Feminist Standards for Governance

 

Equality Bahamas is facilitating a series of workshops to develop Feminist Standards for Governance which which will serve as a people’s agenda for 2026 to 2031. The next general election in The Bahamas looms ahead, and with no fixed election date, it can be called at any time. Political parties will each produce a document with vague statements and promises based on their own priorities and beliefs about the people’s needs, without consultation. We invite you to participate in the development of an alternative to partisan campaign material.

​Equality Bahamas has designed a process to guide groups of people through identifying problems and their roots and working toward recommendations to address the issues at a systemic level. Feminist Standards for Governance workshops have nine streams or thematic areas—health, education, youth, women and LGBTQI+, environment, social services, labor and economy, arts and culture, and governance. We are facilitating workshops this month, drafting the people’s agenda in August, validating with participants and community members in August, and publishing in September 2025.

All events in July 2025 will take place in-person at Poinciana Paper Press in Nassau. 

Stay up to date with all upcoming Feminist Standards for Governance sessions here.

July 20 @ 1pm: Women & LGBTQI+ people, Governance

On Sunday July 20, we’ll be discussing two thematic areas – Women & LGBTQI+ people and Governance.

July 21 @ 6pm: Education, Labor & Economy

On Monday, July 21, we’ll be discussing two thematic areas – Education and Labor & Economy

July 22 @ 6pm: Youth & Social Services

On Tuesday, July 22, we’ll be discussing two thematic areas – Youth & Social Services.

July 23 @ 6pm: Arts & Culture, Environment

On Wednesday, July 23, we’ll be discussing two thematic areas – Arts & Culture and Environment.

Stay updated and get involved! Join our mailing list:
equality-bahamas.kit.com/

Feminist Book Club: July 2025

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings is described as “a piercing dystopian novel about the unbreakable bond between a young woman and her mysterious mother, set in a world in which witches are real and single women are closely monitored.”

Join 📚💖Feminist Book Club💖📚 in reading The Women Could Fly. We’ll meet at Poinciana Paper Press (12 Parkgate Road) to discuss it on Wednesday, July 16 at 6pm.

REGISTER: tiny.cc/fbc2025

🗓 Wednesday, July 16
🕕 6pm
📍 Poinciana Paper Press, 12 Parkgate Road

#BookClub #FeministBookClub #ReadingIsPolitical

Making Our Words Visible: A Pride Book-Making Workshop

​​Join us at Poinciana Paper Press for a DIY Book-making session with Sonia Farmer on Wednesday, July 30 from 6 to 8pm.

Register here. 

Check out all our PRIDE in July events here.

For all things Pride & Equality Bahamas, sign up for our newsletter: https://equality-bahamas.kit.com/

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Storytelling for Change with Sekiya Dorsett

​Join us Thursday, July 24 from 6-8pm EST for a virtual talk with GLAAD Award-winning filmmaker Sekiya Dorsett.

Register here. 

Check out all our PRIDE in July events here.

For all things Pride & Equality Bahamas, sign up for our newsletter: https://equality-bahamas.kit.com/

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PRIDE Group Therapy with Jessica Russell

For this month’s PRIDE in July, We’re hosting online Group Therapy with Jessica Russell on three Saturday afternoons in July from 4 to 5 pm EST.

Jessica is a therapist, feminist, and human rights advocate. She provides talk therapy for individuals, couples, and families, at Family Wellness Centre in Grand Bahama. Her main areas of focus are anxiety, depression, grief, relationship issues, and trauma. She holds a Masters Degree in Psychology, a certification in Domestic and Sexual Violence, and a passion for human rights and gender equality. After working with Equality Bahamas since 2020 at various events, she officially joined the Board in 2023. Ever conscious of the injustices in the real world, she enjoys films and tv shows where the villain receives an appropriate fate.

Register for each session at the links below:
July 12
July 19
July 26

Check out all our PRIDE in July events here.

For all things Pride & Equality Bahamas, sign up for our newsletter: https://equality-bahamas.kit.com/

Follow us:
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Queerly Beloved: PRIDE Writing Workshop with Muriel Leung

​In honour of Equality Bahamas’ Pride in July, join us for a virtual writing workshop on Wednesday, July 9 with Muriel Leung, author of ‘How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamenable Distaster.’

Register for this event here.

From her website:
Muriel Leung is the author of the novel How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamable Disaster (W.W. Norton & Company) and several collections that include Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books), Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), and Images Seen to Images Felt (Antenna) in collaboration with artist Kristine Thompson. A Pushcart Prize nominated writer, her writing can be found in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, Fairy Tale Review, and others.

She is a recipient of fellowships to VONA/Voices Workshop, Community of Writers, Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, among others. She is on the Board of Directors for Apogee Journal.

She received her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from University of Southern California. Based in Los Angeles, she teaches at the MFA in Creative Writing program at California Institute of the Arts.

We are so excited to have her for this workshop! Be sure to register to receive the Zoom link 🙂

Check out all our PRIDE in July events here.

For all things Pride & Equality Bahamas, sign up for our newsletter: https://equality-bahamas.kit.com/

Follow us:
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PRIDE in July 2025

In many parts of the world, June is PRIDE Month, filled with events that *should* center LGBTQI+ people.

June is the month for PRIDE because the Stonewall Riots took place in New York City in late June 1969—a response to a police raid at the gay bar Stonewall Inn.

Despite transgender women and people of colour being excluded from early marches for LGBTQI+ rights, their participation in the initial riots was instrumental and they are now being recognized for their integral roles in creating the change that has led to the PRIDE we know today.

