Pink Crime: Valena Beety

Join us on October 2 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Valena Beety to discuss her new book Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity.

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

A woman miscarries–and is charged with murder. A new mother tests positive for a drug her hospital administered–and loses custody of her newborn. Four women are convicted of horrific crimes against children they never touched, based on junk science and homophobia–and spend nearly twenty years in prison before being exonerated. A queer teenager takes a photo of a child’s diaper rash at work–and is sentenced to 126 years. These cases are not aberrations. They are symptoms of a system that punishes women and queer people not for what they have done, but for who they are.

In the US, nearly three-quarters of all wrongly convicted women were convicted of crimes that never occurred at all. Valena Beety, co-founder of the Indiana Innocence Project and award-winning legal scholar cited by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reveals how ordinary tragedies–a child’s sudden death, a husband who dies in his sleep–are transformed by prosecutors into murders that never happened. These “no crime” convictions disproportionately target women and queer people, whose identities are recast as evidence of guilt through bias, junk science, and entrenched stereotypes.

Drawing on devastating real-life cases, Beety exposes how prosecutorial overreach, flawed forensic science, and cultural panic converge–and how fetal personhood laws, the fall of Roe v. Wade, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation have dramatically expanded the reach of criminal law. What emerges is a chilling portrait of a legal system that increasingly criminalizes pregnancy outcomes, motherhood, and queer identity itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A wrongful convictions litigator and former federal prosecutor, Valena Beety is the McKinney Professor of Law at Indiana University-Bloomington Maurer School of Law and a co-founder of the Indiana Innocence Project. Her book Manifesting Justice received a Gold Medal in Women’s Issues from the Independent Publishers Book Awards, and her coursebook The Wrongful Convictions Reader is used in classrooms nationwide to teach about wrongful convictions. She lives in Indiana with her wife, daughter, and tripod dog.

License Plate Hate in Arizona

Join us Friday, June 19 at noon/PST  as we welcome journalists Hope Pisoni and John Washington to discuss license plate hate in Arizona. 

Since 2012, the AZDOT has sold “In God We Trust” license plates; money from every purchase goes to fund an Arizona-based anti-LGBTQIA+ hate group. These two reporters took a deep dive into political license plates in AZ and around the country. Read their reporting here.

Watch here.

Hope Pisoni is an investigative reporter at Uncloseted Media and a proud trans woman. She has investigated anti-trans pseudoscience, hate groups, incarceration and more at Uncloseted, and has written about student activism, housing and video games for Washington Square News, City Limits and The A.V. Club, respectively. Her work has been picked up by local outlets in seven states as well as by long-running publications like GAY TIMES and The Washington Blade. Read Hope’s work here. 
John Washington is a staff writer at Lookout, where he covers the border and immigration as well as the statehouse. He is also an award-winning translator and author. His latest book, How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention, will be published by Haymarket Books in July 2026. He writes a newsletter, Lit & Border News.

 

 

Secular AZ at Phoenix Pride

Come say “hi” at Phoenix Pride, where Secular AZ will be proudly representing Arizonans that support separation of church and state!

Dates & Hours:

  • Saturday, October 18: 2 PM – 10 PM
  • Sunday, October 19: 12 PM – 9 PM

Location: Steele Indian School Park 300 E. Indian School Road in Phoenix

Stop by Booth Y08,  or better yet, volunteer to table with us!

Action Alert: 4/17/25

April 17, 2025

We wanted to share some good news: Governor Katie Hobbs has vetoed multiple bills that threatened church:state separation!

The Governor used her veto pen on:

  • HB2058: posed a risk to public health by extending vaccine exemptions based on personal beliefs rather than science.
  • HB2062: would effectively erase trans, non-binary, and intersex people by removing gender-related terms in AZ law and replacing them with sex-related terms.
  • HB2063: posed a risk to public health by forcing schools to highlight ways to avoid vaccinations.
  • HB2126: would require healthcare providers to give parents access to electronic data (including records that don’t require parental consent), which could keep minors from accessing contraceptive, sexual health, and gender-affirming care.

We wanted to encourage you to send a message to Governor Hobbs thanking her for using her veto power to uphold the constitutional requirement of the separation of church and state.

We also want to thank you for voicing your opposition to these bad bills and standing up for the Establishment Clause. When public policy is based on facts, rather than religious dogma, everyone benefits.

Mesa Unified School Board Meeting: Attend to Stand Against Anti-Trans/Nonbinary Policy

4/7/25

Mesa Unified School District’s next governing board meeting is this Tuesday, April 8, at 6:30PM. One of the first items on the agenda is board member Sharon Benson’s suggested “Gender Dysphoria Policy,” which you can read here.

This policy would jeopardize the safety and well-being of transgender and nonbinary students. It forces parental notification, potentially outing students to unsupportive families, and denies them basic respect like using their chosen names and pronouns.

This policy undermines student privacy, creates a hostile environment, and breaks down the crucial trust between students and educators.

