Reproductive justice is a framework developed by women of color to expand and revolutionalize the mainstream “reproductive health/rights” movement that is too often preoccupied exclusively with individual women’s access to abortion and too reliant on the “pro-choice” rhetoric that does not resonate with many women of color. Reproductive justice framework, on the other hand, is rooted in the intersectional critiques of social, economic, and environmental structures (that is, much of the larger society beyond simply anti-abortion laws) that hinder the ability of women and girls to exercise full self-determination over their bodies and their reproductive and sexual lives.

In the 2005 publication “A New vision for Advancing Our Movement for Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice,” Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice (which has changed its name to Forward Together) formally articulated a three-dimensional approach to advancing the well-being of women and girls through reproductive health, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice frameworks. These three frameworks arise from different sets of problems and analyses. The chart below, developed from the above-mentioned publication, contrasts the three approaches.

I have been informed by radical women of color activists like Loretta Ross about the need to push for reproductive justice (rather than just “defending” legal right to abortion), but it was only after reading the work of Mia Mingus–herself an important activist in the reproductive justice movement in her previous leadership role at SPARK–on disability justice that I fully understood how relevant the three-dimensional analysis was for many other movements (which should have been obvious, but I was slow to catch on).

Mia proposes three dimensional approaches to disability politics: service, rights, and justice (she replaced the term “health” with “service,” because of the inescapable ableism in the “health” discourse). These three frameworks also arise from three different analyses, and lead to three different strategies as well as different groups of key players.

The framework for advocating for disability justice is similar to that calling for reproductive justice because disability justice is reproductive justice and reproductive justice is disability justice. Ableism (along with racism, classism, etc.) has been a prominent component of controlling women’s reproductive choices, and the control of women’s reproduction has been a central component of marginalizing and erasing people with disabilities. While mainstream reproductive rights movement and mainstream disability rights movement do not often crossover (in fact, they sometimes come into direct conflict with each other in areas such as selective abortions), reproductive justice movement and disability justice movement are one and the same, only differing in relative focus.

I’ve been thinking about how I often feel alienated from the American “sex workers’ rights” movement even as I research and write extensively about the rights of sex workers and people in the sex trade. In “Anti-Criminalization: Criminalization happens on the ground, not in the legislature,” I explained how sex worker rights framework that promotes legal reforms (legalization, decriminalization, etc.) prioritizes the concerns of sex workers who are white, adult, middle-class, citizen, cis women over those of us facing relentless criminalization that go far beyond the anti-prostitution law. I called for an “anti-criminalization” (as opposed to legalization or decriminalization) movement that seeks broad social and economic justice in order to fully achieve self-determination for people in (or considering) sex trade.

The anti-criminalization movement is a sex worker justice movement, that is also a reproductive, disability, environmental, etc. justice movement–and organizations such as Black Women for Wellness and Latinas for Reproductive Justice understood this when they came out in opposition to Prop. 35 back in November 2012.

Can we develop a three-dimensional analysis for envisioning sex worker justice? Here’s an attempt:

“Service/support” approach can be employed by sex worker-run organizations (peer support group, St. James Infirmary), harm reduction agencies, or even anti-prostitution groups that, regardless of how they view prostitution, sometimes offer goods and services people want. “Rights” approach is often invoked by people in the “sex worker’s rights movement” such as members of Sex Workers Outreach Project as well as many libertarian supporters of legalizing prostitution. “Justice” framework is the foundation of organizations such as Young Women’s Empowerment Project and Women With A Vision, and other organizations led by women of color. (Anti-prostitution camp can also claim to be working from “justice” framework when they call for “abolition” of prostitution–but their strategies often fail the test, not to mention the appropriative use of the term “abolition.”)

I do not actually feel that “sex worker justice” is actually the right phrase for this struggle, because “sex worker” is a term used mostly by the more privileged folks among those of us who trade sex, and also because we need to expand economic options for everyone rather than just for those of us already in the sex trade. Perhaps it needs to be subsumed into “reproductive justice” since it is about attaining self-determination in how we control our own bodies and sexualities free from social, economic, cultural, and environmental restraints, but existing literature on reproductive justice does not speak to this connection very much (it addresses more about human trafficking and forced prostitution, but not about prostitution as an economic option).

