from “Born in Flames” publication by Kaisa Lassinaro

We want to hear about your wildest fantasies of raucous anti-war organizing, lesbian wolf packs fighting to end anti-queer violence (Born in Flames tribute anyone?), trans prison librarians organizing erotic poetry writing groups, seducing marriage equality interns to the dark side, and lots more!  These are just a few examples to get all your juices flowing.  And remember: political erotica (when is erotica not political?) doesn’t have to be dull and didactic – let your imaginations run wild!  Facebook event page for the Call for Submissions available here!

Submissions are due May 15th by email to againstequality<at>gmail<dot>com; we hope to complete the editing process early in the summer.  Each contributor selected for publication will receive two copies of the book as compensation.  Submissions should be formatted as either .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .txt files. Please include a short 50 – 100 word bio.

AE Book Launch at Hares & Hyenas

The day before the After Homosexual: The Legacy of Gay Liberation conference, Conrad did hour-long interviews with the radio programs Word for Word on Joy 94.9FM and Queering the Air on 3CR community radio station.  These interviews will be aired in Australia in the coming weeks and will be available for podcasting soon.  Conrad also did a print interview with the Star Observer and has another one with the Gay News Network this coming week.  All this is to say, we’ve had a lot of air time and we will be sure to share all the links with y’all as soon as they are live.

At the fantastically-organized conference, Conrad gave a presentation largely based on the work he did with Yasmin Nair for the journal We Who Feel Differently.  The Against Equality presentation was one of the most well-attended events of the weekend, but apparently we were a bit too controversial for Jeffrey Weeks, one of the conference keynote speakers, who walked out in disgust just three minutes into it.  Following the presentation was a lively discussion that included both critique of our position as well as many thanks for holding our ground on the issue.  Against Equality will also be contributing to the anthology publication coming out of the conference, edited by none other than two of the brilliant After Homo conference organizers, Mark Pendelton and Carol D’Cruz.

Conrad with the Hares & Hyenas Crew

The following day, February 5, Conrad did a book launch with the wonderful folks at Melbourne’s queerest bookstore and café, Hares & Hyenas.  The event was packed with over fifty in attendance and we sold out of books before the talk even started!  The audience once again jumped in with insightful questions and comments relating the work of Against Equality to the geographically and politically-situated Australian context.  Some in attendance were surprised that no one from the gay marriage mainstream showed up to protest our event, but thankfully that was one headache we didn’t have to deal with.  Hopefully H&H will be restocked with books soon!

In addition to sharing our work, we got to learn about all sorts of cool people and neat projects happening in Australia.  There are some really rad folks working on print magazines like Dirty Queer and DUDE who y’all should check out.  Activists presenting from The Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives, Organization Intersex International – Australia, and Minus 18 were pretty kickass too.  And of course there were the wonderful folks at Hares & Hyenas as well as the babes keeping it real on the radio with Queering the Air that treated us so well.  We couldn’t have asked for sweeter folks to host our project overseas.  Thanks Aussies, we look forward to seeing you again!

image by New York artist Buzz Slutzky for AE’s first postcard series

Once again, Against Equality is looking for your sassiest, snarkiest, silliest and most sarcastic designs for our second postcard project.  On our website, we have continued to archive critical writing that encourages others to rethink the rhetoric of equality and inclusion as deployed by the mainstream gay and lesbian organizations and campaigns around gay marriage, hate crimes legislation and military inclusion.  Sadly, we have had a bit more difficulty finding critiques that employ visual culture (photography, video, print, performance, painting, film, etc), so we thought we would encourage more creative work around these through this postcard project.

A few selected designs will be printed on 4” x 6” postcards and the images will be added to the AE digital archives.  These postcards will be distributed internationally through our low-cost online store.  Designers whose images are selected will be compensated with a stack of fifty of their own postcards as well as a handful from the rest of the designers!  Submissions should directly address one or more of the themes from our digital archive (italicized above).  All entries must be received by email on March 31, 2012 as 300dpi .pdf files with all colors converted to CMYK.  And don’t forget to leave an 1/8” bleed on all sides!

Send questions, comments and submissions to: againstequality@gmail.com
or visit us online at www.againstequality.org

available now!

Our newest anthology of archival writing and images critiquing gay and lesbian investments in overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and militarism more broadly is now available directly through our distributor here.  The wonderful folks at AK Press are once again supporting us with their amazing book distribution skills, so please support them before you go running off to other mega-corporations like amazon to buy the new pocket-sized book, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars!

