Celebrating Women Who Champion All Women
Each year, Spring Fever – Callen-Lorde’s annual celebration of our vital, affirming and inclusive Women’s Health program – recognizes members of the LBTQ communities who have have positively impacted women’s wellness and visibility in New York and beyond. This year we’re thrilled to welcome novelist, playwright, educator and AIDS historian Sarah Schulman, and platform, collective, and women’s booking agency Discwoman to our illustrious list of honorees, joining icons and activists such as Edie Windsor, Lea DeLaria and Staceyann Chin.
Through writing, music, and fierce activism, Shulman and Discwoman continually create empowerment platforms and community building vehicles for cis women, trans women and genderqueer people. These courageous efforts align with our mission to serve New York’s LGBTQ communities — in all of its beautiful diversity.
Founded in 2014 by Frankie Hutchinson, Emma Burgess-Olson and Christine McCharen-Tran, Discwoman showcases electronic-music events featuring all-female lineups in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Detroit and San Juan, Puerto Rico. They have been supporting Callen-Lorde since their inception. Hutchinson, Burgess-Olson and Tran donated proceeds from Discwoman’s two-year anniversary party to support Callen-Lorde’s programs and services, along with proceeds from the 2017 “Physically Sick” compilation in partnership with producer and DJ Physical Therapy, which served to demonstrate solidarity among artists in the face of recent and ongoing threats to women’s, immigrants and LGBTQ rights.
Shulman is the author of 9 celebrated novels, including People in Trouble – the first novel about AIDS activism – along with anthologized non-fiction works and award winning plays. To recount some of her honors, she has been granted a Guggenheim for Playwriting, a Stonewall Award for Improving the Lives of Gays and Lesbians in the United States, and 10 Lambda Literary Award Nominations. Schulman’s activism bridges women’s health and LGBTQ cultural politics, from her time as a student at the University of Chicago where she was active in the Women’s Union, to her central role in ACT UP during the height of the AIDS crisis in New York, to her co-founding of the MIX Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival and the Lesbian Avengers, pre-cursor to the NYC Dyke March.
Help us recognize these phenomenal women while raising funds to support the Women’s Health Program at Callen-Lorde! Proceeds will support all identifying women who receive health services across our various programs which serve nearly 18,000 people each year. For tickets and additional information, visit www.callen-lorde.org/springfever.
Discwoman, from L-R: Frankie Hutchinson, Emma Burgess-Olson and Christine McCharen-Tran
Sarah Schulman