I am also attached to “anti-criminalization” as a framework to build coalition across communities that are targeted by pervasive policing and criminalization, especially because too often (relatively privileged) sex worker activists and their allies focus on legalization/decriminalization as if that would stop the criminalization of people of color, street youth, immigrants, transgender women, homeless people, people who use drugs, and others who trade sex under any combination of choice, circumstance, and coercion. So I am not proposing that we start calling our movement “sex worker justice” just yet–but I think there are insights we can gain from parallels to three-dimensional model from reproductive and disability politics.

I also want to caution how “justice” framework can be co-opted or backfire. A friend who was on the panel deciding how Trans Justice Funding Project distribute its funds told me about the difficulty the panel faced when reviewing grant applications from around the country. They were interested in prioritizing organizations and projects that operate from justice-based framework in advocating for trans people and communities, rather than those that simply provide services or lobby for trans rights. But it turned out that most of the “trans justice” organizations were located in coastal urban areas, while groups in non-coastal rural communities were desperate for funds to provide basic services and support. Fortunately, the panel was able to recognize the need for different approaches in different communities, as directed by members of the said communities.

If we romanticize “justice” framework and discount the importance of other approaches, particularly the “service/support” framework, we run the risk of leaving behind people who depend on services and support provided by organizations that may appear to lack analysis. I believe that a real “justice” approach requires both short-term and long-term strategies, and the short-term strategy might involve creating, improving, and expanding resources for “service/support” as needed.

Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco announced, and then canceled, an expensive four-day retreat for songwriters and performers at Nottoway Plantation and Resort after the internet erupted in outrage at her choice of the venue. Nottoway is not just the site of one of the largest slave plantations in the area, but is also preserved as an exclusive resort actively distorting and even glorifying brutal history of slavery in the United States.

I came into queer identity in a predominantly white rural lesbian (and bisexual women’s) community in the mid-90s, so Ani’s voice was a life support. I listened to her politically savvy and lyrically masterful music non-stop, traveled long distance to see her perform, and bought her merch from her mom who was working at her label, Righteous Babe Records. I collected and traded bootleg tapes of her shows with other fans (before Napster made it possible to share MP3 files online), and asked a friend who was a DJ at campus radio station to obtain her promo singles that were not commercially released. When I was in her home town of Buffalo back in 2006, I snuck into (with the permission of the friendly construction workers there) the historic building (which later became Babeville) that was undergoing restoration and renovation after Ani purchased it in order to save the gorgeous building from demolition.

So it was painful to me to witness how Ani somehow failed to recognize the offensiveness of holding the retreat at Nottoway Plantation, or to anticipate how people would react to the announcement, but I held on to the hope that, once confronted, she would immediately understand and acknowledge her mistake. Unfortunately, the statement she released in response to the criticism fell short of what I expected from someone who was so important to me at one point in my life.

Below is a list of problems (which is not to say that it is exhaustive) I find with the statement (all emphases are mine). Please also read “Things about Ani’s fauxpology I’m not okay with” by Jaya and “How Ani Should Have Apologized” by Mel Hartsell.

1. The statement treats criticisms as “pain of slavery” and “bitterness” misdirected at her, rather than acknowledging that her endorsement of a resort facility that glorifies chattel slavery was the problem. By doing so, Ani portrays herself as the victim of “hatred” directed at her.

i did not imagine or understand that the setting of a plantation would trigger such collective outrage or result in so much high velocity bitterness.

i know that the pain of slavery is real and runs very deep and wide. however, in this incident i think is very unfortunate what many have chosen to do with that pain.

i obviously underestimated the power of an evocatively symbolic place to trigger collective and individual pain.

but should hatred be spit at me over that mistake?

2. The statement fails to concretely acknowledge that the choice of venue was inappropriate and offensive. By using words like “if” and “maybe” and leaving the judgment to the community, Ani avoids taking responsibility for her mistake.

i have heard the feedback that it is not my place to go to former plantations and initiate such a dialogue.

again, maybe we should indeed have drawn a line in this case and said nottoway plantation is not a good place to go; maybe we should have vetted the place more thoroughly.

if nottoway is simply not an acceptable place for me to go and try to do my work in the eyes of many, then let me just concede before more divisive words are spilled.

