Here is the latest from our ally Equip for Equality.  Please take action Monday May 4!

** High Priority **ACTION ALERT FROM EQUIP FOR EQUALITY: SUPPORT HB 2290*
End the Unauthorized Sterilization of Adults with Disabilities under
Guardianship

On Saturday, September 6, FRIDA members in Chicago will gather to discuss our progress since we started almost three years ago, and to discuss the direction of our organization for the future.  We will consider issues such as our vision, our audience and our work.  Thanks to FRIDA member Ana Mercado, we will have facilitators help us through a day of thought.

 If you are in the Chicago area and a FRIDA member (or want to be a FRIDA member), the retreat is from 10 am to 5 pm at UIC, 1640 W. Roosevelt Road.  It is a potluck, so if you come, bring food!  To learn more, please contact us through the contact page on this site.

On Tuesday, August 19, we hosted a visit from Kareem Dale, the National Disability Vote Director for the Obama Campaign.  Mr. Dale is a Chicago area lawyer who happens to have a visual impairment.  He is now working full time for the Obama campaign and will be in Denver at the end of August for the Democratic National Convention.

Mr. Dale came to our August monthly meeting and the group discussed topics from health care access to housing.  We discussed the needs of women with disabilities and we look forward to seeing the issues of womyn with disabilities being included in the Obama campaign’s platform.  We definitely plan to continue to provide feedback on women’s disability rights to Mr. Dale to ensure that the Democratic Party candidate plans to take action for change on our issues.

On July 26, we marched in the 2008 Disability Pride Parade!  As many of us are also members of ADAPT, FRIDA and ADAPT marched together.  Mary Delgado carried the FRIDA pinata head on the front of her power chair for an unusual looking “float”!  At the Parade festival, FRIDA shirts and buttons were again available for sale to womyn with disabilities and our allies seeking to show their feminist pride!

On Saturday, June 28, 2008, FRIDA members took part in the 2008 Chicago Dyke March in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.  Pilsen is well known as one of the most heavily Latino neighborhoods in Chicago, and many of the folks who live in Pilsen also happen to be immigrants.  Dyke March has traditionally been held in the Andersonville, known as an active center of LGBTQ activity.  This year, however, in a move to bring greater attention to social justice issues, the organizers held the march in Pilsen.

One of our FRIDA members, Aerin Jung, has been heavily involved with the Dyke March and has pushed to have greater accessibility for people with disabilities.  Her activism resulted in several access improvements, including paper fliers with the march chants and accessible bathrooms, an interpreter for the end-of-march festivities in Harrison Park, and plywood boards to place over ruts in the road.  Thank you Aerin and the Dyke March organizers for these improvements!  We also hear that the Dyke March attempted to secure a personal assistant to work the event, but sadly the PAs who were contacted refused to work an event they classified as a “lesbian thing.”  They wanted to work, but not for people who might be queer.  This is a sad snapshot of the need to raise LGBTQ friendliness in the disability community and those who support us, like PAs.

The FRIDAs who did attend, however, had a blast representing for the disability community in support of our LGBTQ members and allies!  Those who attended included Aerin Jung, Axeen, Monica Heffner, Mary Delgado, Dan, Emylee, Nestor, Lluvia and Sol, Maggy Guzzo, Amber Smock and other friends and allies.  This is the first time FRIDA has ever gone and next year, we hope to see many more of our disability rights colleagues at events like these, because in Chicago there is very little to support our LGBTQ friends with disabilities.

Here are some photos from the event (as many as Amber could take before the battery on her camera died).  Descriptions are below each photo.

The Gay Liberation Network shows off its huge blue sign stating that lesbians and gays support immigrant rights.  Pilsen is known for being a center of immigration activism.

The middle “woman” sign on the FRIDA flag gets a wheechair to sit in, courtesy of a friendly parade artist.

People flood in to the bank parking lot at 18th and Halsted.  Sunscreen and umbrellas were out against the sunny day.

As the crowd mills around chatting, Emylee people watches while Monica has an icy treat.  Several paleta cart men were drawn to the event, selling ice cream and popsicles.

Monica and Nestor hold the FRIDA flag while waiting to march.

Marchers mill as they get ready to set off down 18th Street in East Pilsen.

