I’m so freakin’, flippin’, can’t-contain-myself excited for this, I can hardly stand it!

Mark it in your calendars with a big red marker all because on September 23rd, AGOKWE is coming to rock your world at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and you definitely don’t want to miss it!

A new production from the mystical and magical 23 year-old Anishinaabe artist extraordinaire Waawaate Fobister (and he deserves every single accolade that comes his way), Agokwe explores unrequited love between teenage boys from neighbouring reserves. They meet briefly at a post hockey-tournament party where they bashfully confess their desire for each other. However youth, distance and isolation strive to pull the threads apart when tragedy intervenes.

I haven’t even seen this yet and I’m already moved, shaken, and completely inspired. We already know in the queer community how hard it is to be open with your sexuality, but imagine living in any one of our Native communities and the ongoing oppressions that are shoved down your throat every day, on top of what your sexual preference is.

Especially when way back when, you wouldn’t have been persecuted for being who you are since many of our nations used to revere two-spirited people as our medicine people and healers. Hmm, now I wonder how that got taken away?

Agokwe is actually an Anishinaabe word meaning “wise woman” but it is often used to refer to a gay man.

Aww!

Running until October 12th, now is the time to make sure you get your ticket for the show of all shows. Now I KNOW I’ll see you there!

Choice listserves are abuzz with the news that Stephen Harper and company recently decided to drop the notoriously anti-choice Bill C484 - also known as the “Unborn Victims of Crime” act, which threatened to give fetuses personhood status, as a backdoor way towards repealing abortion rights.

Instead they will draft a new bill that they say focuses more on punishing the person actually committing the crime against a pregnant woman (whoa so wait, did they just admit Mr. Epp tried to punish women more with his bogus bill? Nah, I’m too hopeful.)

It’s only too obvious that this is conveniently coming at a time when an election is looming this Fall, and we know only too well that the Conservative government can’t hide from its long anti-choice roots. They still won’t say anything about their support for abortion rights or do much anything to protect them.

I have to say that it was quite a good reminder this year that we all need to pay more attention to the scary anti-choicers out there and the sneaky ways they try to take away choice for what’s best for our own bodies, but we musn’t rest for too long.

There are a multitude of attempts going on every day that threaten us.

I have the pleasure and privilege of being part of this amazing project, and I encourage you all to come out and have your senses disrupted at the launch party, tomorrow night!

Tomee Sojourner’s Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project explores living expressions of intersecting identities through the visual ‘essence’ of marginalized workers, activists, students, and community members. The EID Project aims to open spaces for critical intervention/disruption and dialogue around what we ‘see’ and understand about intersectional identities, and the underlying assumptions that surface in our multicultural framework where difference is acknowledged, and mainstream representations of diversity still compartmentalize people into immutable ethno-cultural identities.

Join Tomee Sojourner and the Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project Crew as they launch Phase I- 2009 Calendar and Posters.

Date: Thursday, 28 August 2008
Time: 7:30 p.m. until the last dancer out!
Venue: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St, Toronto

(more inside…)

Last Saturday night was the soaringly splendid anniversary splash of the Toronto Women’s Bookstore which is celebrating its 35th year.

A cornerstone in many feminists’ literary ventures, TWB has broken many barriers and set an international example of what being an inclusive feminist is all about (and it doesn’t only have to do with gender y’all).

A fantastic night was had by all with praise and hope for another 35 years of this necessary store remaining open.

Do you have any memories of TWB you’d like to share?

My sister Jennifer and I with the super-incredible Sto:lo/Métis writer Lee Maracle who was on hand to perform her magical works. She was a huge influence on me to identify as an Indigenous feminist.

A League of Their Own is one of my all-time favourite movies. I relished every moment of it, from women kicking ass in baseball, to the sultry Madonna pushing the envelope in sports (something I could always personally relate to!), to the oh so strong and beautiful Geena Davis who just kept carrying it on her own way as the best damn player in the league.

On my way back from the United States this time around I couldn’t pull the all-nighter drive I usually do so I can have the next full day to work, so around 2:45am my sagging eyes looked for somewhere to pull over and came upon the exit off 49 South in Wisconsin for Racine.

Racine??!! As in, the Racine Belles from A League of Their Own?!

Yup, it was indeed, so if I was going to pick any random town in the good ole US of A to rest up for a few hours, it might as well be this one!

Racine was part of several midwest towns who formed the original All American Girls Baseball League, which also included the Kenosha Comets, the Rockford Peaches, and the South Bend Blue Sox. The organization formed in 1943 to keep the sport of baseball going when the men went away to war.

