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1 " Abolition is not some disstant future but something we create in every moment when we say no to the traps of empire and yes to the nourishing possibilities dreamed of and practiced by our ancestors and friends. Every time we insist on accessible and affirming health care, safe and quality education, meaningful and secure employment, loving and healing relationships, and being our full and whole selves, we are doing abolition. Abolition is about breaking down things that oppress and building up things that nourish. Abolition is the practice of transformation in the here and now and the ever after. "
― Eric A. Stanley , Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
2 " I began to notice something strange about the nature of incarceration; in particular, its imposition on the minds and bodies of the imprisoned, promoting a number of inmates to take personal responsibility for a system of failure beyond their control—a system built on hiding in plain sight the institutional, historical, and material limits of personal choice….Taking on the failures of a system without critically examining the limits of personal choice often led a number of cellmates to conflate their sense of responsibility with issues beyond their control.--Kalaniopua Young, “From a Native Trans Daughter "
3 " Middle-class gay white men argued that 'gay rights' should remain a legislative issue and that 'legally sanctioned gay marriage should be a primary concern for all of us.' Kunzel charts the ways that the forced forgetting of queer and trans prisoners was central to the coalescing of 'new gay norms,' 'gay respectability,' and homonormativity. This disciplining of the queer left was a racialized proect that coalesced around shoring up the privileges afforded by whiteness, gender normativity, and capital. "
4 " The existing criminal justice model poses two main questions in the face of social harm: Who did it? How can we punish them? (And increasingly, how can we make money from it?). Creating safe and healthy communities requires a different set of questions: Who was harmed? How can we facilitate healing? How can we prevent such harm in the future? --S. Lamble "
5 " Taking an abolitionist stance does not mean refusing to engage in incremental change, nor does it mean abandoning efforts to improve conditions inside prisons. Rather, abolitionists engage in 'abolitionist reforms' or 'non-reformist reforms.' These are reforms that either directly undermine the prison industrial complex or provide support to prisoners through strategies that weaken, rather than strengthen, the prison system itself. For example, rather than lobbying for bigger prison health budgets to care for elderly prisoners, an abolitionist reform strategy would aim to get elderly prisoners out on compassionate release to obtain healthcare in the community. --S. Lamble "
6 " The agenda of juvenile court, then, for queer and trans youth at least, often becomes to 'rehabilitate' youth into fitting heteronormative and gender-typical molds. Guised under the 'best interest of the child,' the goal often becomes to 'protect' the child - or perhaps society - from gender-variant or non-heterosexual behavior. "
7 " Could these groundbreaking and often unsung activists have imagined that only forty years later the 'official' gay rights agenda would be largely pro-police, pro-prisons, and pro-war - exactly the forces they worked so hard to resist? Just a few decades later, the most visible and well-funded arms of the 'LGBT movement' look much more like a corporate strategizing session than a grassroots social justice movement. There are countless examples of this dramatic shift in priorities. What emerged as a fight against racist, anti-poor, and anti-queer police violence now works hand in hand with local and federal law enforcement agencies - district attorneys are asked to speak at trans rallies, cops march in Gay Pride parades. The agendas of prosecutors - those who lock up our family, friends, and lovers - and many queer and trans organizations are becomingly increasingly similar, with sentence- and police-enhancing legislation at the top of the priority list. Hate crimes legislation is tacked on to multi-billion dollar 'defense' bills to support US military domination in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Despite the rhetoric of an 'LGBT community,' transgender and gender-non-conforming people are our 'lead' organizations - most recently in the 2007 gutting of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of gender identity protections. And as the rate of people (particularly poor queer and trans people of color) without steady jobs, housing, or healthcare continues to rise, and health and social services continue to be cut, those dubbed the leaders of the 'LGBT movement' insist that marriage rights are the way to redress the inequalities in our communities. "
8 " In a nation without an adequate or affordable childcare system, no universal healthcare, expensive to prohibitive costs for higher education and a minimum wage that is not a living wage, there are no registries for the officials and employers who routinely implement policies that actively damage all people, including or even particularly children. "
