A Butch in Solitary Confinement
Hollywood screenwriter Maisha Yearwood spent 3 months in solitary confinement at a Turkish prison in Istanbul in 2009. Locked in solitary because, as she describes it: "Placed in a room alone because I am an out butch lesbian. A gender-nonconforming woman. The powers that be (The warden? The government? I had no idea) did not want me to be “disruptive” to the women's prison population, so they placed me in solitary..."
[caption id="attachment_66922" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Photo Credit: Advocate.com[/caption]
Maisha is currently turning her experience during those 3 months into a play, 9 Grams, set to be directed by S. Epatha Merkerson. But, you can read more about her experience, retold in vivid and captivating detail, right now over on Advocate. Here's a taste of what you can expect:
"It's hard to speak about the shame and guilt that I feel for the stupid act of traveling with drugs. The stupidity of what I'd done. The shame of being a girl from Harlem who has two parents and had attended Bank Street School for Children, Sarah Lawrence College, and the American Film Institute. I'd written a movie for Halle Berry at 20th Century Fox. I'm not the kind of girl who gets locked up for drugs. I'm not that kind of black person, yet here I was in Istanbul, being just another nigga. I had no business being there, but I had made bad choices that left me there. I made a mistake. In this case I more than paid for it because I am a black butch lesbian."
Click here for the full article.
[caption id="attachment_66922" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Photo Credit: Advocate.com[/caption]
Maisha is currently turning her experience during those 3 months into a play, 9 Grams, set to be directed by S. Epatha Merkerson. But, you can read more about her experience, retold in vivid and captivating detail, right now over on Advocate. Here's a taste of what you can expect:
"It's hard to speak about the shame and guilt that I feel for the stupid act of traveling with drugs. The stupidity of what I'd done. The shame of being a girl from Harlem who has two parents and had attended Bank Street School for Children, Sarah Lawrence College, and the American Film Institute. I'd written a movie for Halle Berry at 20th Century Fox. I'm not the kind of girl who gets locked up for drugs. I'm not that kind of black person, yet here I was in Istanbul, being just another nigga. I had no business being there, but I had made bad choices that left me there. I made a mistake. In this case I more than paid for it because I am a black butch lesbian."
Click here for the full article.