She says that she is canceling the retreat, not because she realized that it was a mistake to plan it at the venue, but other people are being mean to her.

3. Ani claims that she had “imagined a dialogue would emerge organically over the four days about the issue of where we were,” but it is extremely difficult to believe this, given her initial “invitation” to the retreat stated “We will be shacked up at the historic Nottoway Plantation and Resort in White Castle, LA, for 3 days and 4 nights exchanging ideas, making music, and otherwise getting suntans in the light of each other’s company. […] In the evenings we will perform for each other and enjoy great food in a captivating setting.” Really, how am I supposed to believe that the event was meant to be anti-racist? Ani wrote:

i imagined instead that the setting would become a participant in the event. this was doubtless to be a gathering of progressive and engaged people, so i imagined a dialogue would emerge organically over the four days about the issue of where we were. […] my intention of going ahead with the conference at the nottoway plantation was not to be a part of a great forgetting but it’s opposite. i know that pain is stored in places where great social ills have occurred. i believe that people must go to those places with awareness and with compassionate energy and meditate on what has happened and absorb some of the reverberating pain with their attention and their awareness. i believe that compassionate energy is transformative and necessary for healing the wounds of history.

If this was her true intention, she should have been transparent about it in the original “invitation,” and also considered how the venue would be experienced entirely differently by participants who are white, Black, indigenous, or other people of color. I personally cannot imagine that a white person working solo is capable of arranging such an event, but that’s beside the point here. I am not really convinced that Ani had in fact intended to use the venue as a place to “heal the wounds of history,” but if she really did, she did the worst job imaginable of how one could go about doing that–and the issue is not (just) that she is a white person overstepping her boundary. She is claiming to “heal” wounds of historical violence with more violence.

4. The statement invokes superficially anti-oppression rhetoric to diminish the particularities of criticisms against holding the retreat at Nottoway Plantation.

for myself, i believe that one cannot draw a line around the nottoway plantation and say “racism reached it’s depths of wrongness here” and then point to the other side of that line and say “but not here”. […] i know that indeed our whole country has had a history of invasion, oppression and exploitation as part of it’s very fabric of power and wealth. […] it is a very imperfect world we live in and i, like everyone else, am just trying to do my best to negotiate it.

let us not forget that the history of slavery and exploitation is at the foundation of much of our infrastructure in this country, not just at old plantation sites. let us not oversimplify to black and white a society that contains many many shades of grey.

Ani is of course correct to point out that every inch of this land (the United States) is a site of genocidal violence. But Nottoway is not just any site of any sort of violence; as one of the largest plantations in the United States, it is specifically a site that symbolizes the violence of slavery. And in addition to being a place with the symbolic significance, it is an institution whose owner continues to profit off of romanticizing and glamorizing the enslavement of Black people.

5. The statement objectifies youth of color as shield and source of inspiration.

i also planned to take the whole group on a field trip to Roots of Music, a free music school for underprivileged kids in New Orleans. Roots of Music is located at the Cabildo, a building in the French Quarter which was the seat of the former slaveholder government where all the laws of the slave state were first written and enacted. i believe that the existence of Roots of Music in this building is transcendent and it would have been a very inspiring place to visit. i also believe that Roots could have gained a few new supporters. in short, i think many positive and life-affirming connections would have been made at this conference, in its all of its complexity of design.

The existence of Roots of Music is transcendent, but transcendence does not rub off on folks paying $1000-4000 each to hang out with Ani and her friends. Youth of color (who I imagine to be mostly Black youth) do not exist to inspire (who I imagine to be) rich white folks, and that the organization might gain “a few new supporters” does not exonerate the poverty tourism. Worse, it appears that Ani is comparing her retreat being held at an actively white supremacist institution to the resilience of Black people building and strengthening their own communities after centuries of violence and oppression.