Due to increased printing and shipping costs the new lil’ book will cost you ten bucks.  That’s a small increase since Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage hit the shelves, but we are doing all we can to keep costs low and our work financially accessible to most folks.  Also note, all the books we sell underwrite our policy of making all our published work available to queer and trans prisoners at no cost!

]]> http://www.againstequality.org/2011/12/06/our-new-book-is-now-available-from-ak-press/feed/ 0 http://www.againstequality.org/2011/11/28/a-e-fundraiser-auction-help-keep-our-books-free-for-lgbt-prisoners/ http://www.againstequality.org/2011/11/28/a-e-fundraiser-auction-help-keep-our-books-free-for-lgbt-prisoners/#comments Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +0000 A.E. http://www.againstequality.org/?p=772 [...]]]>

photo by César Ochoa

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click here to check out the auction!
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Thanks to the generous folks at 2B Magazine / Communications Être (Editor Jordan Arseneault, Publisher André Gagnon, and photographer César Ochoa) Against Equality is auctioning off a large photo print from Conrad’s racy photo shoot for 2B’s November issue.

Conrad, one of the Against Equality co-founders, is pictured here baring it all (well almost all!) with a copy of the collective’s forthcoming anthology, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars.  This second Against Equality anthology gathers together pieces by contemporary radical voices critical of the mainstream gay community’s uncritical approach to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and militarism more broadly.

Proceeds from this auction will help provide funds to the Against Equality collective to ensure that all of our publications remain available at no cost to incarcerated queer and trans people.

Also our new book went to the printers today and will be available from our distributor, AK Press, shortly!  We can’t wait to share it with y’all!

So take a stroll through the the new site, check out our upcoming events, and prepare yourselves for a new postcard series, a call for art poster project, a new Against Equality t-shirt and tote bag, and a scantily clad fundraiser auction to support our policy of providing free books to prisoners!

new book and more stickers!

Our munch anticipated second anthology is almost complete!  We just received a test print in the mail and after a bit of editorial reworking and format tweaking we will send this project off to the printers for a full print run.  This means the book should be available around the end of the month from our wonderfully supportive distributor AK Press.  It will also be available through amazon.com, but let’s be real, purchasing the book directly from AK Press supports a much better company!

In addition to the test print of Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars, a large box of 3000 “>” stickers arrived in the mail as well.  We will get the online store up and running again soon so yall can place sticker orders.  Running around slapping our “>” stickers over the HRC’s “=”  stickers can make for quite an eventful evening!

Image by Mr. Fish (clowncrack.com)

As the policy of DADT, which bars gays and lesbians from participating openly in the US Military, expires today we don’t find ourselves celebrating.  Instead we are trying to imagine what a renewed, multifaceted anti-war movement could look like while busily plugging away on our latest archival anthology of writing and visual culture that critiques the prioritization of overturning DADT as well as  gay and lesbian investments in militarism more broadly.  We hope that this anthology will serve as a historical reminder proving that not all us queer and trans folk were banging on the doors of the war machine begging to be rainbow colored cannon fodder.  We also hope it will serve as yet another starting point for imaging other futures without war (including the material conditions that make wars “justifiable”) and conjuring actions that will bring us closer to that reality.

The anthology, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars features writers like Yasmin Nair, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Kenyon Farrow, Tamara K. Nopper, Erica Meiners, Therese Quinn, Bill Andriette, Larry Goldsmith, Jamal Jones and more!  The book will be available in late October from our distributor, AK Press.

cover design by Chris Vargas

We are excited to announce that our next archival anthology, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars, is in the works and is due out this fall!  This is the second anthology by the folks who previously brought you Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. This book gathers together contemporary radical voices opposing the mainstream gay community’s uncritical approach to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, featuring an introduction and essay by the inimitable Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, in addition to writing from other contributors to our digital archives on LGBT investments in militarism. This archival anthology asks why the historically left/radical anti-war critique of war does not extend to DADT and the issue of queers in the military.

We’ve launched a KickStarter fundraising campaign to support this book project.  This necessary funding will make the book accessible to people of all incomes by keeping it inexpensive to purchase and even free for prisoners.  We like to think of it as a community-supported publishing campaign that will help keep us from going into any further debt to produce and share our work.  Plus, if you make a donation we will send you fun stuff, just like a farm share!