I always liked girls playing baseball better anyways.

Several friends and colleagues of mine took part in this inspiring and necessary conference in Saskatchewan whose title “Missing Women: Decolonization, Third Wave Feminism and Indigenous People of Canada and Mexico” says it all.

Travel and work conflicts prevented me from being there physically, but I can tell you that I’m emotionally shaken and stirred by the good work that has come out of it, which you can read about here.

I’ve always personally tried to make it a priority to highlight the strong matriarchy that exists in so many of our Indigenous nations. We were the FIRST feminists which is often forgotten in a lot of mainstream feminist dialogue, and it’s a shame especially when you consider what’s happened to many of the women in our communities today.

More than 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered over the past 15 years and we have the highest rates of sexual assault and domestic violence against our women than any other race. However what we need to be focussing on now is the things that are happening to prevent these statistics and what we are doing in our communities ourselves to effect positive change.

Where we’ve come from is this strong, ancestral lineage of woman-power culture. Sadly we’ve now arrived at is this consistently prejudicial place where many of us wonder whether, if any of these victims were White, would people care more or do more to seek justice?

A youth patch for the quilt of hope by the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition

Reading about the latest anti-choice militancy to end abortion in Canada sure does make me wonder why we in the pro-choice community are not organizing more.

On September 23rd, the always-contradictory titled “40 Days For Life” campaign (as if beliveing in choice does not equate wanting the best life possible for you and your offspring?) starts in Ottawa, where anti-choicers will be protesting across abortion clinics and generally making a scene with their condemning antagonistic message.

These religiously-based gatherings garner hundreds to thousands of participants in support; the “March for Life” alone had over 10 000 attendees this past May.

Does the number of people who show up make what they are doing right? Absolutely not, there are several historical attrocities around the world that have occured which prove that the masses following one state of mind can be quite dangerous, however there is definitely some apathy around defending choice in Canada that it would be nice to do something about. Especially as the younger generation whose ovaries and vaginas are the ones people are attempting to make decisions over for us.

We’ve got a lot to pay attention to in regards to restricting reproductive freedom in this great country of ours. While we might be the only Western nation with unrestricted access to abortion, a closer look at what’s happened in the past six months might make you gather some friends together and stand up for the right to choose.

It’s just too bad that it so often takes the threat of losing something to act on keeping it. But several actions and events are planned for the next year so stay tuned, we need you!

Kudos are going to the organizers of this protest against transphobia and sex worker oppression.

Residents of a downtown Toronto neighbourhood have apparently bestowed themselves with the moral duty of “kicking out prostitutes” who they say have “disturbed the peace” in their otherwise magically perfect neighbourhood.

Instead of lobbying for anti-prostitution laws, worker safety, or advocating for the rights of sex trade workers so that we can all live more peacefully together, for the last three months these residents have been harassing sex workers, specifically transwomen, to the point of assault.

This Friday August 15th, supporters of human rights and dignity FOR ALL will be gathering at the corner of Homewood and Maitland at 11pm to demand an end to this injustice.

Check out the Facebook event and hopefully we’ll see you there!

I’m a huge fan of rap and like many other things in this world, some of it has become commercialized, misogynized, and otherwise distorted from where it started.

Lest we forget that rap was born out of an activist movement. Grandfathers from the early days of its creation include politikin’ movers and shakers like Public Enemy, Grand Master Flash, and KRS-One who courageously spoke out about the grave injustices in oppressed communities of colour.

I get fed up of hearing that rap is only about hating on women or just talks about cash money and cars.

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of that out there, but I definitely don’t see the same type of subject matter criticism towards various bubble-gum pop stars like Hilary Duff or Miley Cyrus who confuse me every time they sing about not conforming (but maybe they get left alone more with how they present it since they are nice, pretty, light-skinned girls?)

In comes Eekwol, who is an incredibly gifted Native rapper from Saskatoon, giving it to you straight up to let the truth be known. A Cree from the Muskoday First Nation, she not only makes me brim with pride from a cultural and musical perspective, but also as a woman. As you’ll see very quickly from any of her songs or listening to her talk, she clearly owns all of who she is.

Watch her shine in this interview about the role of gender in rap:

And do yourself a favour and stop by her Myspace page to listen on in to some deep tunes that really get to the heart of the issues so many of our communities are facing (the “Respect Your History” song gives me chills every time I hear it).