Losing Planned Parenthood

I am enraged that the Texas legislature decided to cut state funding for Planned Parenthood.  As a woman who has been without insurance most of her adult life, PP has always been a source of affordable medical care for me.  If I need birth control, UTI treatment or my annual Well Woman Exam, I make an appointment, pay a reasonable fee and see a doctor or nurse practitioner who I know I can trust.  I am pro-choice but you know what I’ve never used Planned Parenthood for?  An abortion.  Guess what, kids?  STATE AND FEDERAL FUNDS CANNOT BE USED TO FUND ABORTION.  No matter how much money the state of Texas gives to fund Planned Parenthood, 0% of it is used for abortion services.  Defunding PP means taking away medical services from women who cannot afford it any other way.  I have searched for other clinics that offer women’s health services and they are few and far between – certainly not enough to cover the hundreds of thousands of women across the state who will no longer have access to affordable health care.

Feminist blogger Andrea Grimes conducted her own search of the Dallas area women’s clinics and had a similarly depressing experience.  She couldn’t even get most clinics to call her back because they already had such a huge caseload.  County and state facilities are already underfunded and overwhelmed.  The new breed of pregnancy crisis centers that are springing up are mostly faith based, and while I respect your right to your faith, I really don’t want to be proselytized to while I’m getting a PAP smear.  I never had any kind of ideology pushed on me at Planned Parenthood – pro-choice or anti-abortion; Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist; Republican or Democrat – all are welcome there.  “Take care of yourself” is the main message they preach.  “Make healthy choices.  Know your body.”  I guess that’s just too radical for some people.

Guess what else disappears with the funding?  The teen clinic.  My last job was working with teen parents and you know what most teens don’t have?  Money.  Resources.  Time to sign up for endless wait lists and to call fifteen different clinics trying to set up an exam or get STI testing or birth control.  Less access, more pregnancies.  Less education, more pregnancies.  Less birth control, more pregnancies.  More teen pregnancies, more conservative indignation that our tax dollars are going to support these horrible young people who *gasp* have had sex.  Never mind that these are the teens who are having their babies instead of abortions – shouldn’t conservatives be holding these young people up on their shoulders and supporting them in any way they can?  “You had your baby, so we’ll help you raise it in a great, healthy way.”  Nope.  No birth control, no education, more condemnation, more judgment, less support.  Many of the women I see at the jail were or are young mothers.  Many of these women are struggling to keep their heads above water – now they can’t even get healthcare without going to the ER?  That’s what I’ll be doing next time I have a UTI.

So why?  Why does the state of Texas hate women and children?  Why does it feel that women’s health is unimportant, that poor children are not worth supporting and that the Old Testament value of punishment is more important than the New Testament’s message of forgiveness and help?  My grandfather was a minister and I was raised with Jesus.  I don’t believe that the smirking, judgmental folks who sit in the state legislature bear any relation to the radically peaceful, forgiving, and compassionate Christ I’ve always respected.  I’ll be donating some of my last paycheck to Planned Parenthood.  If you can afford it, I hope you do too.  

-Kat Craft

More media, please

We have been receiving so much media attention lately that it’s been making my head spin.  It’s both wonderful and terrifying to be in the spotlight – this is my baby that you’re writing about here!  I think there’s been some good and thoughtful pieces written and I’m delighted at how exciting our work is to many people.  Since our work is mostly invisible, it’s funny to feel so exposed.  Deep breaths, Kat – you can’t control everything!

I need to think about bringing some of these articles into my class at the jail and get their opinions on it all.  I talked to them about our mission statement last week and they gave me some good tips.  We’ll be removing the word “marginalized” and adding “allies.”  The new mission will go something like: “To offer incarcerated women and their allies a healing and empowering experience through theatre and creative writing.”

Here’s the latest article about Conspire, written by my friend and colleague Georgia Young at Austinist.  Check it out!

-Kat Craft

Aha Moments

Lauren Johnson, a Conspire Theatre alum, continues guest blogging for us about her experiences with incarceration, relationships and life in general. 

