How Can You Help, Why Does This Blog Exist?


First of all, this blog is in existence because I need help. Not just me, all men and women who are in the LGBTQ community that are incarcerated. The issues that we face are real, they are dangerous and we get very little support. Once we come through these doors we are no longer people but items and objects.
We are caught in this weird chasm where we have no where to fit in. Most groups will form clicks and gangs and the state allows that, for whatever reason. But if two or more gays interact in Washington State...well that is not allowed unless we are directly being monitored and even that is intolerable. Our time is strange because most inmates hate us, most staff hates us and those that are indifferent are also indifferent to our mistreatment, content to allow us to be alone and isolated. So long as they get to be left alone. Staff seems to have the same division amongst themselves over us also.
I tried multiple attempts to get help, to create a support system where there was none. It was unbelievably hard to get anyone to listen. Those that did knew how hard it was going to be to convince those around them. I reached out to every single LGBTQ support group out there that I could find an address for and I got absolutely zero responses.

Do you have any idea what that does to a man to know that there is all kinds of support groups for homosexuals, there is a whole website dedicated to locating LGBTQ support groups in your city gaycity.net, I wrote every address I could think of to write on there and I got absolutely zero replies. I have written university's and celebrities, I have written politicians and there staff...I was completely and 100% ignored by everyone, absolutely everyone.

But that doesn't mean that the people around me don't deserve help. As LGBTQ men and women we can't abandon each other, and just because we are in prison that shouldn't mean that we are beyond help. We are the ones who need the help the most.

So this website was created for that purpose. To educate people that there is someone(s) who is willing to put in the effort and fight. I am fighting for my right to get help, my right to leave this place a better human being, my right to change into a good man...a man who deserves a second chance because I am NOT going to allow anyone to tell me otherwise. SO I am fighting and I am fighting with everything I got. Nothing is being left on the table.

I don't know how to blog or catch thousands or millions of peoples attention, but I do know what is going on right here in this place, with my people, with these men who are begging for someone to help them, and that someone is me, because they deserve it...

How can you help? First and foremost, taking interest helps, sharing your stories helps, contacting us helps. We need books, letters, we need community volunteers and organizers. We need people who can help us organize volunteer based programs that cost the state no money but are highly effective tools of self-expression and rehabilitation, things like performing arts programs...costs nothing but allow freedom of expression and rehabilitation and has for thousands of years.

We need your contact, in whatever language in whatever form...you are necessary and wanted. thanks for listening and I hope to hear from you soon.

Your Brother In Chains

Jeff Utnage 823469
h3-b-120-u
stafford Creek Correction Center
191 Constantine Way
Abereen, WA 98520

or jpay.com use DOC 823469