writetomissvenus

[writetomissvenus]

From Miss Venus:

This prison is full of malpractice and sooo much abuse, sometimes it seems unreal. I wish you knew how much bullshit I go through each and every day. I don’t go into great detail because I don’t want to put any added stress on you, but so many dark, cruel, horrible things happen towards me that you would truly be infuriated.

I hope my story goes viral on the news. I wish somebody would put it on youtube or tumblr and boost the page - could you put the thing about donations on tumblr again?... Now that I’m out of funds, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.

We lost two more LGBT inmates due to suicides. One of the latest was trying to reach out to me for help but Warden Andrews had me and her separated because the staff heard us talking over the vents here in the hole about lawsuits and exposing these people for all the abuse we are enduring here in this solitary confinement. Solitary confinement doesn’t protect anybody but it makes transgender prisoners like myself more prone to being victimized by staff members...I’m more likely to be attacked physically and verbally by correctional staff.

If I want to do what truly needs to be done, I’ve got to do it at “Ground Zero”, where the problem actually is. I don’t even care about other existing programs because it’s obvious that they aren’t as anxious as they say to help... Lives could be saved, but are being lost as we speak. Just today, another life was lost (suicide) - action has to be taken now. Time is not on our side.

Venus asks for your help and support. She is trying to start an outreach program to put LGBT inmates in contact with each other within the EARU at Little Rock, AR to offer mutual support. Venus is trying to get in touch with external support as well, to expose the abuse taking place. If you are able to spread the word, reach out to her, or send money directly to her, anything helps.

[writetomissvenus]

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY AND AID

If you can, please consider either writing or donating to Venus Williams, a transgender woman being held in solitary confinement in Arkansas. She has been abused and neglected, and is in desperate need of funds so that she can buy stamps/stationary, hygiene products, and food. She is turning to you for support.

It would mean the world to her to even receive a letter with kind words. You can write to her here: Jeffrey Williams #138677, EARU, PO Box 970. Marianna, AR. 72360.

You can find more information here.

You can donate directly to here and follow the steps below:

[writetomissvenus]

[writetomissvenus]

Hey, while I’m sharing wish lists, please check out and share this organization who sends books to LGBT prisoners across the US.  There are wish lists on their site if you can help out!

“We are a donation-funded, volunteer-run organization based in Madison, WI that sends books and other educational materials, free of charge, to incarcerated LGBTQ people across the United States. We have been doing this for over 10 years and have sent books to nearly 8,000 people in that time.

We do this because:

We want to acknowledge, and work against, the oppressive functions of the prison system. Our project shifts some control back into incarcerated people’s hands.

Incarcerated persons have little access to reading material, and LGBTQ people behind bars have a particularly hard time finding resources that meet their needs and wants. We are in a position to gather and distribute these resources.

We believe that our work affirms the dignity of all individuals by providing access to knowledge of their choosing, so that they can learn and grow as they desire. We respond to individuals’ requests as directly as possible.

LGBTQ people behind bars face many hardships, including — but not limited to — isolation and physical violence. We want them to know that they have a supportive community on the outside that cares about their wellbeing.”

[writetomissvenus]

is miss venus on JPAY?

unfortunately no, to my knowledge her facility does not participate. you can donate to her directly through the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ Inmate Deposit Service - step by step instructions are here!

[writetomissvenus]

Under Wendy Kelley, conditions have been intolerable for Venus and countless others of our siblings... it’s about time something was done about it!

[writetomissvenus]

CALL FOR AID - HELP YOUR SISTER

Venus Williams, a transgender woman held in solitary confinement for over 7 years, is asking you personally for help. She has been putting out pleas for support and aid over the past months, most of which have gone unanswered. If you have ten minutes and a stamp, you can help. If you have a minute to reblog this, you can help. If you have $10 to donate, you can help.

Venus doesn’t have access to necessary hygiene products or edible food, and daily faces serious abuse by guards and neglect at the hands of medical staff. She is reaching out to the “free” LGBT community in hopes that her LGBT family will offer aid. Writing a letter or sending a card would be just as important as donating money. 

