Hello dear audience! This is Jacqui, writer and researcher of “Under the Sycamore Tree.” Here are our show notes for Episode 1: “Setting Precedent: Eldership & Selfishness.”

Possible triggers in this episode include domestic violence, family abuse, and stigma. The organizations and organizers featured in this are:

Susan Doorson, Chair of Women’s Way Foundation of Suriname. Susan Doorson, Chair of Women’s Way Foundation of Suriname. Founded in 2008, Women’s Way Foundation is the oldest, first, and only lesbian and bisexual organization in Suriname. Their mission is to increase awareness around sexuality and health, and to ensure the emancipation of women—specifically women who (also) have sex with women and trans men—so that the quality of their lives become better and free from stigma and discrimination. Women’s Way can be found online here: Website; their Equality Fund webpage; Facebook; and Instagram: @wswf.sr
Colleen Douglas-Hinds, Director of Guyana Rainbow Foundation. Guyana RainBow Foundation (GuyBow) is an organization founded in 2000 whose mission is to support and strengthen the capacity of Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer women, along with increasing the overall respect, acceptance of, and support for non-gender conforming persons and non-heteronormative sexual orientations in Guyanese society. GuyBow can be found online here: Website; and their Equality Fund webpage.
Lucien Govaard, Board Member of CARI-Flags. Caribbean Forum for Liberation & Acceptance of Genders & Sexualities (CariFLAGS) was formed in the late 90s as a loose coalition of actors and activists responding to developing issues facing the LGBTQ community. The group has provided leadership in articulating an indigenous LGBTQ voice and agenda for the Caribbean regionally and in support of local groups. In 2008, a core group renewed the CariFLAGS mission with a focus on human rights, health, culture, and spirituality. In 2012, CariFLAGS transitioned into a regional movement-building coalition: activists from 15 territories agreed to work together to develop a strong, representative, regional organization capable of advancing a Caribbean LGBTQ agenda. Cari-FLAGS can be found online on Facebook; and their Equality Fund webpage.

Our interviews with Susan and Colleen were held with our Producer, Dave-Ann Moses, in late 2021. Carla’s conversation with Lucien and Larry Chang was held in April 2022. Larry is a Chinese-Jamaican gay man, community organizer and spiritual counselor. Larry has much to offer the Asian-American, LGBT, Caribbean-American, and People of Color communities, but it is his urgent message of developing local sustainability that is of immediate interest to all. Larry was born in Jamaica of Hakka Chinese immigrant parents; he is a founding member of the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals & Gays, J-FLAG . He had previously organized a gay group in Jamaica, the Gay Freedom Movement (GFM) as early as 1978 in a fiercely hostile climate. He held the position of General Secretary and was Publisher and Editor of its newsletter, Jamaica Gaily News. Learn more about Larry’s art and cultural organizing work via his website!

Colin Robinson’s words came from one of his final interviews in this plane: “Sex & Gender Justice in Trinidad and Tobago with Colin Robinson,” Interview with Abby Charles, CaribNationTV.

I hope you connect with these texts and enjoy the episode even further! Sincerely,

Jacks.

Transcript

EPISODE OPENER

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;31;08, Susan Doorson (Women’s Way Foundation, Suriname): Millennials, They don't care. You know, they don't like sucking up to no one, like they will destroy everything. They will destroy everything. ‘You don’t like me?’ destroy it burn the place down.

Carla’s Welcome!

Host Carla Moore: Welcome to the Under the Sycamore Tree podcast produced by Rebel Women Lit and Queerly Stated and I am your host, Carla Moore of Moore Talk JA. Lend we you ears, cause we ago do something good wid it.

INTRODUCTION

00;00;31;10 - 00;01;49;23, [SCRIPT] Carla: One of the privileges of this podcast is to speak with groups established in different eras. Some were founded in the last decade, like Saint Lucia's Helen's daughter, Integrated Health Outreach of Antigua and Barbuda and Wapichan Women's Movement of Guyana. While some are at least a few decades old, like regional organization Cariflags, Guyana Trans United and the Guyana Rainbow Foundation and Belize’s POWA. The beginning of these organizations reach back to the end of what could be considered the first recognized wave of openly queer and feminist identifying, organizing.

Trigger warning

We'll be discussing topics that some listeners may find triggering, including domestic violence, family abuse and stigma. We understand that these topics can be difficult to hear about, and we want to remind our listeners that it's okay to take a break if you need to.

