save us from a problem that they have in effect created, through the terrible oppressions people experience? If not, what do we do to keep ourselves safe?” REVOLTINGLESBIANS made incarcerated and formerly incarcerated lesbians visible at a time when being openly LGBT while incarcerated was not permitted by the institution or blatantly denied. Speaking to the overall number of incarcerated lesbians, the publication stated: “We could not find any statistics about the numbers or treatment of lesbians in prison.” The organization highlighted how lesbian invisibility on the outside, “a denial of our very existence ... extends to incarceration.” While many of the lesbian political prisoners featured were white, the publication also highlighted the work of a few lesbians of color. One of the incarcerated lesbians whose story was featured was Carol Crooks, described as “a Black dyke imprisoned at Bedford Hills, New York,” whose “resistance is legendary,” after she filed a lawsuit alongside Black Muslim women to prevent strip searches by male guards, a not uncommon practice. Another paragraph mentions Sherron McMorris, an indigenous (Blackfoot), working-class lesbian, artist, and survivor who helped found Remembering Our Sisters Inside (ROSI), a group that showcased artwork by incarcerated women. The Committee to Shut Down the Lexington Control Unit (LCU) was formed with the purpose of abolishing the High Security Unit, an underground security unit located in the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in Alderson, West Virginia. Susan Rosenberg of the RCC and fellow political prisoners Silvia Baraldini and Alejandrina Torres were sentenced to the LCU, which was known for isolation and “intensive surveillance and sensory deprivation.” Rosenberg and Torres described the unit as “a tomb” and a “white sepulcher.” With help from the Committee to Shut Down the LCU, national attention formed around the brutal conditions of the control unit, resulting in an ACLU lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The LCU was abolished “eighteen months after it opened.” After this successful campaign, OOC was formed by several activists who wanted to continue organizing with and for women political prisoners. Former OOC members Blue Murov and Julie Starobin explained that “part of our work was to fight against lesbian invisibility—not only for ourselves, but also for our sisters inside.” OOC created the newsletter Out of Time to reach a broader audience. Like the Revolting Lesbians publication, Murov and Starobin described this newsletter as “the perfect vehicle” to introduce “political prisoners to LGBT communities and to bring lesbian liberation to other movements and communities.” Out of Time closely followed the RCC defendants, particularly staying in touch with out lesbians Evans, Rosenberg, and Whitehorn. Another group of revolutionaries, Queers United in Support of Political Prisoners (QUISP), organized to amplify their stories to a larger audience; however, the mainstream LGBT movement never rallied behind the RCC defendants. Eve Rosahn, a former political prisoner and member of QUISP, explained that QUISP was founded in the early 1990s by “people who had come out of May 19th and the anti-imperialist [movement] who were organizing in New York City.” WhileQUISP was primarily comprised of LGBT activists, the group organized “to support the legal and political defense” of all political prisoners; “supported activist campaigns by queers of color; participated in coalitions working against police violence and distributed literature and audiovisual materials.” In my interview with them, Evans, Rosenberg, and Whitehorn explained that many activists were unaware of political prisoners but championed abolitionist values of solidarity. The QUISP interviewer begins with the question: “I’m an activist. How come I’ve never heard of you before?” Although no longer underground, the three described how the isolation of incarceration, combined with their status as political prisoners, contributed to this erasure. Evans explains: “our own political movement, too, has ignored the existence of political prisoners. I think this has largely been a product of racism—most U.S. political prisoners/POWs are Black and Puerto Rican comrades who have been locked up for over a decade.” When asked how they imagined a queer movement that “encompasses other struggles,” Whitehorn responded with a reflection on solidarity, recognizing how white anti-imperialist activists “incorporated strategic concepts developed (at a high cost!) by the Black Liberation struggle.” Whitehorn’s words emphasize the urgency of our contemporary moment. With increasing attacks on the trans community, police brutality against communities of color, and the suppression of queer history, revolutionary histories must not be lost. Political prisoners still exist, some of the most wellknown being Mumia Abul-Jamal and Leonard Peltier; we must organize with incarcerated people and seek solutions to violence outside the state. March–April 2024 29
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