When I was a teenager, I used to have a little saying. It began as a joke, as well as a way to sound wise, and slowly became my philosophy. The saying went something like this: “ Men are dogs, no surprises, nothing hidden, what you see is what you get, they are dogs. Women on the other hand are back stabbing, vindictive, two faced, treacherous, scandalous,(and on and on and on).” I would paint the picture of a Hallmark commercial with a beautiful sandy beach, where off in the distance a woman would be running toward you in slow motion, arms open wide as if she were going to hug you, and instead of a hug, when she arrived in the space in front of you, she would knock you out.

I don’t recall having any real bad experiences prior to coming up with this philosophy. I think I must have just said it once and gotten a good response to it and just kept it going from there. I believe the words we use do have a huge impact on how we think. So what began as a joke that jolted my status into the upper realms of coolness became something that I truly believed over a period of time. I never really questioned it and just accepted it as a truth.

The first rehabilitation setting that I found myself in was called the Modified Therapeutic Community or MTC. It was a program inside of the Gatesville prison Woodman unit. Instead of having jobs like the rest of the women on the unit, we spent all day going to groups, and were held to a higher standard than the rest of the unit. One day in our groups we watched a video taught by Hyrum Smith, called the Franklin Reality Model. It is a cognitive restructuring technique in which individuals are asked to identify a belief that they have and break it down to see how that belief is meeting their needs, over time.

You may think that identifying a belief is easy until you are the one in that hot seat. The basic current in the room often starts with religious belief, and that is not a good one to start off with since the controversy in the room takes away from the exercise. It took me a moment to come up with one that I thought would be a good starting point for this exercise, but after watching the example on the video, I decided to use my longtime philosophy for the exercise. We explored the belief and I began to find that this was something a lot of the women in the room identified with. At the end of the exercise the counselor spoke and brought it to our attention that this philosophy created an expectation. In life, we have a tendency of looking for realities that match up with our expectations. By creating that expectation, how could any of us have a healthy relationship with anyone? This way of thinking exhibited distrust for every human being and being women, it also on some level is a form of self hatred.

The whole concept behind cognitive therapy is that if we are able to identify our thoughts that lead to negative behavior, then we can change the negative behavior. What the counselor had said made sense, and so I decided to give a new way of thinking a try. It was a safe environment to try it in and so I began slowly to change my expectations with little things and watch the results. People being the fallible humans that they are, the results were not always positive but when I began to look through the new perspective that I was developing, I had more empathy and more realistic expectations.

When a new girl joined our program, I had the chance to try this out. I did not know her, but I had been sleeping with her boyfriend when she first got locked up and so we had him and other “friends” in common. It was awkward at first but we talked and I believed that we became friends. I could definitely relate to her. One night she came by my bed and asked me if I could put a letter in the mailbox on my way to breakfast since she wasn’t going. The letter was to the boyfriend. Curiosity got the best of me and I read the letter. ( Letters going out can not be sealed ) The letter said some really nasty things about me to him, things like, “ I expected you to be with someone better than that nasty thing”.  Needless to say this didn’t do much to help me in my new endeavor. I confided all of this to another woman there and she helped me to process the information and decide what to do about it. I also did some praying that night, and in the morning I had an epiphany.

Aside from me being sneaky and crossing her boundaries by reading her personal mail which I had no right to do, I was all of a sudden keenly aware that maybe this was her way of dealing with her own pain. I looked at things from her perspective and made the mature decision that this was her way of coping with her circumstances, and by looking at the situation from that perspective, it helped me to grow from it and move on. I am actually still friends with the lady today, she doesn’t know that I read her mail, or even that she had anything to do one way or another with one of my own personal struggles.

I am happy to say that I have built on this over the years and no longer hold on to my old way of thinking. My relationships are better for it because instead of looking at the actions of people like the motive behind them was evil, I look at them as simply being human, just like me.

Since then, I have voiced my experience in some of the groups that I have participated in. I am still astonished to find out what a common theme my old ways of thinking are in the lives of other women. Again I hope that by me sharing my experience some of them have begun a new way of thinking. Hence the importance of continuing to share it. To some this may seem very basic, but when we find ourselves in the midst of a life that needs to change, going back to the basics is often a good place to start.