INTRODUCTION, cont’d

Carla: This is Colleen Douglas-Hinds, director of Guyana Rainbow Foundation, also known as GuyBow. At the time of this recording, she was planning to hand over leadership of GuyBow, to Shifani Harilall.

Shifani is a former client, now stepping forward to the position of leader.

00;01;49;25 - 00;03;45;24, [INTERVIEW, 2021] Colleen Douglas-Hinds (Guyana Rainbow Foundation, Guyana): Okay, well, I will talk a little bit about the family planning and I want to hand over to Shivani to tell you a little bit more how she she has been doing quite a lot and it's also an opportunity for her to learn. I've already announced in several places that, you know, I am aiming to, uh, to, to minimize my responsibilities in the organization.

Colleen continues: I've been there for 21 years. When GuyBow started, there were some things that were very clear from the beginning. The need for a safe space was very, very clear from the beginning. So I always say to people, 21 years, we've always wanted a safe space. The need to have support system is in place not just for LGBTQ+ persons, but also for family members of those persons was always very important. And they were important.

Colleen continues:We recognize the importance of these things because I remember my own personal experience of of of coming out. I never felt that there was any support system anywhere in doing that. And I pretty much did that on my own with my family. And time for me had, you know, even though she was in tears, my mom was was very supportive and talked about how much she loved me regardless, you know, And I took that as an inspiration and a motivation to ensure that one of the things that GuyBow did as an organization was to provide that support system, to other families who were either struggling to come out to their family members or when they did to sort of embrace and support the reaction to those family members who were receiving that information.

Colleen continues: So that was the first aspect of our family program.

00;03;45;27 - 00;04;29;11, Carla: Hearing Colleen's plan for peace at retirement or in her more diplomatic words, ‘stepping back’, she might just feel like a dim glow of sun getting ever brighter on an upturned face, like a queer elder making a living through queer organizing and then being able to retire peacefully. Oh, we love to see it.

Carla continues: This is Susan Doorson, Chair of Women's Way Foundation of Suriname listen as she tells us more about Women's Way and recounts how she inherited the leadership of the organization from its founders.

[INTERVIEW, 2021] Susan Doorson (Women’s Way Foundation): I am the Chair of Women’s Way Foundation. Women’s Way Foundation is an organization that focuses on anything, any issues surrounding lesbian women, bisexual women, queer women and transmasculine persons in Suriname.

00;04;40;04 - 00;05;23;12, Susan continues: For the Chair of Women’s Way Foundation to literally hand me over the organization when she left, meant so much, that i now get to lead and help my people be better when I wasn't well at all ten years ago, means a lot.

Carla: Thankfully Susan got quite candid about intergenerational issues within queer organizing, with disagreements going both ways.

Susan: To have this this this group of people who are ready just supporting each other and share.

Susan continues: And I missed that when I was, when I came out. So I didn’t have that, I had these old women in Women’s Way Foundation. It was a bunch of old women who already had children, then decided to live their, their best lives and be who they really are. And then they decided to start this organization cause they though it was important. And I was the only young one. I was I was 17, in the midst of 35 year olds, 50 year old women. So the gap was big. And to now see people younger than me, 16 and 15, just coming out and living their best lives, it is amazing.

00;05;59;22 - 00;06;34;25, Carla: We ended our last episode with a map and will begin this next episode with another type of map, something like a map of our lineage. We're speaking to Larry Chang, who describes himself as a Chinese Jamaican gay man, born to Hakka, Chinese immigrant parents. He's a community organizer and also a spiritual counselor. We know Larry, as a founder of Jamaica's Gay Freedom Movement, or GFM, Founded in 1978, GFM is one of our region's earliest gay rights organizations.

Carla continues: Larry is also a founding member of the Jamaica Forum on Lesbians Asexuals and Gays or JFLAG, currently one of our region's oldest active queer rights organizations. Larry's life portal takes us from Michael Manley’s, Jamaica, to Black Power organizing in the Bay Area on the west coast of the United States. You will notice that intergenerational frictions exist.

Carla continues: Some elder activists feel younger activists are too hard, line and uncompromising, while for some of the younger activists, their elders seem too respectability oriented, a little too conservative in their demands and possibly too slow in their acceptance of diverse gender identities, proper pronoun usage and inclusion of disability justice. Sometimes these generalizations come to define our ways of being together, masking the true work and being of elders, youth and all in between.

