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Adbusters

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Adbusters Media Foundation describe themselves as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.  Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century."  The Foundation hosts a website offering an ongoing, irreverant cultural critique of the ever-so-critiqueable world of advertising, and publishes Adbusters magazine, a bi-monthly glossy magazine investigating, exposing and spoofing the ad industry.  In May 2002, Adbusters published a "Mad World/Mad Pride" issue (currently out of print) which featured scathing critiques of the pharmaceutical industry.  They have since added a "Mad Pride Tour" to their website, featuring original art, news articles, links, and an open, on-going "Drug Takers Forum" where people swap stories about their experiences with psychiatric medications and the mental health system.  http://www.adbusters.org/home/   [Top] 

Arlene Ripley

This prolific and adept nature photographer kindly granted permission to use her pollination photos (including the one on the right) to illustrate the report on stigma and discrimination, so that we may all collectively rethink "stigma". http://www.nestbox.com/   [Top]

Bonfire Madigan 

Led by San Francisco ex-pat firebrand cello player, vocalist and songstress Madigan Shive, this critically acclaimed chamber-punk outfit  has recently regrouped and evolved in New York City.  Originally from Seattle and for years the Bay Area's best-kept musical secret, BMad has torched the hearts of audiences around the world with a captivatingly soulful yet spine-tinglingly edgy array of unforgettable tunes including "Smoke Signals from the Burnpile" (currently available on the 2004 anthology i bleed: a decade of song on Madigan's homegrown Moonpuss label) – played (with permission) as a theme song during workshop presentations of the CNMHC report-in-progress on discrimination and stigma.   

The multi-talented Madigan also drew the iconic straitjacket image (right), which appears on the cover of her 2003 EP release 88 (featuring a stellar rendition of Yoko Ono's "O' Sanity").  Accompanied on the back cover of the EP by a very large pair of scissors, the image has (with permission from the artist) adorned numerous flyers warning of local efforts to implement forced treatment and (circled and slashed) appeared on flyers for my consumer/survivor-led anti-oppression training, Mental Health 101.  http://www.bonfiremadigan.com/  [Top]

The Center for Independent Living

The world’s first organization run by and for people with disabilities, CIL, founded in 1972, supports disabled people in their efforts toward independence.  Based in Berkeley with three satellite offices in Oakland, CIL encourages people with disabilities to make their own choices and works to open doors in the community to full participation and access for all.  Services include peer counseling, workshops and support groups for  youth and adults, disability benefits counseling, housing and employment services, deaf and deaf/blind services such as ASL interpreters and translation of written materials, independent living skills training, individual and systems change advocacy, assistive technology services to help consumers obtain, repair and understand how to use assistive devices such as ramps, wheelchairs, TTY's and computers, blind services such as reader referrals and the rental and sale of canes, Braille paper and Books On Tape®, educating consumers on the rights and benefits available through the Department of Rehabilitation, disability sensitivity training in schools, and technical assistance to teachers in accommodating youth with disabilities.  CIL staff work hard to make CIL a friendly, useful resource and a fully accessible space for all people with disabilities, including people labeled with mental health disabilities.  CNMHC Bay Area Regional Coordinator Delphine Brody serves on CIL's Board of Directors, where she chairs the newly created Legislation and Advocacy Committee and also serves on the Board's Program Committee.  http://www.cilberkeley.org/index.htm  [Top] 


Confluere

Confluere is a publicity alliance of activists and artists committed to progressive social change through public education, mobilization, and artistic expression. Basically, they are a "speaker's bureau" without the centralized bureau, meaning that each speaker/performer books her or his own gigs, but they share resources and contacts in order to reach a broader audience.  Featured speakers and performers include local luminaries such as activist, writer and performance poet Thea Hillman and activist, writer and speaker Kim So Yung, along with incredibly talented multi-issue social justice advocates and artists from around the country, such as Portland-based activist, writer and speaker Emi Koyama and Chicago-based musician, writer and performer Nomy Lamm.   