As for other women who hold some form of my philosophy in their own lives, my advice would be that it is all about perspective! If you can change the view point that you are looking from to gain more empathy for others and their plights then in that I think there can be a starting point for change.

-Lauren Johnson

Our Indiegogo camapaign is still going strong – we’re trying to get 75 donors by September 1st.  Join us!

We run the Internet!

I got to write guest posts for TWO of my favorite feminist sites: HayLadies! and Tigerbeatdown.  I’ve loved reading both of them, so this was a really exciting chance to talk more about Conspire to a new audience.

HayLadies! on why punishing people doesn’t make us great Texans.

and

Tigerbeatdown on agency and identity of incarcerated women.

Our fundraiser is also still in full swing – we’re only $220 away from our final goal.  Jump on the bandwagon!

-Kat Craft

$2750?!

We are only $250 away from our goal!  We received several large donations today and had our biggest day yet: $750.  With 9 days to go, we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Founder and Executive Director Kat Craft has been undone by this unprecedented generosity.

10 Days Left!

Howdy friends!  We’ve had great success in our fundraising efforts so far, but we still need your support.  We have 10 days left to raise enough money to start a new class for women in the maximum security unit at the Travis County Correctional Complex.  If you’re waiting for the perfect time to donate, that time is now.

Click to donate.

THANK YOU!

 

The Process

We welcome back Lauren Johnson, a Conspire alum, who continues her Monday posts about her experiences being incarcerated, as well as her thoughts on social policy, drug laws and life in general. 

Six weeks after my son  was born, I signed for my sentence and was then sent to the prison in Dayton Texas – the Plane State unit. My aunt had just had back surgery and couldn’t make the drive to that unit because it was a 5 hour drive, almost every other transfer group was sent to Gatesville at that time.When she was finally able, my son was 5 months old. She came to see me and brought him and I held him again, with all of the fears of him not taking to me put to rest when he laid on my chest and went to sleep. My aunt told me he didn’t do that with just anyone and I held onto that and took comfort in it. I got my answer back from parole and a week after that visit I was sent to the SAF-P program facility in Burnet Texas. Everyone always tells horror stories about this place, but I was happy to go there because it meant I would get to see my son almost every weekend, and if I had that to look forward to I could get through anything that went on during the week.

SAF-P is a rehab inside the prison and I got a lot out of it and thought that the horror stories were unjustified. It is just like life, what you put into it is what you get out of it.  I took a voluntary Christian parenting class while I was there and every week they took down a prayer list to take  back to their church and have them pray over. Week after week, I prayed for my son’s father to get arrested so that he could stop running and start living and be a decent father. Two weeks before my release I walked out of the shower and looked up at the television in the dayroom only to see the photo of my son’s father next to a photo of our roommate on the news. My prayers had been answered. I was released to the half way house that is next door to the jail and received permission to visit him. He was sentenced to 90 days in the state jail and 5 years on probation. He was transferred to the state jail in town and on Mothers day 2005 I went to a lot of trouble to coordinate a visit. He met our son for the first time that day.

We still didn’t know at that time what , if any future we had together. We had never even officially been a couple but once he was released I had successfully done the requirements to be released to my fathers home and started working and we began to see each other and spend time together, sober. We began to plan a future together, moved in to a duplex within a few months and the following January got married.

I would love to tell you that this story has a happy ending. But as you know this is life and no one rides off into the sunset of happily ever after. Because life continues, and so does our story, We had a happy continuation for a while. Both becoming gainfully employed, adding two more children to our family, bought a house, and continued to move forward. I wish that the story didn’t include any relapses or recidivism, but it does.

I should probably mention that this was also not my first rehab. The first time that I went to prison I was placed in a modified version of SAF-P. It was voluntary and I stayed because I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it out.  So after five years of doing well and staying on track I relapsed and my husband followed and we began to feed off of each other. I could tell you a long detailed story but again mine is one of many. The details may change from person to person but the core issues are still the same. The disease of addiction tricks the mind, I believed that I could control it, and the core issue behind my relapse was pride and honesty. I knew that I needed to tell someone, but the shame of the fall was great and I kept telling myself I could fix it on my own. Since that was untrue It had to get worse before it got better.

