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WRITE IT IN FIRE: TRIBUTES TO MICHELLE CLIFF :Call for Submissions

Michelle Cliff (1946-2016) was a remarkable writer who claimed many identities she was taught to despise: Lesbian, Black, Woman, Jamaican. She wrote powerful novels, essays, stories, and poems that make us rethink what it means to love, to hope, and to have community. She also carved space for same-sex loving and diverse sexualities in the Caribbean by representing our desires fiercely and by being deeply rooted in place. She continues to inspire us to write our stories, our sense of self, in fire. “ A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives – our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings ― all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity. ― Michelle Cliff, “Claiming An Identity They Taught Me To Despise” “ Who can say how many lives have been saved by books?” ― Michelle Cliff, Everything Is Now: New and Collected Stories “ It was Zoe, and Zoe alone, I thought of. She snapped into my mind, and I remem...

Queer Archives TT - Caribbean IRN Update July to December 2024

  Queer Archives TT The Queer Archives of Trinidad and Tobago is a project to develop a repository of Trinidad and Tobago's queer history.  The archives feature two collections  - The Cyrus Sylvester Digital Collection ; and the Timeline of LGBTQI+ Westory .  The lead organisation is  CAISO: Sex & Gender Justice and there is an interdisciplinary project team The archives were launched in October 2024 and will continue to grow. Caribbean LGBTQI+ Citizenship and rights  Dr Nastassia Rambarran's PhD Thesis "A comparative analysis of Barbados and Guyana with respect to colonial legacies, transnational processes and decolonizing activities involved in queer activism " is available   In Haiti, Erasing 76 Crimes reports that evangelical Christians block protections of the rights of LGBTQ+ Haitians La Joven Cuba has a story " Travestismo-transformismo en Cuba: una historia intermitente " about the history of travestismo and transformismo in Cuba....

British Guiana 1898 : Punishment for Sodomy meted out to Nabi Baksh and Mohangoo on the Mersey

Between 1838 and 1917, the British brought indentured labour from India to the then British Guiana.  An 1898 report from the Governor of British Guiana to the Colonial Office in England reports on the punishment meted out by the Surgeon Superintendent of the Mersey against two men Nabi Baksh and Mohangoo for committing sodomy. "Nobibux was put in irons and Mohangu, after blistering his penis, was made to holystone from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. " The Surgeon Superintendent said that he had "known of cases where the penis had been blistered, as a prevention treatment, in cases of Masturbation with boys" When the ship docked in British Guiana, there was an investigation which included testimony from others on the ship. This report was donated by author Gaiutra Bahadur. Ms Bahadur got the report from the Colonial Office Correspondence books at the UK National Archives at Kew, United Kingdom while doing research for her soon to be...