Kim Watson is a 52-year-old trans woman living in the Bronx with her husband and adopted daughter. She is cofounder of an organization called Community Kinship Life (CKLife), which provides space for transgender individuals to gather and offers scholarships. Her work has been honored by Bronx elected officials and citywide LGBT groups.

She arrived in the United States on a tourist visa in 1988. When the pass expired, she remained.

The city offered her refuge from persecution she faced over her identity in her homeland, but she continued to struggle with mental illness and substance abuse.

While homeless, she was twice arrested for selling controlled substances in 1997 and 1998. Nazrali said that at the time she was going through a wrenching identity dysphoria that led to the run-ins with the law.

However, more than a decade ago, Watson said she went to rehab and started receiving counseling for PTSD and her other identity issues.

Watson earned a bachelor's degree from Pace University and began grassroots organizing over LGBT issues and HIV status.

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Tuesday December 14, 1915
From Archives of The Workingman's Paper: Gurley Flynn on the Spokane Jail

Fresh from her victorious one-woman fight for Free Speech with the city of Paterson, New Jersey (see photograph at right), Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn plans to continue her struggle to establish the rights of union organizers to speak to the silk workers in that city. With this struggle in mind, Hellraisers offers an article, written by Miss Flynn for the December 11, 1909, edition of The Workingman's Paper in which she described her experience in the county jail at Spokane during the I. W. W. Free Speech Fight in that city which took place during the winter of 1909 and 1910.

Miss Flynn came to Spokane as a young married woman, having married John A. Jones in Lake County, Minnesota on January 7, 1908. The newly weds arrived in Missoula, Montana, in time to play an active role in that victorious struggle for Free Speech. They then moved on to the fight for Free Speech in Spokane, Washington, where Gurley Flynn was arrested as an I. W. W. "agitator."

Miss Flynn's article gives us some idea of the special hardships endured by women when prisons and jails employ male guards rather than matrons. The male guards are often less than trustworthy to be in charge of the keys which give them unfettered access to women prisoners, day and night.

Which is the better Wall Street reform plan? So far most of the debate involves endorsements, rather than details, and Hillary wins the endorsement battle hands down.

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Monday December 13, 1915
From The Survey: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Victorious in Long Contest with Paterson

The Survey of December 11th described the long one-woman free speech fight, a contest fought between Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the city of Paterson, New Jersey, which ended on the evening of November 30th with a victory for Miss Flynn:

ELIZABETH FLYNN'S CONTEST WITH PATERSON
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ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN, I. W. W. leader in the Paterson strike of 1913, was acquitted last week of the charge of inciting to riot that had been pending since the jury disagreed in her first trial in July, 1913. This is the last of the cases growing directly out of the strike of two years ago that will be tried, and the verdict sets Miss Flynn free to continue her contest over free speech with the Paterson authorities.

Chief of Police Bimson said that the trial narrowed down to a question of the veracity of the police officials and Miss Flynn’s supporters, “and evidently the police hadn't been believed.”

The calling of the case to trial at this time came as a surprise. In the summer of 1913, three strike leaders were tried following similar indictments—Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca and Miss Flynn herself. Feeling in Paterson at that time was bitter against the I. W. W. and the defense believed that it would be difficult to obtain a fair trial. Nevertheless a Passaic county jury disagreed in the first trial of Quinlan. A second trial resulted in his conviction with a sentence of two to seven years in the penitentiary. Attorneys for the defense then secured an order from Supreme Court Justice Minturn directing that in the other cases pending, juries should be drawn from outside Passaic county. Tried before so-called “foreign” juries, Tresca was acquitted, and in the case of Miss Flynn the jury disagreed. No move toward a new trial was made at the time.

Many people seem unaware that the 2008 crash didn't start in 2008 with Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers was just the last straw for a financial system that had been under increasing stress for over a year.
It all started in the summer of 2007 with Bear Stearns..

Yesterday Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) and 19 House co-sponsors introduced House Resolution 561: Expressing Support for Support for Transgender Acceptance

The co-sponsors include all members of the recently formed Transgender Equality Task Force.

This is another much-needed step in our fight to ensure that the transgender community’s voice is represented in Congress. The transgender community faces widespread bullying, harassment, and violence, and these individuals do not yet have sufficient legal means of protection from such discrimination in many states. We cannot achieve equality without acceptance. This resolution is a step toward greater acceptance of the transgender community. We must work to address the challenges and risks that transgender individuals face on a daily basis in their places of work, education, and housing, and ensure that their individual rights are understood and respected.

--Rep. Honda

The full text of the resolution is on The Other Side:

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Sunday December 12, 1915
From The Washington Times: People of Paterson, New Jersey, Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

In a section of the Times reserved for editorials on subjects of interests to women, there was expressed in the December 9th edition, high praise for the "law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson." The topic at hand was the acquittal of Miss Gurley Flynn on charges of inciting to rioting:

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The law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson are to be congratulated on the acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. They are to be congratulated because the effort of the Paterson police, responsive to suggestions from lawless elements in the community, to substitute Russian for American government has failed. The greatest winner by the verdict is Paterson.

The verdict is important as vindicating free speech, freedom of orderly assemblage, and freedom of orderly and legal organization. It is also important as tending strongly to shift the burden of presumption when lawlessness occurs in connection with industrial disputes. Formerly, when violence occurred during a strike, or bombs exploded, or labor agitators were charged with having incited to riot, the public assumed that the strikers were responsible. But it now appears that in many cases things are not as they seem. Private detective agencies are used and public police forces permit themselves to be used to arrange for crimes.