From Black History Month to Women’s History Month:
Uplifting the Feminist Tradition of Abolition
As we’ve moved from Black History Month through Women’s History Month, marking the later with International Women’s Day in the month’s beginning and ending it with the upcoming International Day of Trans Visibility, we’re taking a moment to ground ourselves in and uplift the radical and life-giving tradition of abolition as a feminist politic.
Prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition is a part of a legacy rooted in the leadership, vision, labor, and radical care of women of color, queer and trans feminists, and everyday grassroots organizers across generations and geographies—people who have long fought at the frontlines of movements for freedom, safety, and dignity. Abolition and feminism have never been separate from the fight for collective liberation—abolitionist feminism is the fight.
From Harriet Tubman to Ida B Wells, from the Combahee River Collective to Audre Lorde, Angela Y Davis, Assata Shakur, from Grace Lee Boggs to Sylvia Rivera and Miss Major, and countless everyday organizers in our communities, abolitionist feminists have taught us that none of our struggles are separate.
At the intersections of state violence, racial capitalism, and gender oppression, feminist freedom fighters teach us that the prison industrial complex (PIC) doesn’t only punish individuals—it upholds white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and queer-and-transphobia. It disappears Black, Indigenous, migrant, queer, and trans people—especially Black trans women—and punishes survivors, sex workers, educators, and caregivers while denying communities the resources we need to thrive.
As part of a feminist tradition, PIC abolitionists—especially Black feminist abolitionists—have shown us that dismantling systems of policing, imprisonment, and surveillance must go hand in hand with building a world grounded in care, safety, and interdependence. There is no true liberation without confronting the intertwined forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism. Abolition is not only about tearing down prisons and dismantling policing, but about building the conditions where no one is disposable, and where safety, healing, dignity, housing, food, education, care, and joy are accessible and possible for everyone.
Right now, this vision is more urgent than ever.
Across the US and around the world, we’re living through a dangerous wave of escalating attacks on bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom, transgender and queer lives, and Black communities—all inside and outside of prisons—from abortion bans and anti-trans laws, to the criminalization of gender-affirming care, to the increased policing, imprisonment, surveillance that subjects masses of people to racist, gender-based, and state-sanctioned violence under the guise of “public safety”. Inside prisons, transgender people—especially Black and Indigenous trans women who are already targeted, surveilled, and imprisoned at alarming rates—are facing intensified daily violence, medical neglect, silencing, and erasure. Outside, communities are being targeted and surveilled for not just insisting society must change but for merely existing.
Our feminist origins and commitment as abolitionists remind us that these attacks are not separate—they are connected. They are part of a larger strategy of white supremacy, patriarchy, and control all to secure fascism’s hold on society—and they require bold, coordinated resistance. As a feminist organizing strategy, PIC abolition gives us that path. It reminds us that the fight for reproductive justice is the fight for PIC abolition. That defending trans lives is fighting against racism, white supremacy, and fascism. That building safety means investing in people, not punishment. That’s why abolition must be feminist, and feminism must be abolitionist.
Women’s History Month is a time to honor the radical legacy of those who fought before us— not for inclusion, but for transformation, revolution, and liberation—and to carry that work forward.
While International Women’s Day reminds us that these struggles were born from socialist and working-class, anti-colonial global movements for self-determination, International Day of Trans Visibility calls us to protect, uplift, and cultivate the leadership of trans people who are not only surviving but creating new possibilities for us all.
This Women’s History Month—and every month—we at Critical Resistance commit to honoring and standing with the Black, Brown, queer, trans, and working-class feminist freedom fighters who’ve shown us the way in standing with communities under attack and who are carrying that work forward now—in the streets, in prisons and detention centers, in clinics, in classrooms, and in our communities. Their vision is not only our history—it’s our future. We affirm that there is no movement work—there is no liberation—without the leadership of women of color and queer and trans people. We recommit to building a world where no one is criminalized for who they are or what they need, and where care, not cages, defines how we respond to conflict and harm: a world where we can all live and thrive.
This is our lineage. This is our commitment. This is the work of abolition, and it is the work of our time.
For a world without walls,
-Critical Resistance
More Announcements
CR is Hiring: Help us find a new Co-Director to Advance CR's Media & Communications Strategy!
With staff changes at CR, we're looking for a committed, disciplined and rigorous PIC abolitionist to join CR's team of organizers. Check out the full job announcement and description here. We're accepting applications on a rolling basis until April 15, and are hoping to fill position with a best fit candidate as soon as possible.
Formerly imprisoned people are highly encouraged to apply. We also encourage people of color, women, queer and trans/gender-nonconforming people to apply. We welcome people from all educational backgrounds to apply. Apply today!
CRNYC is on the move with the Abolish ICE New York New Jersey coalition and the Dignity Not Detention (DND) campaign in New York State - to get all of New York out of the business of immigrant detention once & for all. Join us for weekly phone zaps every Tuesdays to call & email state legislators and get them on board to defend and protect our communities from ICE detention and deportation. Sign up so we know who's with us: bit.ly/DNDzaps_2025!
And on Wednesday, April 2, we're heading back upstate to Albany to meet with legislators and make sure they are defending our communities and doing everything they can to stop the Trump administration and ICE's attacks in our state. RSVP now!
Calling ALL Californians: Demand investments in Care NOT Cages with us in the CA Budget!
Send letters with CR Oakland, CR Los Angeles and all our Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) partners EACH WEEK this budget season to get the state budget we need to build and protect sustainable, life-affirming, equitable, and empowered communities - one that invests in community and care, not imprisonment and disappearance.
Mutual Aid for Abolition: Check out the impacts made by CR Oakland's The Zachary Project the past year!
Throughout this past year, The Zachary Project continued to support community members and comrades of Critical Resistance Oakland (CROak) with rent and living expenses, was there to help people meet mental health needs, and helped people weather unexpected moments of crisis. From living expenses, to medical bills, and more, we resourced organizers and friends of Critical Resistance (CR) suddenly unemployed or coming home from prison. Read all about the project's work and impacts here.
Curious what else CR has been up to?Check out CR's chapters & what we've been advancing on the ground from California to New York!
From fires to ICE, CR Los Angeles has been continuing its work with CR Oakland to close prisons across the state of California, while joining the Community Self Defense Coalition LA to defend our LA communities against the expanding threat of immigration raids and crack downs.