Eventually I got pulled over and was charged with possession of a controlled substance. For the first time ever I was in a position to bond out of jail. I got clean and so did my husband but with my history, jail time was inevitable. I kept praying for a miracle thinking it would come in the form of probation. I tried to tell my lawyer that I had done well for a long time and hoped that would make a difference. Experience is the price of wisdom. My lawyer told me that the court saw it from a different perspective, that I just hadn’t been caught. So initially I didn’t see that I did get my miracle. I got the shortest prison sentence that I had ever received.

During the time that I was out on bond, I was clean and had started to clean up the mess that my relapse had left me with. We were blessed enough to have a married couple move in with us to help with our children while I was gone. When I went to Travis County Jail, I heard about the PRIDE program. My main reasons for signing up for it were to help make the time pass faster by staying in classes, and the hour long contact visit they offer once a month with my children. For me, the classes weren’t all new information.There is a cycle of information that is presented because everyone needs to start at the beginning and peel their own onion. I don’t think it makes it any less important though. For some women this is the first opportunity they have to think about their lives and learn things about themselves, and a first step to change. I want to say that this class can be life changing, although that doesn’t mean it is immediate.

I want the people looking from the outside in to know that change is a process. I don’t think that the success of the programs offered can be measured by the immediate success of the participants. Just because someone gets out and doesn’t change their life right away doesn’t mean that this part of their process was unsuccessful. I know for me that each step of the way has built on the step before it. I know a lot of programs get cut behind budget problems especially if the statistics don’t show results right away. I also know that women’s programs have a tendency to be the first on the chopping block. I hope that the people doing this important work don’t get discouraged by all of the red tape and I hope that through time we can remove the red tape and promote more programs facilitating a change that will impact future generations.

-Lauren Johnson

We’re still raising money for our new class in Maximum Security, set to start in October.  We’re 2/3 of the way there, with 10 days to go.  Please donate today!

Gold star

Since Michelle was orientating at Texas State today, where she’ll be teaching a Creative Drama class this semester, I was on my own today at the jail.  Small group today – only 7 women – but they all seemed pretty happy to be in class.  Since Michelle and I have been talking about the fundraiser, the women have been asking questions and like to keep up with how it’s going.  We showed the promo video a couple of weeks ago and today one the women said, “You’re gonna get a lot of money with that video.”  I hope so (hint hint)!

We played one of my favorite games, Wah!, which is less fun with a small group because you can’t really get people “out” because then there’s no one left to play.  To liven it up a a bit, I asked everyone to put an emotion on top of their “Wah!” and to react to each other.  It went from a pretty low-energy, unenthused activity to everyone flinging “Waaaaah!”s at each other and having a great time.  I love when whole scenarios and conversations unfold without a single coherent word being spoken.  Wah?  Waaaaah!  WAAaah.  WaaaAAAh!  wa.

We paired up and did partner improv where person A could say “Yes” and person B could only say “No”.  Some of the women mentioned that it made them uncomfortable because they didn’t like conflict.  We discussed that a bit but everyone felt okay playing around with a bit, so we did.  When I asked everyone what came up in their head when doing this, some said, “My kids” or “My boyfriend” and one woman said, “You don’t wanna know what I’m thinking.”  “What if I do?” I replied.

“Sex!” her partner yelled out.

“I already thought of that,” I said.  “Please.”

We switched to “Be quiet” and “Tell me”.  I paused everyone at various moments so we could watch the different pairs interact.  The earlier mention of conflict segued nicely into what I’d written on board: Types of Conflict.  We talked about person v. person, person v. society and person v. herself and thought of examples.  Then I introduced Aristotle’s elements (exposition, rising action, climax – “To bring it all back to sex,” I said – falling action and denoument).  We analyzed Dirty Dancing to find the elements, and also talked about Patrick Swayze’s hotness.  I did also say that other ways to tell stories exist – that we don’t always have to follow those guidelines and asked if we could think of any stories that fell outside of that traditional arc.  For Colored Girls got mentioned but it was difficult to think of others.  Most mainstream movies and shows follow that structure pretty explicitly.