Carla continues: During this episode, we will explore some of what and who came before this moment in our movement.

Carla continues: We recognize that these frictions exist and have existed for some time. But what are the roots of these frictions? How can we focus on commonalities within the queer and gender justice spaces? Don't we want our traumas validated in this space? We need to recognize that others’ traumas are equally valid and hold space for them as well.

00;08;06;16 - 00;11;07;12, Carla continues: What could this look like? Susan: So I think the knowledge sharing within the age groups is also important because we tend to not do that. And also because, I don't know, I don't know if you experience the same thing, but like for example, in the Caribbean or in Suriname, adults don't share their experiences with children or people they consider children. They voice these opinions about our lives to us…Bitch I've been going through shit. I've been going through a lot of shit. I've been out there struggling with these lesbians. Let me be mom! I see.

Susan continues: I've seen young out LGBT advocates actually destroy the hard work that their forefathers did, right. I think that comes, also comes out of a sense that I know in, in the past I think activism was assertive yet subtle. And now we tend to be more aggressive and open and sometimes you, you take one step forward and ten steps back with that, but in Suriname they always say that you could catch more flies with honey than with coal

Susan continues: So sometimes you just suck up to your haters to like, get where you need to be. But millennials, they don't care. They don't, they don't like sucking up to no one. Like they'll destroy everything. They will destroy everything, you don’t like me destroy it, burn the place down it needs to end now and like, I’ve been really fighting with our young our young LGBT advocates about that. To teach them to execute finesse and not just be a bad bitch all the time. Just execute with finesse, like get things done in an orderly fashion. Also, because that's that says a lot about you, because people use that against us, you know, they use that ‘you see there they go again these rebel lesbians’ right?

Susan continues: So. Well, in a way you could say, I don't care what you think about me, but you should care because if you represent the entire community, you get everyone’s name tarnished because you behave a certain way right. So yeah

Susan continues: I think you know, I think you know, we need to, we need to, we need to advocate or advocate and advise our advocates before they go out to advocate. Because sometimes being very aggressive just makes better impact. Go and get started. But it's also a matter of knowing when, where and how to do that. And I think that's the problem that that they're experiencing because millennials just, they just don’t care, about nothing and when they do care, they really care that they can fuck everything else up because they care so much. So it's a matter of finding the balance … with when to use your superpowers. Everybody just retreat, regroup, rethink and come back.

00;11;07;12 - 00;12;16;01, Carla: Sometimes I wonder whether these frictions would exist if we had models for intergenerational activism, models that recognize and that acknowledge the trauma of our elders as different from but just as real as a trauma of our youth. Models that center bonding between generations, community-being reveling in our rich interiority and allow us to live in the wholesome parts of ourselves where youth can sit at the feet of elders to learn, to be nourished, to challenge boundaries, to experiment and investigate, to upskill? The wholesome parts of ourselves that encourage both the authority and softness in our elders to sit with us, stroke our hair, hold our hands and open our gazes, deliver stories and lessons and revel in their legacy. But here, another elder, our celestial guide, Colin, helps us bridge these gaps through understanding the role youth play in movements to giving helpful context and criticism of his peers.

00;12;16;02 - 00;12;16;10, [ARCHIVAL AUDIO] Colin Robinson from Sex & Gender Justice in Trinidad and Tobago with Colin Robinson: To Imagine It's not my job to prescribe, they are living different lives than I led. The priorities that their generation had may not be the ones that mine had. I'll do my best to listen across generations.

CONVERSATION: Larry Chang (Artist, Teacher, Healer, & former Queeribbean and Lucien Govaard (Cari-FLAGS)

00;12;29;03 - 00;12;57;12, Carla: So we offer another gift to you. We are so excited to bring you the first conversation of our podcast between Larry Chang, founder of Jamaica's Gay Freedom Movement, who is also widely recognized as one of the founders of our region's gay rights movement and Lucien Govaard, board member of WVL Grantee Partner, CariFlags and one of the long standing stalwarts of Queeribbean organizing.

