This special collection of three back issues issues, titled Caring & Healing, displays the maltreatment of the lesbian body in psychiatric and mental health institutions, and lesbians' creative responses to these experiences as expressed in the pages of Sinister Wisdom over the past twenty-five years. The Caring & Healing Collection gathers three issues with great writing and thinking by lesbians that continues to be relevant for our time. These issues each connect to the concept of “image” and will thus explore what lesbian and lesbianism are to a varied group of creatives, ultimately presenting the question of what a lesbian body is and could be. Various perspectives are shown and probe at how the environment and the world around them influence their identity and experience.

Sinister Wisdom 36: Surviving Psychiatric Abuse/Creating Emotional Well-Being provides through its creation a collection of narratives from women who have suffered psychiatric assault in both mental institutions and psychiatric therapy. Many times, these abusive situations result in lesbians asking themselves certain questions such as, was my behavior appropriate? or am I actually crazy? These questions are demeaning and dehumanize lesbian identities and bodies, affecting the nature of healing and our values in lesbian communities. Besides addressing the negative experiences that lesbians have endured for decades, Sinister Wisdom 36: Surviving Psychiatric Abuse/Creating Emotional Well-Being also addresses controlling our own reality and urges that we maintain our communities healthy and strong without the addition of a heterosexual therapist or "professionalized" lesbian. The narratives shared in the issue are emotionally driven while discussing the culture around therapism critically.

Sinister Wisdom 50: Not the Ethics Issue is an issue that explores how ethics, although deemed crucial and important to maintain, protect and grow the lesbian community, is not a commonly voiced discussion. Instead, any debate surrounding ethics and ethical behavior is deemed dull, boring and disinteresting--only for "academic" lesbians. Looking at oneself and asking, "when have I ever been unethical?" "How can I change my behavior to be an ethical lesbian?" is difficult and has been overlooked by many. Sinister Wisdom 50: Not the Ethics Issue calls for lesbians to be conscious of who they are and what they are involved in.

Sinister Wisdom 49: Lesbian Resistance dives into the complexity of lesbian bodies and how various types of lesbians explore and define their own identities. Everything lesbians are: their thoughts, emotions, physical bodies, political views, spirituality, and sex, are facets that (typically) men and heterosexual women feel entitled to either own, profit off of, or attack. This notion causes lesbians to at times forget what their bodies consist of and possibly even dilute or minimize their identities in certain spaces. Lesbian Resistance works to bring that to attention and call upon lesbians to continue to exist and be aware of their existence. This call is for all lesbians, especially lesbians of color. They should acknowledge and remember that their identities exist in a non-white way and should not be whitewashed, but that we are all ultimately part of what makes a lesbian body, a lesbian body. In the lesbian community, there is no lesser or greater lesbian and the acceptance of this will result in the growth of our resistance and revolution.

Sinister Wisdom is offering the package at three rates with our usual sliding scale: $4.00 which covers the cost of postage only, $10.00 which covers postage and a small contribution to Sinister Wisdom to help us keep doing our work, $15 is for womyn who can give a little more to Sinister Wisdom and cover the cost of the issues and postage. Make your selection below and I'll post these issues to you without delay. Order a set for you--and a set to share with a friend. We need lesbian words and ideas now more than ever to resist Trump and this era of US politics.