Equality Bahamas hosts PRIDE in July, keeping the advocacy, education, programming, and visibility from June going. We choose not to participate in capitalist activities that increase profit for businesses while exploiting and increasing risk for LGBTQI+ people. Rainbow-washing is not for us. We are focused on the specific needs of LGBTQI+ people in The Bahamas. We work to increase access to human rights, and PRIDE in July brings life-sustaining care and support directly to LGBTQI+ people.

This July, we’ve got a great lineup of in-person and online events featuring LGBTQI+ artists and allies.

Check out all the events at a glance here.

July 9 –Queerly Beloved: PRIDE Writing Workshop with Muriel Leung

In a time of escalating violence towards LGBTQ+ communities, what are new stories we can tell outside of the oppression that surrounds us? In this writing workshop for Pride month, let us write poems and the beginning of stories that tell of pleasure, joy, and the vitality of resistance. How can we alchemize the most brutal parts of the world in which we live into something that gives us a way forward? Queerly beloved, newer writer or seasoned, come one and all. Let us write together.

Muriel Leung is the author of the novel How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamable Disaster (W.W. Norton & Company) and several collections that include Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books), Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), and Images Seen to Images Felt (Antenna) in collaboration with artist Kristine Thompson. A Pushcart Prize nominated writer, her writing can be found in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, Fairy Tale Review, and others.

July 12, 19, 26 – PRIDE Group Therapy with Jessica Russell

Next, we’re hosting online Group Therapy with Jessica Russell on three Saturday afternoons in July.

Jessica is a therapist, feminist, and human rights advocate. She provides talk therapy for individuals, couples, and families, at Family Wellness Centre in Grand Bahama. Her main areas of focus are anxiety, depression, grief, relationship issues, and trauma. She holds a Masters Degree in Psychology, a certification in Domestic and Sexual Violence, and a passion for human rights and gender equality. After working with Equality Bahamas since 2020 at various events, she officially joined the Board in 2023. Ever conscious of the injustices in the real world, she enjoys films and tv shows where the villain receives an appropriate fate.

Register for each session at the links below:
July 12
July 19
July 26

 

July 24 – Storytelling for Change with Sekiya Dorsett

​Join us Thursday, July 24 for a virtual talk with GLAAD Award-winning filmmaker Sekiya Dorsett.

July 30 – Making Our Words Visible: A Pride Book-Making Workshop

For our final PRIDE event of the month, we’ll meet in-person at Nassau’s Poinciana Paper Press for a DIY book-making workshop with Sonia Farmer.

Feminist Book Club: June 2025

This month, 📚💖Feminist Book Club💖📚 is reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki. It is about a “female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.”

📰 From the publisher:
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in the Tokyo Detention House convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a master class in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that Rika might be the one changing. Do she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”—Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

🌟 From a review:
The story primarily revolves around how Rika’s life is impacted as a result of her association with Kajii and her obsession with Kajii as a person which often derails her from her investigative intentions before she begins to see Kajii for exactly who she is. Kajii is an interesting character- straightforward, unapologetic and shrewdly manipulative. All the characters are well thought out and the descriptions of the food and Kajii’s recipes make for interesting reading. I particularly enjoyed how the author incorporates folklore into the narrative and found how the parallels between the same and the events in the novel are drawn fascinating.

Join us for the discussion!
🗓 Wednesday, June 18
🕕 6pm
📍 Poinciana Paper Press, 12 Parkgate Road
🔗 tiny.cc/fbc2025

#FeministBookClub #BookClub #SummerReading

Talking Freedom of Information Act with ORG Bahamas

Events

Join Alicia Wallace, founder and Executive Director of Equality Bahamas and Matthew Aubry, Executive Director of ORG Bahamas in a discussion about the Freedom of Information Act (also known as FOIA).

This conversation originally took place May 28, 2025.

Learn more about ORG Bahamas: https://www.orgbahamas.com/

Stay up to date with all things Equality Bahamas by subscribing to our newsletter: https://equality-bahamas.kit.com/

Feminist Book Club: May 2025

📚💖Feminist Book Club💖📚 is a space to read, think about, and discuss books with people who have diverse, interesting perspectives informed by their individual experiences. We learn more about each other every time we meet, and it’s fun to compare and contrast what each book brings up for us, how we see the characters, and what takes a book to the category of favorites.

This month, we’re reading How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster by Muriel Leung, taking us to postapocalyptic New York City. It’s science fiction, it’s dystopia, it’s magical realism, and it’s queer.

🗓 Wednesday, May 21
🕕 6pm
📍 @poincianapaperpress, 12 Parkgate Road
🔗 Register: tiny.cc/fbc2025

From the publisher:
“Acid rainstorms have transformed New York City into a toxic wasteland, cutting its remaining citizens off from one another. In one apartment building, an unlikely family of humans and ghosts survives.”

🗞 Kirkus said, “Surreal imagery combines with poetic prose to illustrate what life and love look like when crisis becomes commonplace and everyone is grieving―even the ghosts. At once absurd and profound.” People called it “a moving exploration of grief and survival.”

💬 Reviewers have said this book:
• is weird
• needs to be read as poetry
• is emotional and weirdly hopeful
• odd and compelling
• demands an open mind
• wants you to just go with it
• not going to be for everyone

Sounds like quite an experience, right? Let’s do it together!

🔗 tiny.cc/fbc2025

#FeministBookClub #BookClub #ReadMore #ScienceFiction