DOWNTOWN — You can make holiday cards to send to imprisoned LGBTQ+ people at a Downtown event this weekend.
Pushing Envelopes, an abolitionist collective that supports queer and trans people who’ve been incarcerated, is hosting its annual holiday card party 1:30-5:30 p.m. Sunday at the Chicago Freedom School, 719 S. State St. on the fourth floor.
During the yearly “frenzy of card writing,” volunteers create hundreds of cards to show some love to LGBTQ+ people who are imprisoned during the holiday season, said Isabella Mancini, who’s been a Pushing Envelopes volunteer since 2016.
“A lot of queer and trans people have lost a lot of family or friends due to coming out, or they just didn’t have a lot of folks to begin with,” Mancini said. “By sending letters, we’re trying to fill that void and make sure they know they have people on the outside who are checking in with them and people who care about how they’re doing.”
Free food will be provided, and masks are required when attendees aren’t eating or drinking, according to Pushing Envelopes’ Instagram.
Formerly known as Black and Pink Chicago, Pushing Envelopes was founded in 2013.
The volunteer-run organization helps queer incarcerated people build relationships with the LGBTQ+ community by connecting them with pen pals, distributing a free newsletter and providing monetary support to people released from prison.
During the event, volunteers will provide some guidelines for attendees who haven’t written a card to someone in prison before, Mancini said. There will also be volunteers walking around who can answer questions about prison abolition and connect attendees with other opportunities to support incarcerated people, Mancini said.
For example, attendees can sign up to be matched with a long-term pen pal if they want to continue writing letters. “Being a pen pal is a way to put your money where your mouth is when it comes to political engagement,” Mancini said.
There are about 300 LGBTQ+ people who are waiting to be matched with a pen pal, Mancini said.
Pushing Envelopes volunteers also connect penpals with each other every third Monday of the month from 6-9 p.m. at Second Unitarian Church of Chicago, 656 W. Barry Ave. Attendees go through a short orientation that explains the do’s and don’t’s of writing to someone in prison as well as the collective’s values.
A volunteer who visited their pen pal in prison said: “He looked us in the eyes and told us that we absolutely could not understand how important it is to be a pen pal to someone on the inside. … He told us our letters are his lifeline. We were his only visitors all year.”
Pushing Envelopes volunteers focus their efforts on supporting the LGBTQ+ community because queer and trans people have historically been disproportionately targeted by the criminal justice system, and they share similar experiences once incarcerated, Mancini said.
“The experience that queer people have in prison is unique and not in a good way; it’s really traumatizing,” Mancini said. “So we want to make sure we hold our community members close and make sure they have someone to talk to, and someone to come to when they get out. It’s life-saving work.”
High rates of poverty, homelessness, discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people perpetuate their overrepresentation in the criminal legal system, according to research from The Sentencing Project, an organization that advocates for humane responses to crime.
In prisons, 33.3 percent of women and 5.5 percent of men identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, compared to 7.6 percent of women and 6.8 percent of men in the general population, according to The Sentencing Project’s report.
One in five trans women and nearly half of all Black trans people have experienced incarceration at some point in their lives, according to the report.
After LGBTQ+ people are incarcerated, they face an increased risk of sexual assault and harassment compared to cisgender and straight people, researchers found.
Sending mail to people in prison can help keep them safe because it shows those around them, including guards, that there are people who care about them in the outside world, Mancini said.
In addition to connecting incarcerated people with pen pals, Pushing Envelopes distributes a free quarterly newsletter that includes information about the organization’s work and Chicago happenings, as well as an advice column, Mancini said.
The format helps incarcerated people connect across different prisons, where that normally wouldn’t be possible, Mancini said.
“People who are incarcerated can’t correspond directly with other people who are incarcerated,” Mancini said. “That’s against the law, so this is an above-board way for people to share information and create that connection.”
Once LGBTQ+ people are released from prison, volunteers help them get settled and adjust to life in the outside world, Mancini said. The organization gives people money with no strings attached, relying heavily on donations.
In 2021, Pushing Envelopes raised more than $20,000 to support more than 25 people exiting prison by providing them funds to use on transportation, housing, bills, necessities and emergency situations, according to Pushing Envelopes’ website.
You can learn more about Pushing Envelopes’ work and donate money on the group’s website.
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