You can also read columns by Confluere speakers and friends and order zines and chapbooks by Confluere writers such as Emi Koyama's paper about transforming the movement against domestic violence, Disloyal to Feminism (pictured above) and a wide selection of clever, sharp and irreverant buttons (such as the one at the left).  http://www.confluere.com/index.html  [Top] 

Dylan Scholinski

Born Daphne, Scholinski was locked up as a teen for three years in a mental hospital, where she was diagnosed as an "inappropriate female" and spent the rest of her high school years undergoing extreme femininity training.  At 18, her insurance ran out and she was discharged.

Now 39, Dylan Scholinski resides in Washington DC and is a distinguished artist, author, and public speaker.  His book, The Last Time I Wore a Dress: A Memoir (with Jane Meredith Adams, 1997, Penguin Putnam), which received national attention, has raised public awareness about psychiatric abuse of trans and gender-variant youth who are labeled with gender identity disorder (GID).  Dylan has appeared on 20/20, Dateline and Today to discuss his experiences and has been featured in a variety of newspapers and magazines.  His work not only portrays the anguish of his hospital years but also his ultimate triumph.  http://www.dylanscholinski.com/  [Top]

Eminism

Multi-issue activist, scholar and internationally known speaker Emi Koyama's personal website offers a dizzying array of brilliant and insightful writing on important and all-too-often misunderstood topics ranging from intersex to the domestic violence industry and from third-wave feminism to racism and classism -- a must-see for survivors, cross-disability activists, social justice advocates, academics and skeptics alike.  A prolific, persuasive writer, Emi maintains an archive of online commentaries she posts to various message boards and mailing lists, driving home key points on a wide range of issues.  Emi's amazing assortment of zines and buttons can be purchased through this site as well.  http://eminism.org/index.html  [Top]

The Freedom Center

Northampton, Massachusetts is home to this peer advocacy and support center, the area's only group run by and for people labeled with "severe mental illnesses".  They call for compassion, human rights, self-determination, and holistic alternatives to what they see as "the mental health system's widespread despair, abuse, fraudulent science and dangerous treatments".  The Center offers regular free acupuncture clinics, yoga classes, writing and peer suppport groups.  Recently, the center initiated a campaign to end mental health screenings in their state and to contribute to the nation-wide movement of opposition to screening programs, such as those now being proposed by some California psychiatrists for funding under the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Prevention and Early Intervention component.  http://www.freedom-center.org/   [Top] 

Google Page Creator Guide

This site by soon-to-be UC Berkeley grad student Rami El Mawas provides links to some of the many new websites that are being built with Google Page Creator (including this one).  Page Creator's simple, user-friendly format, along with a few tech tips from other users (such as these by Mawas, who is currently working towards a Bachelors of Engineering in Computers and Communications at American University of Beirut, Lebanon) allowed me to put this site up very quickly over the last few months, despite being completely HTML-illiterate.  If you're looking for free, easy-to-use web-design software and free hosting (with up to 100 MB storage), I recommend asking a friend to invite you to open a Gmail (Google e-mail) account and then getting on the waiting list for Page Creator.   http://rami.mawas.googlepages.com/gpcguide   [Top] 

Idriss Stelley Foundation

In June 2001, Idriss Stelley, a 23-year-old African American college student and mental health client, was shot over 20 times and killed by nine San Francisco police officers as he stood alone in an empty theater at the Sony Metreon.  The fatal shooting, in response to a 5150 call, and the ensuing wrongful death lawsuit by Idriss Stelley's family against the City & County of San Francisco and the SF Police Department (SFPD), resulted in an out-of-court settlement, and Idriss' mother,  Mesha Monge-Irizarry (pictured at right with a photo of her son) and partner and co-mother Sandra-Juanita Cooper, used the allocation money to co-found ISF.  Public outcry over this tragic and preventable loss led to a 2002 Board of Supervisors resolution mandating the implementation of a 40-hour SFPD crisis intervention training and the passage of SF police reform measure Proposition H in 2003.  ISF is a nonprofit organization providing free, confidential services to biological and extended families whose loved ones have been disabled or killed by law enforcement.  Services include know-your-rights workshops, the Victory oVer Violence support group, one-on-one support counseling, community altars, a 24-hour trilingual Spanish/French/English crisis line, family outreach training program, monitoring of SFPD, input into SFPD trainings and Prop H implementation, attending Police Commission hearings, participation in Citizens' Police Academy trainings, a volunteer and undergraduate program, and free e-mail and Internet access to families and youth affected by law enforcement misconduct. http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/idrissstelleyfoundation/   [Top]