To donate directly to Venus, follow these steps.

To write to her, send mail to: Jeffrey Williams #138677, EARU, PO Box 970. Marianna, AR. 72360. For mail guidelines, see here.

For more information, check out Miss Venus on tumblr, twitter, or facebook.

[writetomissvenus]

what can I send in a letter to Venus?

All mail is scanned, and Venus receives scanned copies of your letter. In one (1) letter, you may send:

three pages (2 sheets) written in pen

two pages (1 sheet front/back) written in pen AND one photograph (must not contain nudity or “homosexual content” or weaponry, gang-related content, etc.)

one page (1 sheet front) AND two photographs

three photographs

Venus may write you back and want to start a friendship with you! Venus is a wonderfully strong and brave woman, and I am happy to call her my friend, If you aren’t able to begin a penpal friendship, please be clear in your letter. Venus is interested in LGBT history and solidarity, prison justice, nature, and meeting new people.

[writetomissvenus]

literally anything would help. we know the $10 minimum for a direct donation is steep, but a letter or note would mean just as much to her. letters can only be 3 pages (2 sheets) and must be in pen, but can include photos or drawings. if you do have even $2 you’d like to donate, just get in touch with me at @zonerunners or @writetomissvenus and we can figure something out. venus has been ill for some time and has not been receiving care - anything to lift her spirits or offer solidarity would make all the difference. she does not have access to stationary, decent food, or hygiene products.

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY AND AID

If you can, please consider either writing or donating to Venus Williams, a transgender woman being held in solitary confinement in Arkansas. She has been abused and neglected, and is in desperate need of funds so that she can buy stamps/stationary, hygiene products, and food. She is turning to you for support.

It would mean the world to her to even receive a letter with kind words. You can write to her here: Jeffrey Williams #138677, EARU, PO Box 970. Marianna, AR. 72360.

You can find more information here.

You can donate directly to here and follow the steps below:

[writetomissvenus]

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY AND AID

If you can, please consider either writing or donating to Venus Williams, a transgender woman being held in solitary confinement in Arkansas. She has been abused and neglected, and is in desperate need of funds so that she can buy stamps/stationary, hygiene products, and food. She is turning to you for support.

It would mean the world to her to even receive a letter with kind words. You can write to her here: Jeffrey Williams #138677, EARU, PO Box 970. Marianna, AR. 72360.

You can find more information here.

You can donate directly to here and follow the steps below:

[writetomissvenus]

my name is venus, i’m 33 years old, and i’m looking for “mr right!” i’m held in a very lonely place called solitary, in prison - please write me in this dark place and shed some hope on my mail box! i’m currently single and looking for someone, so start writing! smooches - venus

you can write me at Jeffrey Williams #138677, EARU, PO Box 970. Marianna, AR. 72360

[writetomissvenus]

Venus Williams is a transgender woman being held in solitary confinement. She has been held for eight years - she has been abused, harassed, denied adequate medical care, and denied human decency. She is suffering, and has turned to the LGBT+ community and allies for solidarity and support. All funds raised will go to her basic needs - toiletries, food, paper and stamps, medical expenses, etc. For more information, visit: Write to Miss Venus on FaceBook Write to Miss Venus on tumblr

[writetomissvenus]

#TransGirlTwitter happened this week, too! 💜

[writetomissvenus]

From Rape culture: would prison abolition help women?

But showing that prisons are sites of systemic sexual violence does not establish that immediate abolition would lead to quantitatively fewer rapes. The question is then if these carceral functions cannot provide the framework for eliminating rape and assault, what alternative structures can be established?

One option is ‘restorative justice’, involving facilitated meetings between the perpetrator and victim - to enable answers for any questions the victim has of the perpetrator, or acknowledgement of the harm caused. The New Zealand-based Project Restore is prominent in advocating this approach, which stems out of Maori accountability practices. In theory, this might provide some conciliation - equilibrium can be restored to the disrupted families, communities, and networks, if only by having the perpetrator acknowledge fault.

