Black and Pink Massachusetts, the volunteer-driven nonprofit with a mission to bring social justice to the criminal punishment system, has authored several new bills on Beacon Hill addressing issues faced by LGBTQI+ people and those living with HIV.
“We’re looking for big solutions to structural problems that impact our community. By all metrics, the criminal legal system is a failed enterprise that produces wholesale misery and devastates marginalized communities,” the group’s executive director, Michael Cox, said in a recent press release. “We’d be living in a very different Commonwealth if we invested just half of the money we spend on incarceration for education, housing, healthcare and harm reduction.”
According to the release:
In February, New York repealed the “Walking While Trans Ban,” otherwise known as soliciting for the purposes of prostitution. It earned its name because transgender people were routinely profiled and targeted for everyday acts like waiting for the bus or walking under a bridge. In response, Senator Cyr and Rep Miranda filed “An Act to Stop Profiling Transgender and Low Income Women,” which would repeal the Massachsuetts corollary.
“An Act to Promote the Health and Safety of People in the Sex Trade,” filed by Rep Sabadosa, goes one step further by decriminalizing solicitation as well as the buying and selling of sex between consenting adults.
Both bills are tied to the DecrimMA coalition, co-lead by Black and Pink Massachusetts and Whose Corner Is It Anyway, a group of self-organizing street based sex workers. …
The third proposed law [filed by State Sen. Cyr and State Rep. Jack Patrick Lewis] would go far to reduce sexual, physical and emotional abuse experienced by LGBTQI+ prisoners. The “RIGHTS Act” was drafted with significant input from people who are currently incarcerated. Provisions include enhanced procedures for cell-matching, reduced use of solitary confinement, voluntary self-help groups, and increased data collection. In addition, this bill would reduce barriers to accessing medications that treat or prevent HIV infection.
Finally, Rep. Lewis and Sen. Cyr worked with Black and Pink Massachusetts to file a fourth bill to repeal archaic laws that criminalize sodomy. “An Act Repealing Homophobic and Transphobic Laws” would remove these laws from the books.
For more, go to blackandpinkma.org.
Not a subscriber? Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine. We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information. Click HERE to sign up!
