Local groups Femme Left and the Denver branch of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) collaborate to educate about socialism, for liberation.
Mae Black is in both organizations and each meet at The Deer Pile, above City O' City, on Capitol Hill. I sat down with her and Jonathan Cunningham of the ISO there on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018, after they co-facilitated a discussion called "MeToo: Taking A Stand Against Women's Oppression." Two weeks later, they co-hosted "Socialist Feminism: Intro to Social Reproduction Theory."
Femme Left came into existence in early 2017 to fight capitalism and social inequality, organizing to respond to the needs of their community. "It birthed out of a lot of different trans, gender-non-conforming (GNC), woman-and femme-identifying people getting active again after the election and feeling uncomfortable at protests, or they felt they couldn't really talk at meetings," Black says. "The [Denver] Autonomous Assembly was focused on directly facing fascists, and some of us didn't feel safe in that kind of activism. So, it was kind of born out of that, and then we didn't formalize and become a named organization until May 1, on May Day, last year."
Femme Left has since initiated an ongoing self-liberation skillshare series while recently launching a small press, which is open to submissions, and establishing chapters in Kansas City and Madison. Self-reliance, self-education and self-care are the three branches of the self- series, which is partly supported by the Denver Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) General Defense Committee.
Denver Socialists - ISO formed in 2012. "The ISO doesn't want to like dictate anything to Femme Left," Cunningham says. "When they offer the opportunity to work with them we are grateful, but we understand why they have a project for only non-cis-male identifying people, and we want to support that space and that project however we can."
Femme Left prioritizes non-male voices. General assemblies and some of their events are open only to trans, GNC and woman-identifying people. Find out more about Femme Left at femmeleft.com and Denver Socialists - ISO at denversocialists.org.