00;12;57;14 - 00;15;56;03, Larry Chang: I had gone to college in America, and I studied art because I'm a creative person. I can't hide from that. And at the time Michael Manley was in power, and socialism was you know, the thing of the day and my parents being typical middle class Chiney people in Jamaica were looking to run from the country because, you know, everything is collapsing. And, you know, during that period, thousands of middle class Jamaicans left. They took one of five flights that Michael Manley recommended and left the island, you know, sold their businesses, lock up whatever they had. So, you know, and shipped trailer loads to Miami and Toronto and wherever.

Larry continues: I was still in school and when it was time for me to graduate, my parents said, ‘don't come back’, but as a patriotic jamaican, my intention was always to come back to Jamaica and because, you know, I was all about nation building, that wonderful, idealistic, noble thing.

Larry continues: But I did make a contract with myself to say that I am going to go back, but only on my terms. And what are my terms? I am not going to live a lie, because I had come out when I was in college in the States. I had went to school in Oakland, California, which is right next to Berkeley, California, which was a hotbed of radicalism.

Larry continues: The Black Panther Party started in Oakland. I attended Black Panther meetings. I heard Huey Newton and all these guys speak. You know, this is a living history. So of course, I filled up with all of these ideas and I said, ‘okay, I will go back to Jamaica, but I'm just going to be myself. I'm not going to tell nobody no lie. I'm not going to hide. I'm not going to pretend. I'm not going to dissemble’ And so that was my my own terms that I set for me to come back to Jamaica, which I did and this was in 1972, and I think within three years I had started, you know, activism, working with GFM.

Larry continues: So that's basically how it started. Carla: Around the 1970s. Okay. Larry continues: Yeah.

00;15;56;05 - 00;17;43;10, Carla: And so, though, the impetus for you, it sounds like ‘I'm coming back to Jamaica, but I have to be my authentic self.’ And how does that translate into activism? That's the question I want to ask, because some people could say, ‘okay, you want to be authentic, self can be an authentic self’. Not everybody says, ‘But then, I need to make space for other people’

Larry: No, what drove me to do activism is purely the focus on self, and so integrity. If I am going to be myself, then I have to create conditions, I have to create a situation where I can be myself. And in doing that for me, then obviously other people will be impacted. They will be the influenced they will be drawn in, they will be whatever.

Larry continues: So it is a purely selfish act. It's not a matter of being community minded then and altruistic. No, no, no. This is a purely selfish act to say that ‘this is me, this is who I am and this is how I am going to live.’ Now, if this helps you, to also make that decision or something similar, then that's wonderful, You know?

Larry continues: So that's basically it, i didn’t do it out of no, to help nobody, no sah. You have to help yourself first, in helping myself other people will be helped.

00;17;43;12 - 00;18;43;01, Carla: I'm, I'm glad you said that because I think a lot of activists who are coming to the work now struggle with that struggle with the idea of saying I'm doing this for myself. There's the understanding that it must be community first and you must be coming to the work from this altruistic place. So I think this thing where you say, ‘No, no, no, me did waah live inna waah place weh suit me hello!’

Larry: That's right. That's right. Yes. So when you're approaching it from that point of view, then it has to be authentic and it is genuine and it is sustainable. If you are doing it for this other reason that is external to you, then any likkle breeze blow you going to run and hide. Yeah. Because you are not doing it from this deep seated self, you know, whatever. Carla: Yeah.

Lucien Govaard (Cari-FLAGS, Regional - Jamaica): Can I jump in here? Carla: Yes!

00;18;43;03 - 00;20;05;16, Lucien continues: Because I think that that point is very pivotal. Having that conviction that is, that is, that you own, that is yours. And then I think some people, because of who they are and having made that decision, that that is how they would want to live their life, find themselves in situations where they need to defend that decision. And especially, I imagine in those days, if you are the only one in a, in a community and you've made that decision and it seems to be so radical or different from what, what is held as the norm that you're going to be challenged.

Lucien continues: And if you are, somebody was going to then speak up about it. You then suddenly find yourself doing activism, you know, but you're just really saying, ‘Hey, leave me alone, this is me and this might..’ and they're explaining that constantly, but you find yourself, you know, being a public, outspoken person on these issues and you're constantly educating people.

Lucien continues: And so I think there are some being so inherent about, when you're in your own power and in your authenticity, how that sort of, the mirrored side of that is activism.

00;20;05;19 - 00;24;35;21, Larry: I did not set out to be an activist, but just to be myself required that I become an activist. Now, the thing is that in those days, activism was not a word. I didn't know that, that word, it didn’t exist. But, you know, as Eleanor Roosevelt said ‘I just did what I had to do’

Larry continues: Now it’s in hindsight you turned around and said, ‘oh that is activism’. Well okay, that's fine. But at the time we were doing what we were doing, we were just, you know trying to make a space for ourselves.