However, even Project Restore concedes the limits of such an approach. It does not, by itself, create conditions that enable safety and resistance to violence and oppression - or provide reparations to victims. Indeed, these projects gained traction within neoliberal approaches seeking cheaper alternatives to incarceration. Even the name, ‘restorative’ justice, reveals the limits of its intended effect. Rather than accountability for the victim and recognition of their needs, the peace of communities and families that failed to protect the victim from violence is intended – to restore things as they were.

Another alternative is ‘transformative justice’, which focuses on developing ‘community accountability’ structures to disrupt cycles of abuse and assault. This framework has been developed by women of colour-led US groups like INCITE!, Sista II Sista, and Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), who organise against interpersonal and state violence. The idea is that support groups from the community facilitate a process between the victim and the perpetrator, and a process of dialogue and admission of responsibility by the perpetrator then approximates the necessary steps to repair harm. The support groups then monitor whether these steps are maintained.

‘Transformative justice’ is centred in developing the community’s autonomy in order to prevent violence. It sees retribution as reactive, and incarceration as unable and incapable of unpacking more difficult questions about state violence, or the complicity of communal networks that feel obligated to intervene to stop drink driving, for example, but not child abuse.

But a ‘transformative’ solution cannot simply involve a sentimentalised restorative justice system with a neoliberal renovation i.e. one that prioritises restoring unequal power relations for the sake of ‘peace’ or expense, or transferring arbitrary judicial functions to communities, assuming this accounts for all of the survivor’s needs.

Generation Five, an organisation focusing on transformative justice in cases of child abuse, importantly state: “Without a just world, people cannot find healing and safety.” The primary task in communities and organisations attempting to articulate a response to violence is providing care and support to survivors, including being led by survivors’ needs and desires regarding their abusers.

But this has to be integrated with attempts to eradicate the inequities that allow patriarchal violence to occur.

‘Transformative justice’ is contingent on broader social and personal transformation. Just as prison abolition is only conceivable by shifting resources to healthcare and education systems and removing the violence of poverty, 'transformative justice’ cannot simply depend on the community being inherently more accountable than the courts: it also has to identify the absence of reparations and accountability for the victims - and redistribute power to them.

While consent-based sex education is entrenched in discourse about how to tackle rape culture, and an important first step in beginning a shift towards transformative justice, there must also be a broader realisation of reproductive autonomy to redistribute power - for example abortion on demand, and trans-appropriate healthcare.

A transformative discourse about tackling rape culture would also consider the institutionalised violence of local authority care homes - which feed women and children into the violence of homelessness, addiction, and prisons.

Children’s rights are also vital to conceiving social and personal transformation as a means of dismantling rape culture. Children need more than comprehensive sex and relationship education: they also need greater democratic power in schools, and in their lives.

Without the broader empowerment of those vulnerable to patriarchal and sexual violence, transformative justice mechanisms no more provide accountability and reparations for rape survivors than our current carceral apparatus. And community accountability is anemic without addressing the ways in which women, particularly women of colour, women with disabilities and trans women, are trapped by the violence of poverty, or state violence.

In moving beyond a model of incarceration that exacerbates rape culture, transformative justice has to take account of survivors’ complex needs. It must ensure community accountability does not simply whitewash the systems that enable patriarchal violence.

[writetomissvenus]

[writetomissvenus]

from Venus mid-October:

“Sometimes I want to scream; at times I’m so blank mined that I just stare off into space. I really hope and pray the feds is better than this, because this isn’t right, even for animals. I just sit here and shake my head...I miss who I am. What these people have reduced me to is wrong. Why is it a crime to be who I am? Why do people look at me like I’m some type of clown?”

[writetomissvenus]

Miss Venus has written multiple times about the abuse she faces at the EARU in Arkansas, under control of Warden Andrews. Venus has reported that Warden Andrews is 'locking up inmates at random’ to appear as if he is addressing the K2 epidemic in the EARU, which has left 65 people dead. Venus does not feel that the issue is being addressed, and feels that inmates are being needlessly put at risk.