Once we had the elements down, I asked the partners to create a short scene that had a beginning, middle and end, and a person v. person conflict.  Each pair should draw inspiration and ideas from whatever came up in their yes/no, tell me/be quiet scenes.  Since there was an uneven number, I paired up with a woman (Ms. B) and she told me that our tell me/be quiet exercise reminded her of sitting in school – one girl trying to get another one to tell her a secret while the teacher is talking.  We crafted a fun little scene where I kept trying to get her to shush, and she escalated her attempts to get me to tell her.  It ended with both of us getting detention.  I said, “Detention? It was her fault!  I don’t wanna get detention!”  “Whatever,” she snickered, “I do it all the time.”  The whole class cracked up.

We performed for each other and I asked “What worked?  What did we like?” after every scene.  I usually ask those questions, but I’ve realized that I need to warn the group that I will be soliciting feedback on each scene.  Otherwise, they have nothing to say.  Planting the idea before they watch the scenes helps them all look for certain moments to talk about.

I tend to shy away from this kind of traditional theatre instruction but I’ve had many years of it.  I know all the rules so I know what to break and push back against.  Most of these women have very little experience in theatre, so going back to traditional foundations like Aristotle and scene creation seems to be quite fun for them.  Many of the women started taking notes when I talked about conflict and play structure.  I might make a handout!  I’m already giving out gold stars when they bring in homework.  And you know what?  They get excited about them.

-Katherine Craft

Sharing my story.

Today’s post marks the beginning of a new series on our blog.  Lauren Johnson, a former participant in the Conspire Theatre classes at the Travis County Correctional Complex, will be telling her story and writing about issues related to incarceration, drug laws and personal reflection.  We welcome her to the site and hope that you will as well – check back every Monday for a new post.

I am a 34 year old mother of 3 boys. I have been to prison three times. My story is unfortunately not unique. There are so many stories behind those bars and mine is just one of many.

I was arrested in 2002 and spent 6 months waiting to be released on the S.H.O.R.T. program, which is a drug court. Finally, upon my release I had stipulations to follow and I worked hard to do so while continuing to maintain my drug habit. I managed to stay out for 2 months before getting arrested on a new charge that was also drug related. My drug of choice was methamphetamine. Maintaining a habit like this takes time, planning, and is very chaotic. Priorities get out of line. One of the requirements of SHORT, like many programs is urinalysis. If you are a woman there are ways to pass it. I will spare you the details. Suffice to say that this also takes time and planning and I do understand that the only person being fooled or hurt by going through all of this trouble, was me.

One week before that arrest I had found out that I was pregnant. The father of the baby already had one child that he owed twelve thousand dollars in back child support for, he had a warrant for his arrest that he had been dodging for years and his fear of going to jail kept him stuck in a lifestyle that went nowhere. We attempted to discuss our options a few times over the course of that week but we could never make it more than a few words into the conversation because I would begin to weep, and he had no words or coping skills.

I did not want to have an abortion, but I also did not want to bring a child into that lifestyle and didn’t know what to do. So the arrest came and the choice  was made for us. We were having a baby! I was 27 years old and was altogether terrified, mystified and excited. Looking back I am thankful that I was locked up and made to sit still and really experience the pregnancy. Once the idea set in with me that I was having this baby, my world changed. My mother instinct sprang forward and ideas about the life I wanted for my child filled me.As court dates approached I began to think that the world had changed along with my mindset. I didn’t fully grasp the fact that I was not the first pregnant woman to enter into the criminal justice system, but it only took a couple of months to realize that in the court’s eyes nothing was different just because I was having a child.

Thankfully, my uncle’s soon to be ex wife offered to help me and take my son until I came home. She sent me money  occasionally, set her phone up so I could call her, wrote me, and came to visit me. That in itself was huge. If you also knew that the first time I ever compromised my integrity for drugs involved me stealing her credit card and putting her in a very bad financial position, you would be even more inspired at her compassion .

County time is harder to do than time in the actual prison where there are jobs to help the time pass. The days drag on, there isn’t much to do and living in one big room with 30 other women is difficult in itself. Add in the stress of outside life, the powerlessness of everyone in that room over it, and the hormones of a pregnant woman and it isn’t ideal by any means.