Larry continues: So nowadays you kids can say, ‘Oh, yes there’s activism, I’m going to be an activist.’ We didn't have that option. Carla: Yeah, that's true because we're coming into the work at that time when people have been doing the work for a long time. Like we're not what, like 50 years into the work. Larry: Precedents have been established. We didn't have any precedents.

Carla: Yes. So from that perspective, at the time when you came to the work, was there anybody that you would have said could have been that elder? And, you know, if you're coming to it like nothing no deh bout, how do you come up with your ideas around organizing? Like how did you come to this is the approach I'm going to take?

Larry: Okay. As I said earlier, we made it up as we went along. It was purely an organic type of development. Um, of course I was trying to massage it along the way because I had been exposed to, you know, organizations abroad and the activity, the same mine groups and radicals and blah, blah, blah, blah. So I kind of had an idea or there was nothing directly myself.

Larry continues: But, you know, you have the idea.

Larry continues: Consciousness, is it? Yeah. And so it's just a matter of, you know, doing what is in front of you to do. Um, the other thing is that you asked me if I looked around to see, well, no, there was nobody. There was a lot of people who had, you know, sex with their own gender and whatnot, But you have to remember, there was no consciousness, you know, to say that I am lesbian or gay are what I would do it. It was not, the word gay wasn't even permitted in, in the Gleaner.

Larry continues: Yeah. And if you are going to talk about anything like this, it was in quotation marks or it was hush hush. It was spoken behind, you know, your, your hands and that this was not anything for polite conversation. It was a totally different social climate. Because you have to remember the context now was that homosexuality is an abomination, It's a sin, it's illegal, it’s dah dah dah, it’s a disease, you know, all of those things were prevalent at that time. So there is nobody in their right mind, no matter how old there were fucking is going to say, ‘I am’, no. So basically that was my task is to come along and be the first one to say ‘I am’. In other words, I was going to come now with a stick and jam it into the ground to say, ‘I am’. And that is really my only claim to, to any kind of, of whatever. And the first one to come and say that. Nothing else. Okay all the other things that came along was only corollary to that. To making a point to say ‘I am’.

Carla: ‘I am. Larry: I am.

00;24;35;23 - 00;27;26;27, Carla: So when you are the first, what was it like for you? Because you said ‘that's what I did, I was the first to say I am’ what being the first to say ‘I am’ in a situation where nobody want to say ‘I am’ that is a very significant thing to do. What was it like for you inside of that moment when you said ‘I am’?

Carla continues: What were the responses like and what was that experience like for you personally? Larry: Well the responses were varied, mostly negative, but and surprising, well I shouldn't be surprised because of the prevailing mindset of people in the gay community, themselves, who condemned me by saying, ‘You cannot say that, you are bringing attention to ourselves, you are rocking the boat, leave things as they are.’ That was a huge, huge disappointment. It doesn't really.

Larry continues: But you know that my own community. Well, of course it wasn't a community. These are just people who happen to be, you know, homosexual, they were the worst critiques that I had. And a lot of people stopped talking to me, avoided me because they didn’t want to be seen in my company in the event that they themselves would be tagged.

Larry continues: So there is all of that. It's that whole self denial that holds, you know, whatever. Now, I understand it, I empathize and I sympathize because I knew where they were coming from. But at the same time it was such a blow. At times it was a very lonely journey because nobody wanted to work with you.

Carla: Yeah, I get that. It sounds ironically very similar to what, some of the older activists say of the younger activists today, which is ‘why you blowing it up so much?’. You know ‘why are you making it so loud? you putting it in everybody face, you making people feel uncomfortable.’

Larry: That you see the same lines. Yeah. ‘You don't have to ram it down their throats…why you?’, you know all of that crap? You know, a lot of people, the mindset hasn't changed. So this is why our work never ends. And this is why we have to really focus on our own people first. And in time. That was one of, that was one of GFM’s primary task was to build self consciousness, focus on self, then educate others, the wider community.