 



Intersex Initiative

Intersex Initiative (IPDX) is a Portland, Oregon based international activist and advocacy organization for people born with intersex conditions. Director Emi Koyama was previously a staffer at Intersex Society of North America before founding Intersex Initiative in January 2003.  Intersex (also known as DSD, or disorder of sex differentiation) refers to a series of medical conditions in which a child's genetic sex (chromosomes) and phenotypic sex (genital appearance) do not match, or are somehow different from the "standard" male or female. About one in 2,000 babies are born visibly intersexed, while some others are detected later. The current medical protocol calls for the surgical "reconstruction" of these different but healthy bodies to make them "normal," but this practice has become increasingly controversial as adults who went through the treatment report being physically, emotionally, and sexually harmed by such procedures.  The trauma of medical abuse reported by intersex people as a result of doctors' labeling of their differences as "abnormal, medical emergencies" and treatment protocol of coerced, often repeated medical intervention on infants, children and adolescents using "display", dangerous drugs and irreversible surgery, reinforced through shame and secrecy, links the intersex movement with the psychiatric survivors' movement and the cross-disability movement. For more information about intersex, please see the articles section on the IPDX site.  http://intersexinitiative.org/    [Top]

MindFreedom International

Described in Adbusters as the "the epicenter of the 'mad movement'", MindFreedom International is a coalition of over 100 grassroots groups and thousands of members "united... to win campaigns for human rights of people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities. MindFreedom International is where mutual support meets human rights activism... and where democracy meets the mental health system."  http://www.mindfreedom.org/    [Top] 

MindFreedom Oral History Project

Freedom Center co-founder Oryx Cohen directs the this landmark project, one of very few independent consumer/survivor-run research projects, which involves collecting stories from psychiatric survivors, consumers, and ex-patients about their experiences in the mental health system, via face-to-face interviews and some written surveys.  "Many participants in the project have struggled through difficult emotional times, and all have suffered through psychiatric labeling and an often abusive and patronizing mental health system, yet they survived, and even thrive," notes Oryx in the website's project overview.  The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) recently named Oryx as one of ten Finalists for its 2006 Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award.   http://www.mindfreedom.org/histories.shtml   [Top]

National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy

This venerable 25-year-old grassroots, independent organization of  psychiatric survivors, consumers, attorneys and advocates hosts an annual educational conference on civil and human rights issues that impact the lives of users and survivors of the mental health system, attended by people from all over the country.  At the exciting NARPA 2005 Conference, "Reclaiming Freedom: A Call to Action" in Hartford, Connecticut – chaired by Freedom Center co-founder Oryx Cohen and coordinated by Alabama mental health client rights advocates Pamela Trammell and Ann Marshall – CNMHC Bay Area Regional Coordinator Delphine Brody and President Nancy Thomas presented a workshop on stigma and discrimination, and  award-winning independent filmmakers Angela Shelton and  Jonathan Couette presented their incredible new films, Searching for Angela Shelton and Tarnation (both highly recommended).  http://www.narpa.org/   [Top] 

