Stephen Donaldson: Classic Writing By and
About the Former SPR Leader
Former SPR President Stephen Donaldson was not
only the first American jailhouse rape survivor to publicly discuss his
experiences, he was also an outspoken and unabashed representative for
rape survivors and a fierce critic of policies on prison sexual assault.
Donny, who headed SPR from 1988 to his death
in 1996, was brutally gang-raped in 1973 after being arrested at a Quaker
pray-in at the White House. Instead of letting the attack destroy him,
Donny called a press conference and testified about his assault at the
Washington D.C. City Council. That experience was the beginning of
lifelong effort to improve policies on sexual abuse in custody. Donny
wrote extensively about the horror of prison rape, lectured on prison
sexuality and created SPR's influential amicus brief for the
groundbreaking Supreme Court case Farmer v. Brennan.
Donny spoke about prison in a language that
was sexually explicit and unashamed. For some readers, his language may be
too strong; for others, his ideas about sexual identity may be
controversial. But as Donny wrote in his provcative 1993 essay "A Million
Jockers, Punks, and Queens," "these questions remain on the table even if
we choose to ignore them."
Donny died July 18, 1996 at the age of 49. His
death was caused by an "indeterminate virulent infection complicated by an
AIDS-defining condition" contracted as a victim of prisoner rape.
Writing By Stephen Donaldson
Writing About Stephen Donaldson
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