6. Empty call for unity and “dialogue” that is actually meant to close down the dialogue. Ani ends the statement with the following:

i ask only that as we attempt to continue to confront our country’s history together, […] let us not forget to be compassionate towards each other as we attempt to move forward and write the next pages in our history. our story is not over and, Citizens of the Internet, it is now ours to write.

She implies that critics have been less than compassionate toward her (“should hatred be spit at me”?), but many of us are critical because we are compassionate (“we have to be able to criticize what we love, say what we have to say” as Ani used to sing). Further, this paragraph tells me that she still does not understand the gravity of the offense if she thinks she is in a position to demand “compassion” from those she directly harmed by her lack of compassion in the first place.

Nowhere in the statement does she acknowledge how she put Toshi Reagon, a Black female musician who agreed to be an instructor for the retreat before the venue was announced, in an extremely awkward and uncomfortable position, booking her to sing at the site where servants were required to sing in order to prove that they were not stealing food from their master, forcing her to be the first person to publicly explain herself even though she was not responsible for the controversy and her options were limited once the outrage ensued.

(Edited to add:)

I came across additional writings on the topic after posting this. Here are links to some of them:

• Things about Ani’s fauxpology I’m not okay with” by Jaya
• Ani DiFranco’s Offensive Stunt Bores Me by Trudy
• Dear Ani DiFranco Supporters: You Cannot Reclaim an Oppression You Have Never Experienced” by For Harriet
• How Ani Should Have Apologized by Mel Hartsell
• Out of Rage: Ani’s Not-S-Righteous Retreat by Riese of Autostraddle
• Ani Difranco’s Righteous Retreat: Please Use Both Hands to Cover Your Ears by Kat Endgame on PQ Monthly
• Critical annotation of Ani DiFranco’s Statement on rapgenious/newsgenious

Also, read my follow up:

• It’s not an apology. Not even a “bad” apology.
• One more thing: let’s name historical revisionism of the plantation tourism.

Within days after launching Transgasm.org to “change the way surgeries are funded in the FTM and MTF communities forever,” Jody Rose and Buck Angel shut down the website amid criticisms that its scheme was untenable and illegal. The website now states: “We are disappointed that there are people who are spreading false rumors and slandering our names all over the internet. […] Because of this, we have chosen to remove ourselves from a project that is dear to our hearts.”

Rose and Angel repeatedly assert that their intentions were “good and genuine.” As I’ve pointed out in my previous posts, that their intentions may be “good and genuine”–as opposed to sinister and malicious–is precisely the problem.

In the now-deleted “Transgasm FAQ,” founders discussed how Transgasm was inspired by “law of attractions”:

The both of us have been corresponding for years and share a common interest: The law of attraction and thought science. We’ve always shared stories about how we’ve manifested what we wanted throughout the years, using thought science and the law of attraction.

One day we were talking about this again and realized that we could help empower the entire transsexual community (worldwide), its supporters, and anyone else who identifies the way they choose to identify, by sharing our success with thought science and the law of attraction. We worked hard to create a simple and easy to understand formula that went through many revisions.

The result?

An organization centered around knowing what you want, visualizing what you want, thinking positively, having gratitude, and seeing what you want come true, all with the spirit of reciprocity (a very important law of The Universe).

Popularized by Napoleon Hill and other authors of self-improvement books for upward-mobile businessmen, “law of attraction” is a magical belief that our thought can transform material reality. In particular, the law teaches that we can make positive material changes in our lives by simply having positive thoughts and attitudes, as positivity attracts positivity, and negativity attracts negativity.

In the “self-help” film “The Secret,” which is based on this theory, author Lisa Nichols explained:

Every time you look inside your mail expecting to see a bill, guess what? It will be there. You’re expecting debt, so debt must show up… Every day you confirm your thoughts. Debt is there because of the Law of Attraction. Do yourself a favor: Expect a check!

In other words, we receive bills because we of our thoughts, not because we have debt. By merely thinking positively, we can receive checks in the mail instead, according to the “law of attraction.”

This may sound absurd, but Rose and Angel actually believe in this. For example, they posted the following on their facebook page:

The poster (it’s not clear if it is Rose or Angel) was walking on sidewalk in Portland, thinking how he needed to buy a new hard drive that cost $159 for his computer. Suddenly, because he was being positive, he made $160 in cash to manifest in front of him with his thoughts alone. He happily picks it up, and buys a hard drive. (I’m not sure where the difference of $1 came from.)