National Empowerment Center 

Based in Boston, NEC staff speak at conferences all over the world – including CNMHC's recent Client Forum in San Mateo, CA, where NEC Education and Training Director Judi Chamberlin gave an inspiring keynote speech on the importance of consumers and survivors' on-going movement for civil and human rights, and NEC Executive Director Dan Fisher presented a workshop and plenary speech on recovery. Dan has also led two CNMHC Self-Help Leadership Trainings this past year.  NEC staff are internationally recognized authors of many publications and books, including Judi's On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives.  Many of their papers have been published in professional journals, scholastic books, popular press and alternative publications.  The NEC also keeps updated lists of consumer-run organizations and advocacy in all 50 states. In addition, they are active in the cross-disability movement and can help you network with independent living centers and disability rights groups across the country. NEC feels that it is imperative for consumer/survivor/ex-patient views to be represented at the table where policy decisions are made, and take every opportunity to meet with national policy makers, from the White House to HMOs and state mental health departments.  The NEC hosted Alternatives 2005 in Phoenix, Arizona, where CNMHC members from the Bay Area and Far North Regions presented a workshop on stigma and discrimination to a roomful of consumers and survivors from around the world.  Big thanks to Alt '05 conference coordinators Judene Shelley and Dan Fisher for a wonderful conference.  http://www.power2u.org/   [Top] 

Protection & Advocacy, Inc. 

Protection and Advocacy, Inc., (PAI) is California's statewide non-profit agency that is federally mandated to protect, advocate for and advance the human and legal rights of people with disabilities, including people with mental health disabilities.  They  provide advocacy services including representing people with disabilities in administrative and judicial proceedings, bringing impact litigation and acting as amicus curiae when a case affects our rights, investigating complaints of serious physical and sexual abuse, and of neglect-related death in institutions, training us on our legal, civil and service rights and ways to enforce them, providing technical support and training for people with disabilities, their families and advocates, providing client/survivor-driven peer/self-advocacy services, providing patients' rights advocacy at the four state psychiatric hospitals and technical assistance and training for county advocates under a contract with the State Department of Mental Health.  PAI's bulletin board and newsletters offer important news updates on issues of importance to consumers and survivors.  As a member (along with the CNMHC) of the Coalition Advocating for Rights, Empowerment and Services (CARES), PAI has been instrumental in providing the advocacy expertise (and legal muscle) to keep Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) programs voluntary, community based and client-driven and to keep forced treatment laws such as involuntary outpatient commitment law AB 1421 in check.  Now PAI is once again working closely with the Network, to help put the brakes on AB 2357, a bill that would extend the 2008 sunset date of AB 1421.  http://www.pai-ca.org/   [Top]

RoadDawgz

This San Francisco youth drop-in media and resource center not only serves as ground zero for  a generation of young homeless writers and artists in the city; it also hosted one of our twelve focus groups in the late summer of 2004.  Ably staffed by publisher/editor (and independent filmmaker) Machiko Saito, RoadDawgz is a rare and precious resource for young people in the Bay Area who squat, travel, couch-surf or are just in-between apartments.  The drop-in offers a place to relax, free food, art supplies, computer and internet access, and an opportunity to self-publish art and writing on the organization's website, http://home.roaddawgz.org/stories/   [Top] 

Survivor Project

Survivor Project is a Portland, Oregon-based non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the needs of intersex and trans survivors of domestic and sexual violence through caring action, education and expanding access to resources and to opportunities for action.  Ably staffed by Diana Courvant and Emi Koyama, Survivor Project has provided presentations, consultation, materials, information and referrals to many anti-violence organizations and universities across the country, as well as gathered information about issues faced by intersex and trans survivors of domestic and sexual violence since 1997.  In addition to their expertise on trans and intersex survivors' issues, the organization's steady focus and leadership on multi-issue anti-oppression work, survivor-positive organizing, empowerment and harm reduction have made them a firebrand for grassroots, survivor-driven social change in the mainstream national anti-violence movement and beyond.  http://www.survivorproject.org/   [Top]

Link to This Website

If you would like to link to this website:

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  • Finally, please email me, Bay Area Regional Coordinator Delphine Brody, and let me know on what website you posted the link or if you shared the link with people you know.  Thank you for spreading the word; because of folks like you, our message gets out to many more people.

*  The new homepage mirrors the original homepage, http://delphinegrrl.googlepages.com/strategiesfortransformation, and links seamlessly with the other pages of the website in the original domain.  In the next few months, I plan to move the whole site to the new domain, but I'll forward visitors there from the "delphinegrrl" pages.  

- Delphine  

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Note:  This page is still under construction.  Stay tuned for more links and information about inspiring artists, insightful writing, and exciting resources in the Bay Area and beyond ;-)