Print PDF

† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Kay Whitlock, co-author of Queer (In)Justice, is contributing editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm.

A World Without Cages: Thoughts on Vegan, Trans, and Prison Abolitionist Practices
by Jed Walsh*

INTRODUCTION

The first time I viscerally felt a connection between prison abolition and the treatment of animals was while listening to the song “The Tigers Have Spoken” by Neko Case. Case sang the words, “They shot the tiger on his chain, in the field behind the cages. He walked in circles ‘til he was crazy, and he lived that way forever.” I started bawling. Earlier that week, I had attended a production of “In the Belly” by RedBird Prison Abolition, a play which had depicted experiences of long-term solitary confinement in US prisons. What I remember most from that extremely powerful and haunting play was a scene of an incarcerated person pacing continually in their cell: muttering, pacing, cursing,  pacing, lashing out at the walls and objects around them, and pacing again. I was shaken by the endlessness, desperation, and madness of the pacing. And when I heard the Neko Case song a few days later, I thought, of course. Of course tigers and incarcerated people experience confinement, isolation, and deprivation in similar ways. How is it that we have refused to acknowledge their common suffering for so long? This essay is for the tigers, for the incarcerated people that I’ve met, and for everyone in cages.

LINKING VEGANISM, TRANS IDENTITY, AND PRISON ABOLITION

Three of my identities are vegan, transgender, and prison abolitionist. I am also white, queer, able-bodied, and raised middle-class. In my life, I’ve found that my veganism, my gender identity, and my abolitionism are linked in how I experience them. But I rarely find political writing or frameworks that explicitly spell out connections between veganism and prison abolition, let alone both of those struggles with transgender liberation. So I’m writing this essay as an intervention and a foray into the kinds of conversations that I want to have all the time.

Here are some of the philosophical similarities between those three identities that have become apparent to me over the past few years. In looking at trans issues, veganism, and the prison system, each of the three paradigms entails a dichotomy in which one group is positioned as “normative” or “superior,” while the opposing group is considered “other” or “inferior.” Cissexism in our society means that non-trans people are considered normal and healthy, while trans people are relegated to existing only as the deviant and  grotesque “other.” Speciesism elevates the concerns and rights of humans over those of animals. And in our massively incarcerated society where 2.3 million people live in cages every year, non-prisoners are the good people, while everyone else is labeled a dangerous criminal. The “others” in each of the three paradigms suffer similar consequences. They are stigmatized as freakish and violent; they are deemed outside the realm of moral consideration; and they are ultimately judged to be inherently deserving of punishment, harm, abuse, and death.

I see cages as both a literal description of and as a metaphor for the structures that confine and devastate trans people, animals, and incarcerated people. I prefer the term “cages” instead of “cells” to describe the enclosures in which incarcerated people live, just as many prison abolitionists insist on using the word “prison” instead of “correctional facilities” or “institutions.” I believe the words “cages” and “prisons” more accurately represent the severity of the harm done to incarcerated people by their forced imprisonment. I use “cages” also for the pens and crates used to house the millions of pigs, hens, and cows in factory farms across the US. Finally, the gender binary and expectations of normative femininity and masculinity are the cages that I have in mind when I think about the experiences of trans and gender non-conforming people, although of course trans people (especially trans women of color) are overrepresented in the literal cages of prison cells. I often hear prisons talked about as a form of social control utilized against oppressed groups, and I absolutely concur that prisons and cages are about control. But I also want to say that the cages I list above enact an overwhelming and pervasive physical, mental, and spiritual violence against those trapped inside them. The cages themselves cause harm and are violence.

PRACTICING LIBERATION DAILY

The words “trans,” “vegan,” and “prison abolitionist” represent more than different identities that I hold. Instead, I view each of those words as a practice and something to be lived daily. As someone who fails to meet the norms associated with being either a “man” or a “woman,” I have a chance daily to try to reject the strictures of the gender binary. I hope that by taking a name other than the one given to me at birth, asking people to use unconventional pronouns for me, and identifying publicly as transgender that I am making at least a little more space in the world for other people who are gender non-normative. It’s an ongoing process. Likewise, the work of veganism or prison abolitionism isn’t something that can ever be finished or a term that signifies that I believe I’ve reached some kind of lofty resting place. Both of them require ongoing action, thought, intentionality, and reflection, and the meaning of both terms are always in flux for me. I want my practices of trans-ness, veganism, and prison abolition to be practices that I build every day and that are aimed toward a transformative collective liberation for all. What do I mean by that? How can I place such a high emphasis on my individual actions while claiming that I’m working for collective liberation? I’m still not sure. I want to recognize that these practices are my personal choices and that I cannot and do not wish to force them on anyone. I do, however, want to invite other people into this shared space of rethinking and deconstructing the many kinds of cages that exist and seeing which cages we can empty through working collaboratively with each other.

A few months ago, Anna Vo posted this statement on Twitter: “I found out Angela Davis is vegan and felt affirmed that transformative justice is humane alternative to prison” (@ibeannavo). This comment made me very excited and made so much sense to me! I’ve been reading a lot recently about prefigurative politics—the idea that we can create the world we want to see now—and veganism and transformative justice both resonate with me as tangible strategies for prefiguring a world without cages. Every vegan meal that I eat is an opportunity for me to reflect on and deepen the fact that I don’t believe in cages of any kind, or in punishment in general. Not believing in punishment has truly been a difficult thing for me to wrap my head around. When I first started articulating the idea that I was opposed to any kind of punishment for anyone, I felt genuinely scared of the consequences of that position. But there’s something I find reassuring about eating vegan food. If I know without a doubt that living without consuming animal products is possible, then I am also capable of believing in a world where no one is ever punished, even if that’s a difficult world for me to fully comprehend right now.

I think of transformative justice as a practice that relies a great deal on the deliberate use of skills like patience, forgiveness, and compassion. I strive to grow my patience and forgiveness in small ways every single day: on the bus, at the café, with my parents, and with my friends. Sometimes I’m dismayed by how absolutely difficult it can be to forgive others, to be patient with them, to seek to not punish anyone, ever. There are harrowing and frustrating moments along this path, and I think these difficult spots are unavoidable. But there’s also another component of transformative justice, of my veganism, and of my trans identity. A component that underlies all of them and provides the bedrock for them: the feeling of uncontainable, wild joy. I know this joy well, because it lives in my body and I have become aware many times of how great my capacity is for bliss and happiness. In these moments when I am overcome with a transcendent joy..

This feeling of joy, of celebrating my non-normative gender, of negotiating the complexities of oppression and compassion, and of eating delicious food all the while is best encapsulated for me in a memory I have of cooking dinner with my friend Loan. Like me, Loan is a gender non-conforming person and deeply invested in transformative justice practices. One night in the house we shared briefly in Seattle, we cooked a vegan soup together made of beans, kale, onions, carrots, and spices. We talked in the kitchen while we chopped vegetables; we strategized together for resistance and liberation; and most of all, we laughed. This memory is small, but it is not fragile. It is resilient, powerful, and beautiful. Like my friendship with Loan: like the world we are all building together, every day.

I want to thank Chanelle Gallant and Lisa Marie Alatorre of EverydayAbolition.com, Loan Tran, and Anna Vo for being some of the folks who inspired me to write this essay.

* Jed Walsh is a poet and organizer raised in Des Moines, IA, and currently living in Seattle, WA. Jed takes inspiration from radical queer and trans* frameworks that reject state and interpersonal violence and that work to build liberatory, accountable communities. Jed is proud to be involved with EverydayAbolition and the Alternatives to Violence Project .

(367)