Most of us in this situation would not think that we “manifested” the cash with our thoughts. We would assume that the cash fell out of someone’s pocket or wallet, which must have made them sad. Some of us might report the finding to a nearby business or to the police, hoping that whoever lost the money will come and claim it. Some of us might pocket the money. Regardless, most of us do not think that we “manifested” the cash with our own thoughts and therefore we deserve it.

Rose and Angel may have had “good and genuine” intentions to help trans people get what they want, but did not have a sound structure to actually do so. In fact, the structure they envisioned were completely untenable and likely illegal (though details of the scheme was unclear). But if you believe that you can “manifest” cash with mere thoughts, who needs a business plan? There is no reasoning with good-intentioned people with a harmful delusion.

And because Rose and Angel believe that positive thoughts make their project absolutely wonderful and beyond criticism, they perceive any criticism as expression of “hate” and “jealousy”–i.e. negativity. One might wonder why their project would attract so much negativity if “law of attraction” was true, but they purposefully ignore this fundamental contradiction: positivity must attract positivity, and therefore anyone who is negative toward them have to be worst kind of haters. They somehow do not seem to recognize their inconsistent and self-serving application of the principles of “law of attraction.”

I have described “law of attraction” as quintessentially American, because I view it as a variation of the more traditional national ideology of “American Dream.” “American Dream” suggests that anyone can become successful through hard, honest work, which functions to justify extreme income and class inequalities and blame the poor. “Law of attraction” does the same thing, except it doesn’t even require hard, honest work; you only need to think positively. Indeed, “law of attraction” is the “American Dream” for the lazy–and it is fundamentally a regressive, victim-blaming ideology.

Some critics of Transgasm have long criticized Angel for various reasons, but I am not one of them. The reason I become especially alarmed was because of Rose and Angel’s reliance on “law of attraction” in a financial scheme that appeared likely to harm many trans people. I was also alarmed because I know that people who promote pyramid schemes and other scams frequently use “law of attraction” to lure their victims and then blame them for their victimization when their scheme implodes. It has nothing to do with hating them, but I understand that they have difficulty recognizing my (and others’) concerns as long as they use “law of attraction” in a self-serving manner as a shield and weapon against anyone they perceive as “negative.” For now, I am glad that I helped to raise awareness of the danger of their scheme and its ideological foundation.

I wrote my previous post, “The trouble with Transgasm and its magical foundation,” based on how Transgasm claimed it functioned. But I suspect that the reality of its inner working is probably worse. This post, unlike the last one, is my speculation as to how Transgasm actually will operate. It is a speculation, but not a far-fetched “worse case scenario”: I believe that what I describe is not just possible, but probable.

In the last post, I summarized Transgasm’s claim:

According to Transgasm FAQ, Transgasm will teach trans people how to produce downloadable contents that can be sold via its website. Once the contents are sold, creators are paid 50% of the sale, plus 25% “paid forward” to pay for surgery for someone else on the “surgery list,” and the last 25% is withheld to keep the project itself going.

I explained how this scheme is already unworkable and illegal, but to be honest, I don’t believe that this is how it actually works.

My speculation is that vast majority of “downloadable contents” sold on Transgasm have little to no market value. My speculation is that Transgasm will sell them at an unreasonable and excessive markup.

Further, my speculation is that people will be able to move up on the “surgery list” on the basis of their sales, which will encourage them to buy their own contents multiple times to get closer to the coveted award. Transgasm earns $1 for every $1 “paid forward” for the surgery fund, which will be a lot if many people buy their own stuff in order to move up on the list.

Now, nobody know how much everyone is selling on Transgasm but its owners. That means that they could easily pick one of their close friends as the highest seller, or simply make up a fictitious “winner” and pocket the surgery money. This is not necessary what I speculate is going to happen, but it is something that is possible. Regardless, Transgasm owners will keep at least 25%, which is equal to the amount anyone might theoretically receive for the surgery.

