and ultimately the destruction of all of civilization. We’ll see you at the barricades!

In times of repression we find joy in revolt! Portland has been slumbering for far too long; the time to attack is now!

URGENT UPDATE: Gender Anarky Members Resume Hunger Strike Indefinitely After Prison Officials’ Broken Promises

Gender Anarky members Amazon and Catarina LePre restarted their hunger strike on October 5th after promised changes to trans women’s housing were not met by Warden Paramo and their case worker at the R. J. Donovan Correctional Facility.  Warden Paramo and Amazon’s case worker promised to change the housing conditions of trans women in the facility after a number of days of hunger striking, but  has not implemented any changes.  In response, they have chosen to strike indefinitely until the changes have been implemented.  In a recent communication from Amazon, she describes the situation:

“this time we are striking indefinitely, until this matter is resolved and i am no longer on single-cell status and cat and i are celled up.  today [October 7th] is our third day without food, and we are only drinking two bottles of water a day.  after food, we are going to stop drinking any water.  they are monitoring our health daily, taking our vitals.  so far we have lost ten pounds each, as of today.  cat gets a lil woozy, but we are going thru with this…

…inform [prison officials] of our hunger strike, that it is for transgender housing, that my case worker is preventing me from celling up with cat, that initially the warden instructed her to do it, but she has been avoiding it because she is a feminist hater of trans inmates.  this is the only reason she is discriminating against us… she has lied to us, giving us different reasons for delays that conflict.  we know whats up.  this is straight up discrimination… they don’t want to give us our transgender housing, where two girls can live together, while letting any two men live together who ask to.  and now they are also retaliating because of our hunger strike, trying to punish us by ignoring us now and our hunger strike for protesting in the first place.  so get at them like you need to…

this is a mental health prison, with special structured programs designed for inmates with long-term mental health therapy, and this problem with us is also aggravating our mental health status, making us decompensate, get depressed, suicidal, want to cut.  this is our last resort next to doing something desperate…”

Amazon and Cat’s situation has never been more urgent.  Continue to call Warden Paramo and act in solidarity with our comrades risking their lives to survive in a hellish institution of domination.

Call Warden Paramo the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility: (619) 661-6500

Demand that Eva Contreraz (C-45857)and Catarina LaPre (K-67313) be take off single-cell status and be allowed to share a cell.  Demand that an end to the discriminatory housing policy against trans women in the correctional facility.  Continue to call every day until you receive word that their demands have been met.  The calling system may be confusing, but when in doubt press 3 at the first menu, then 5, and then 1. Also, if you do that and you get a recorded message instead of a person, it is an answering machine — just wait for the end of the recording if you want to leave a message.

 

Attack!:

Gender Anarky has uncompromisingly attacked transphobic violence within the prison system, and have consistently called for directly attacking the systems of domination that the make living conditions of trans women, both inside and outside prison, a living hell.  Attack the institutions that maintain the miserable system of gender in solidarity with Gender Anarky and the continuing hunger strike.

Write to Amazon and Cat:

Let them know you support their struggle against the the prison administration.  They can be reached at:

Eva Contreraz C-45857
PO Box 799003 (C15-223)
San Diego, CA 92179-9003

Catarina LePre K-67313
PO Box 799003
San Diego, CA 92179-9003

for updates check back at genderanarky.wordpress.com

URGENT: Support Gender Anarky collective member Amazon and inmate Catarina on DAY 8 of hunger strike

Amazon, an anti-civilization trans insurgent associated with the Gender Anarky collective within the CA prison system, and her comrade Catarina LaPre are on the 8th day of hunger strike against the unfair treatment of trans women within R.J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County.  Prison officials refuse to take Amazon and Cat off of single-cell status because of their gender identity.  A letter from Amazon states:

“this is an emergency letter about the situation with trans girls here… I’m trying to get off single-cell status here and cell up with cat.  my case worker was supposed to start the process two months ago but she’s a feminist and hating on us and don’t wanna do it.  so we went on hunger strike to force the issue.  we have been on a hunger strike since 9-21, didn’t eat dinner that day and have not eaten since.  this is day [eight at this point*]… they have been trying to get us to eat but we won’t.  today cat started started feeling fucked up and vomiting water…

so we need some direct action support in this, for the prison to double-cell me, and get on the phone to the warden here, warden paramo… regarding why they are discriminating against transwomen here…  Gender Anarky and militia goes to the oppressor in confrontation and leaves a hard mark.  so show these motherfuckers who are the bitches with the most.”

Support Amazon and Cat!

Call Warden Paramo the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility: (619) 661-6500

Demand that Eva Contreraz (C-45857)and Catarina LaPre (K-67313) be take off single-cell status and be allowed to share a cell.  Demand that an end to the discriminatory housing policy against trans women in the correctional facility.

Attack!:

Gender Anarky has uncompromisingly attacked transphobic violence within the prison system, and have consistently called for directly attacking the systems of domination that the make living conditions of trans women, both inside and outside prison, a living hell.  Attack the institutions that maintain the miserable system of gender in solidarity with Gender Anarky and the continuing hunger strike.

Write to Amazon and Cat:

Let them know you support their struggle against the the prison administration.  They can be reached at:

Eva Contreraz C-45857
PO Box 799003 (C15-223)
San Diego, CA 92179-9003

Catarina LePre K-67313
PO Box 799003
San Diego, CA 92179-9003

Welcome to the support site of Gender Anarky

We’ve been in contact with members of the collective for months and have begun this website in an attempt to gather their writings, zeens, and support information in one place, and a space of communication between the collective and the outside prison.  We will be posting many writings of members of the collective in the days and weeks to come.  Many will see some of Gender Anarky’s positions as in outmoded political language, contradictory, fucked up, or offensive. Members of the collective have stressed to the collective that they welcome correspondence on all political issues, so if you see something you’d like to talk to them about, we’d suggest writing directly to them, because we exist to publish their writings and support materials and are not necessarily in agreement with all of the collective’s politics.  Importantly, however, is that Gender Anarky has protected trans women in the CA prison system by any means necessary, is firmly committed to the destruction of domination and gender tyranny, and avowedly against leftism.  They are our comrades and on the frontlines against gender violence, and have made it clear that they do not want support from leftists or those who are against militant, violent struggle against transphobia, patriarchy, and civilization.  We hope that you will find their resistance and writings empowering, and if you find affinity with their work, we hope you’ll strengthen their bonds with insurgents outside the prison system.
The Gender Anarky support team