Members of the religious right will be in attendance to demonize and scapegoat trans and non-binary students. We cannot stand by while our most vulnerable students are targeted.

Please act now to protect trans and nonbinary students by attending the school board meeting, voicing your opposition to this policy, and demanding a policy that prioritizes student safety, privacy, and respect.

What you can do:

Spark Community Schools: one-n-10 Microschool

Join us on April 4 at noon (AZ Time) as special guest Darla Baquedano, Director of Education for Spark Community Schools, introduces the one-n-10 micro school.  

Click here to register for this virtual presentation.

Spark Community Schools’ mission is to provide free, high-quality tailored education in a micro school setting to ensure students can be their whole selves and grow into the future of their choice.

Darla Baquenado shapes both short and long-term educational strategies, collaborating extensively with the executive teams at Goodwill of Northern and Central Arizona and one-n-ten Phoenix to shape the short and long-term strategic vision of Spark Community Schools. Her role involves defining education policies, forging strategic alliances and partnerships, and amplifying Spark’s education capabilities locally and nationally. Darla also oversees the day to day operations of the Spark classroom at one-n-ten.

Darla’s 25-year educational journey began as a classroom teacher and evolved into coaching as a master teacher, serving n leadership roles as an Assistant Principal, and Principal of PK-8 schools in Phoenix, AZ. Currently, Darla serves as the Director of Education Services for Spark Community Schools. Fluent in Spanish with specialized endorsements in bilingual/multicultural education and early childhood literacy, her lifelong dedication to education began when, on her first day of kindergarten, she declared her ambition to become a teacher—a dream she relentlessly pursued. Holding a Master’s in Education Administration from the University of Phoenix and a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Northern Arizona University, her expertise is a fusion of passion and formal training in specialized fields.

Garnet Henderson: LW v Skrmetti and Healthcare Implications for Trans Youth

Please join us on February 14 at noon AZ time (MST) as we welcome reporter Garnet Henderson of Rewire News Group. She’ll discuss the implications of LW v Skrmetti on access to healthcare for trans youth.

Watch on Secular AZ’s YouTube Channel.

Garnet Henderson is the Senior Multiplatform Reporter at Rewire News Group. Prior to joining RNG, she spent a decade as a freelancer reporting on the intersections of health and culture with a particular focus on reproductive health and abortion access. Her work has been published in Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Scientific American, Marie Claire, VICE, Guardian US, WIRED, Glamour, Quartz, The Atlantic, and other publications. Her guide to abortion care in the U.S. was part of the Tonic “Guide to Healthcare,” which won a 2018 Deadline Club Award. In 2020, Garnet created ACCESS: A Podcast About Abortion, which she hosts and produces as a solo project. In 2022, she was one of the inaugural grantees of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Reproductive Rights Reporting Fund for a project that was co-published in The Nation and on ACCESS. Garnet was born and raised in Jackson, Wyoming, and has lived in New York City since 2009.

 

The Importance of Sharing Stories from Underrepresented Communities

Join us November 15 at noon AZ time as we welcome Kate DeMeester-Lane, Pima County Librarian.

She’ll discuss why it’s so important to share stories that center BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals and communities, fight disinformation, and the essential task of providing and protecting access to information that people use to make important decisions. As libraries come under increasing fire from those who would censor history, disenfranchise and muffle the voices of marginalized communities, and spread mis- and dis-information,  here’s one library system that’s fighting back.

Knowledge is power. Click here to watch this presentation on Secular AZ’s YouTube channel.

Kate DeMeester-Lane graduated with her Master of Arts in Library and Information Science (MLIS) from University of Arizona in 2003, and has worked in libraries for over 20 years. She is currently the head of library collections and technology for Pima County Public Library.

The Importance of Gender-Affirming Care w/ Jessica Edmonds FNP, AAHIVS

Join us on July 26th at noon for special guest Jessica Edmonds, FNP AAHIVS, the President and Clinical Director of Gamut Health, for a discussion of the importance of gender-affirming care.

click here to watch on Secular AZ’s YouTube channel. 

Jessica is a licensed family practice nurse practitioner (FNP), certified as a gender care provider with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and as an HIV specialist with the American Academy of HIV Medicine (AAHIVM). She recently launched a telehealth practice focused on gender-affirming care, HIV prevention, and HIV management called Gamut Health (Click here to learn more about Gamut Health). Prior to this, she worked with the Transgender Health Program of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, one of the largest FQHCs in California.

Jessica is originally from Indiana where she worked with Mosaic Health and Healing Arts, Indiana’s first family medicine practice to be openly accepting of LGBTQ+ patients. In 2017, she presented on gender care at the Sigma Theta Tau International Conference in Indianapolis. Jessica’s passion for this work was really ignited during graduate school; while attending Indiana University South Bend (IUSB), she was instrumental in ensuring the incorporation of transgender and gender diverse healthcare into the curriculum for nurse practitioners and into undergraduate nursing curriculum.