I spent my entire pregnancy in county by choice. The district attorney had gone as low as they were going to go with an offer of 4 years and I had come to terms with that but I had spoken to other women and heard their experience with going to the big girl prison pregnant. They would go to a medical unit and have the baby and if they were lucky they would get to spend an hour or two with the baby. If no one showed up within a specified time frame of a couple of days to pick up the baby then it would go to the State. I knew that if I put off my sentencing until after the baby was born that I would get to spend two to three days in the same room with my baby, and I wanted that opportunity.

Dylan was born on February 28th, 2004. I spent 2 days in the hospital holding him, putting him down only to go to the bathroom. I was lucky enough to have compassionate guards assigned to me for most of those two days and my aunt came and picked him up, and I went back to jail. That day was the worst day I think I have ever had in my life. Upon my return to the jail I was put in a medical holding cell by myself and I cried for 2 days straight. If I wasn’t asleep, I was sobbing. Finally they put me back in general population and I was able to process some of my thoughts and feelings and then able to talk and think about different things, but I still ached inside.

There is now a pilot program in TDCJ called Baby and Mother Bonding initiative, or BAMBI. It is a step in the right direction, however the space in the program is limited. In order to participate there are strict requirements that have to be met. If the sentence is longer than the guidelines permit, then the woman cannot participate and her only hope is that she has someone who can take the baby for her until she comes home. If not, the state will take the child and although the possibility exists that they may be reunited, there is a higher possibility that rights will be terminated. A small amount of information about the program may be found on the TDCJ website.

The choices that I have made in my life have not always been the best. I do choose to make the best out of my experiences and try to grow from them. I hope in sharing some of my story I can make a difference for someone else.

-Lauren Johnson

Our fundraising campaign is still going on – please visit our page to support our new class in Maximum Security! 

Going “Home”?

We had five women attend our class this week. Despite our relatively low numbers, we had a lovely, collaborative class with a lot of laughter and mutual support. We split into two small groups and adapted one woman’s short story (about a child moving to a new town) into performance pieces. It went well, and I’m excited to continue with that next week. But Kat and I wondered, where were the other women?

The women present told us that several of the others were in court, and that one of the women, whom I’ll call Debbie, had gone home.

Oh, good! I said. She’s home! But wait—where is home for her? “Oh, I don’t know,” said one of the women. “She might be homeless. She’s not in contact with her family.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about Debbie throughout our class. Did she have a safe place to sleep? Food to eat? Was she okay? Would she be able to build on the new skills she learned at the jail instead of falling back into old survival patterns? After our class, I asked some of the staff, “what happens to people when they’re released from here?”

What I learned is that the person’s first challenge is to get from the jail back to town, about seven miles away. The jail used to offer bus passes for released inmates, but unfortunately, for some reason they’re no longer able to.

One of the volunteers explained, “Sometimes when they get out, they don’t have any money for the bus, so they have to hitch a ride back to town. Sometimes they have to draw from old behaviors. Sometimes the bus drivers will be nice, and if you say, ‘I just got out of jail,’ they’ll help you out. But it depends on the driver. And there’s a lot of stigma.”

What housing options are there for people who don’t have friends or families to stay with?

“If the person has addiction issues, he or she will need to deal with that. He/she could go to a sober house, but there are often wait lists for those. Women can only stay at SafePlace if they’re mothers. If the person get released early enough in the day they have a chance to get a bed at one of the shelters. But if it’s later they’re full.”

The more I talked with the staff, the more I realized the importance of having programming outside the jail as well as inside. How can we expect people to change and improve if we don’t support them? Of course Kat and I aren’t social workers. We’re probably not going to open a halfway house. But I wondered, I what can we as applied theatre practitioners do to support both currently and formerly incarcerated women? These are ideas I really want to explore in the future. For now we need to grow our programming on the inside of the jail. (You can help us with this by donating at our Indiegogo site. We’re almost halfway to our goal!)

As we drove past the jail bus stop on our way back to Austin, Kat assured me that this woman was likely staying with friends now. I hope so. And as one of the women explained to me, “Debbie has her guitar back now. She’ll be okay.”

-Michelle Dahlenburg