In 2024 alone, authorities imposed 304 internet shutdowns across 54 countries - the highest number ever recorded. This reflects a growing trend of governments treating connectivity as a weapon.
Since the 1990s, a largely underground upwelling of trans creativity has helped new trans identities, communities, and political movements come together. Trans Cinema provides an entryway to the wildly diverse and creative cinema made by trans creators, including those who are BIPOC.
Thank you...for being able to fight for my freedom. But what's more important than that is that you continue to fight for your land and to continue to fight for your people and all people.
During World War I, women in Russia went on strike. They demanded "bread and peace." Among the results of their four-day protest: the Czar abdicated and women gained the right to vote. This bold strike began on Feb. 23, 1917, according to the Julian calendar then used in Russia. That date translated to March 8 in the Gregorian calendar that much of the world uses.
"Are you okay?" These were Alex Pretti's last words, said to a woman after ICE agents had tackled and pepper-sprayed her. Videos from bystanders show Pretti holding up a phone, attempting to document what was happening before he himself was pepper-sprayed, wrestled to the ground, and killed by those officers. He lost his life not for committing violence, but for documenting it, and stepping in to protect someone facing it.
In the environmental nonprofit sector, "centering frontline voices" has become a familiar slogan, often detached from how decisions are made or resources allocated. It appears in grant proposals, conference agendas, and organizational values statements. And yet, too often, those voices are still positioned as illustrative rather than authoritative-invited to animate strategies already decided, asked to translate lived experience into language legible to funders, or flattened into narratives that travel more easily than the truths they carry.
Real change rarely happens through debate or persuasion. Instead, transformation grows out of relationships, shared struggle, cognitive dissonance, and practice. Together, Kelly and Lewis explore what organizers can learn from the science of neuroplasticity, the role of rupture and confrontation, and why movements need to focus less on 'changing minds' and more on creating conditions where people can unlearn harmful beliefs and step into collective action.
There's a myth in our society that real change requires force, strength, and domination. We celebrate athletes, CEOs, and politicians who crush their opponents. But history tells a different story. Lasting social change has often been triggered by humble people whose weapons were passion, principle, and an unwavering commitment to justice and the truth - not the truth we see on TV or read in print media, but rather the truth that we feel deep inside ourselves.