Mary shows off her teal colored queer love sign that someone from the parade drew on her wrist.

Nestor and Maggy hold the FRIDA sign in Pilsen just west of the railroad tracks, with the marchers as a backdrop.  Emylee and Sol are at the right.  Dan is just behind Maggy holding her bike.

Mary and Dan roll in the parade in the foreground.  In the background, Maggy is in the red t-shirt talking to Monica in the brown FRIDA t-shirt.

A view of the hundreds of marchers ahead of us.  We were somewhere at the two-thirds mark.

Nestor and Amber carry the FRIDA sign through Pilsen.  Emylee is just behind Amber’s shoulder.

A nice overhead shot showing Mary and Dan marching, with Maggy and Monica in the background.

Papi Chulo, a drag king from Mexico, performs a song in Spanish at Harrison Park, as neighbors watch from their windows across the street.  The ASL interpreter is in the pink shirt by the speakers.

Dykes on bikes salute the crowd entering Harrison Park by revving their engines—LOUDLY.

On Saturday, June 28, FRIDA will be in the Dyke March in Chicago.  The Dyke March is an annual non-disability event celebrating dykes, queerness and transgender people.  FRIDA will march to represent the disability community, show we are an ally, and celebrate our members and friends who are LGBTQ and intersex.

We will meet with the rest of the march at 18th and Halsted at 1 pm, and step off to march at 2:30 pm. We will march on 18th Street to Damen (Harrison Park).  There will be live events till 5 pm.  Join us if you can!  Just look for the FRIDA t-shirts. 

Hi folks!  We are so excited to announce that FRIDA Chapter Guidelines are now available online at this website.  Just go to the bar above and click on “Chapters” and you’ll get the full scoop!  If you are thinking of starting a chapter, please contact Amber at Ambity(at)aol.com.  Let’s grow our movement!

 Thanks to the hard work of many FRIDAs and our friends, our trip to Alton, Illinois, to memorialize the life of Dorothy Dixon was an empowering success!

Nine FRIDAs from Chicago traveled to Alton for the Dorothy Dixon memorial service at 11 am on May 31.  Afterwards, we walked, rolled and drove in a procession to the home where Dorothy and her unborn child died.  We chanted “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” and “Up with respect! Down with abuse!”  The residents of the house joined us in a moment of silence.  We were escorted by patrol cars from the Alton Police.  Thank you officers for keeping us safe!

 We then gathered at IMPACT again for lunch and a break.  Several of us then visited the grounds of the old state hospital at the Alton Mental Health Center.  IMPACT Board member Susan Shobe gave us a tour of the field where state hospital residents were buried.  Security officers from the Department of Human Services joined us.  It was extremely hot but very moving to be able to visit these grounds.  Due to the heat and logistics, some of our group left, but four of us were able to then stop at Mt. Olive to visit the memorial to Mother Jones, the famous labor organizer.

 We really want to thank our friends at IMPACT Inc., for their hard work in making this happen, and also to our friends from Springfield and St. Louis who came out for the day.  About 30 folks showed up to make sure the right thing was done.  It was a really tremendous learning experience and the suggestion was made to have a Dorothy Dixon Memorial Parade every year.  That’s what we are all about—getting busy!  One small drop of water causes a whole lake to ripple.

To read the Alton Telegraph news story, please visit: http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/dixon_14619___article.html/people_group.html.

To see the Alton Telegraph video, please visit: http://www.thetelegraph.com/video/index.php?bcpid=1155236442&bclid=1155106981&bctid=1582123180.

To view some photos of the trip on Flickr, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/25181282@N04/sets/72157605386361303/.

To see more detailed comments at our blog, please go to http://fridanow.blogspot.com.

November 2007 marks our second anniversary! Yep, it’s been two years since we held our very first FRIDA event, a brown bag lunch discussion on forced sterilization. This year, FRIDA members in Chicago celebrated by hosting FRIDAfest, a radical feminist disability blowout party! We had a FRIDA timeline, decorated masks based on Frida Kahlo, did a potluck and launched this website! Happy Birthday #2, FRIDA!

On November 13, the American Medical Association announced that it now supports the Community Choice Act as its official policy. This was one of our demands from the Ashley X campaign and so we celebrate this victory! Our homes, not nursing homes! AMA Press Release