Gender JUST (Justice United in Societal Transformation) came about in 2008, as a loose conglomeration of CPS students and education activists who were concerned about LGBT-related. Till about 2011, GJ focused on CPS-related matters, taking stands on matters relating to the privatization of the system, the reform of CPS measures to combat the widespread problem of bullying of LGBT youth, and the mainstream gay agenda which focused on marriage, hate crime legislation, and inclusion in the military.
As Gender JUST we mobilize against all forms of oppression, domination, and violence in pursuit of a world in which the conditions exist for everyone to experience health, safety, and to thrive.
As such (1) we oppose all forms of state power, capitalism, and supremacy formed along lines of race, class, gender, age, or ability.
(2) We are dedicated to principles of transformative justice and work toward a world in which community-based justice processes replace the legal/prison systems as primary mechanisms of accountability/redress in our lives.
(3) We resist carceral logics within feminist, queer, and activist spaces and do not look to the state to protect us from violence.
(4) We do not view the military, marriage, or nonprofit organizations as institutions through which we can secure liberation but respect the choices of individuals who enter into them.
(5) We respect a diversity of tactics and will not deploy the state against those who engage in political activities deemed irresponsible by champions of respectability.
(6) We look to develop autonomous modes of struggle not contained within the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC).
We are also continuing our organizing around the matter of resource distribution, extending the work we did around HIV/AIDS funding as well as the interrogating the work of organizations like the Center on Halsted. As nonprofits absorb and redirect funds towards themselves with the claims of serving their LGBTQ "clients," GJ, as a grassroots organization, is uniquely positioned to challenge the marginalization of those whose needs are too often pushed aside in the name of "management" and often dismissed as mere "clients." We are also deeply committed to archiving and documenting a history of queer radical work in the midwest, and demonstrating the breadth and range of such in a region too often seen as secondary to the coasts. We work with limited resources but with boundless energy and commitment. As one of our most beloved friends once described us, we are small but mighty.
Who is Gender JUST?
G.J. Points of Unity
Origins
As our timeline (in progress) indicates, the group began as an Alinsky-style organization, aggressively pursuing its goals through a series of widely-publicized campaigns. These included picketing CPS and its CEO Ron Huberman until he relented and agreed to meet with us to discuss LGBT issues and protesting outside the Center on Halsted to demand changes to its treatment of its clients.
Over the years, GJ has seen significant changes in leadership and structure. The initial burst of activity provided CPS and non-CPS queer youth, and youth of color in particular a way to express and solidify their political critiques of a harmful and demeaning administration. GJ in its early years became a place for queer youth to conceive and enact a politics of change.
In more recent years, GJ has shifted away from Alinsky-style organizing and adopted a more horizontal, intergenerational, and multi-racial structure. It seeks to collaborate with people and organizations already doing the work of change in intentional and productive ways. It continues its work of expressing not only dissent from a mainstream gay agenda but of articulating a radical political critique that offers a different vision of what a world without the tyranny of prisons, wars, and the demands of normativity might look like. To this end, we host events across the city (link to events page) and publish materials (link to resources page) which seek to reflect upon and push forward a radical re-imagining of the world we would all like to live in.