00;27;42;27 - 00;28;07;12, Carla: You see when we talk ‘bout inter-generational building and continuity planning? A dem something yah we a talk ‘bout because we just hear from Larry, right? Larry is an artist. Larry is also a leader in the study of Jamaican language. You probably wouldn’t to believe that because Larry is a Chinese man. Lucien, picks up from Larry and he also picks up the story of queer movement in our region from the ‘99 to 2000’s.

00;28;07;14 - 00;33;48;29, Carla: So Lucien now, I want to talk to you about your experience. So you're coming to the work after some of the precedent has been set. You know, after Larry has been… put down the stick and seh ‘I am see me yah’

Lucien: That stick had been planted yes. Carla: Yes, it had been planted. When did you start to the work and what brought you to this work? Lucien: Okay. I have two answers to that, the first is that the work started when I was born, so it would go back to the late eighties, but I took over responsibility somewhere, somewhere in the late 2000s.

Lucien continues: And it's really a tale of two things because I started in youth representation first, that was towards the sort of mid 2000 and then eventually found myself also doing LGBT human rights issues around 2009 moving forward and by 2014 I really had gotten into the regional side of activism, LGBT activism in the Caribbean, and I've been the chair of the steering committee from 2016.

Lucien continues: Yeah, so there are so many things that resonate with me from just listening to Larry. And and I have a couple of thoughts. One of the things that that I find so ironic and this is not just in in LGBT activism because I've done a lot of work in youth representation, I could take a sort of a manifesto and the outcomes of a youth congress from 1985 and circle the relevant issues then and just apply them to today because they're the same.

Lucien continues: Similarly, issues that existed in the 1970s pertaining to quality of life improvement for LGBT persons are the same today, with a few contextual changes but I'm not coming to this as an issue in need of active work improvement work. I'm coming to this as an individual need. They relate to freedom and individual liberties, right? Rights, that that's not going to change, you know, the right to relate to other persons, the right to health and education and to to be your authentic self, those things are not going to change.

Lucien continues: And so the work going forward was largely the same. It is just the struggle is always contextual. What do you have access to or not? and how does that impact you? That is why we fight. But the issues are the same. And so that the fight that has happened and is happening in Jamaica is maybe contextually different than the fight that I've been part of in Suriname but the issues are the same. You see, in Suriname does not, for example, have buggery laws on the book, never did, and so we're not fighting that particular issue in our context.

Lucien continues: But the issue is the same. We're not necessarily compared to, to other members of society, able to live life in the same way. For, for a long time there were discrepancies in the law where it related to sexual initiation, there was a higher, a longer sort of a wider each of consent range when it pertained to same sex. So where the age of consent sort of set at 16, I think it used to be 20 or 21 something like that, and so there were those discrepancies and those have now been changed but there’s more work left to do.

Lucien continues: And so it's it's it's interesting to see how much, how similar some of the struggle, some of the issues are. But then at the same time how different the operational context has become and how that then changes how you go about doing and achieving and especially what we have, that is a huge difference with what Larry had. We have Larry to work with, Larry did not have Larry to work with.

Carla: Larry never have no Larry.

Lucien: Larry and many others. Right. So we have that. We have hindsight. Many things that have been tried and failed are lessons. We have those. And they had, they had the advantage of pioneering…which is which is maybe less, less celebratory as I bring it now, as the experience was back then. Pioneering can be quite frustrating and maybe even dangerous.

Lucien continues: Right. But it is. It is. It is nonetheless. It's a wonderful thing that that had occurred.

Sealing this Episode

00;33;49;01 - 00;34;18;23, Carla: A lot of times we talk about intergenerational trauma. Well, we also have to talk about intergenerational healing. And I feel like this is what is happening here. To be able to listen to Larry, who has been holding it down from the seventies, talking to Lucien, who's been carrying that baton from the 2000’s, is something that my soul didn't know it needed.

Carla continues: And I am so excited for the next generation of leaders that's going to come to work in our region.

00;34;18;26 - 00;35;03;07, Carla: This episode was produced by Rebel Women Lit and Queerly Stated with support from Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Equality Fund, and Global Affairs Canada. Research and Writing by Jacqui Brown, Script Editing and Project Management by Dave-Ann Moses, Editing and Sound by Jherane Patmore and Safiyah Chinere, and Outreach by Ashley Dalley. Remember to head on over the show notes to find the details of the organizers featured in our episode and Rebelwomenlit.com for additional references.

Carla closes: Thank you so much for joining your host, Carla Moore, Under The Sycamore Tree.