Why do I speculate that this is how Transgasm works? For one thing, it is because that is how pyramid schemes often pass off themselves as “legitimate” multi-level marketing.

The main difference between so-called “legitimate” multi-level marketing and pyramid scheme is that legal ones like Amway sell actual products. Pyramid schemes often imitate this by “selling” otherwise worthless “products” among their participants to pretend that they are legitimate. But case histories are clear that they are nonetheless illegal pyramid schemes if the “products” are just pretense for transfer of cash, or de-facto entrance fee into the pyramid.

(Caution: “legitimate” multi-level marketing schemes are “legitimate” only in the sense that they are legal. In most “legitimate” multi-level marketing schemes, most people still lose money.)

Second reason I think Transgasm functions this way is the secrecy surrounding their “classes” in which they will teach people how to produce their products. If their goal is to help trans people access medical treatment they need, and they can actually help trans people learn to produce and sell marketable contents, why be so secretive? Why are they unable to publicize their superior knowledge so that everyone can benefit?

My speculation is that “contents” Transgasm will help people produce are only “marketable” within the scheme, and the primary “buyer” is the seller himself or herself.

If you are friends with Buck or Jody, please tell them that their scheme is both unworkable and illegal. It’s bad enough giving false hope to desperate trans people and then letting them down, but they can still turn back before they cause serious harm to their peers and possibly end up in jail themselves.

Buck Angel and Jody Rose’s new project Transgasm that exists to “change the way surgeries are funded in the FTM and MTF communities” has received both praises and criticisms over the last day or so. We all like the goal of providing new way for trans people to receive the medical care that they want, but many of us in the trans and ally communities are calling it a “scam.”

The trouble with the Transgasm scam is that people running it probably do not even think of it as a scam: they probably think that they are doing good for the community. I believe that their purported commitment to “law of attraction”–the quintessentially American magical belief that claims that “positive” thoughts attract positive outcomes–is what permits such self-serving distortion, self-indulgence, and victim-blaming that will follow when things fall apart.

According to Transgasm FAQ, Transgasm will teach trans people how to produce downloadable contents that can be sold via its website. Once the contents are sold, creators are paid 50% of the sale, plus 25% “paid forward” to pay for surgery for someone else on the “surgery list,” and the last 25% is withheld to keep the project itself going.

Some people are criticizing the 25% margin the project keeps for itself, calling it an exploitation of poor trans people’s creative work for the project founders to get rich off of. But that is not necessarily the criticism I have for Transgasm: after all, 25% margin is not any more exploitative than Apple, Amazon, and many other distributors of downloadable contents, who usually withhold 30% of the sale.

The problem really is the idea of “paying forword”: that is what makes Transgasm a pyramid scheme. In order to pay for just one trans person to receive surgery, dozens of trans people need to “pay forward” their 25%. These dozens of people will need dozens more each to benefit themselves. For the scheme to function, it requires an unlimited and exponentially growing number of trans people to join, as well as the unlimited and exponentially growing market for their products–and that will simply not happen. Like all pyramid schemes, only the first few would benefit and everyone else loses.

What if their classes are so successful that it only takes two or three trans people to pay for one person’s surgery? This would slow down the need for the pyramid’s expansion, but in time it will collapse just the same. Besides, if the classes can make trans people so successful at producing downloadable contents, why do they need to pool the resource with people they’ve never met, someone chosen by Transgasm owners? They could either save up on their own, or maybe pool resources with two or three of their close friends so that each of them could get their turn.

We all know that money does not just appear just because we want it, but “law of attraction” teaches precisely that money comes to us if we want it bad enough. It is, essentially, a magical thinking. Napoleon Hill popularized this delusion in the United States by appealing to white American business elites’ sense of entitlement and victim-blaming disdain for the poor. Buck Angel and Jody Rose say that they want to “share” their “success with thought science and the law of attraction” through Transgasm, but we need to reject the pyramid scheme and its magical foundation before it hurts many more trans people.

[Added December 8, 2013]

Here is an example of magical thinking typical of followers of “law of attraction”:

The poor person who lost $160 on the sidewalk was probably to blame for their own misfortune for having some “negative” thought.