Queer/trans learning and sharing

Queer/trans learning and sharing

• What does solidarity look like with people living in places that are vey hostile for TQ (trans and queer)?

• Important to name the threats you're facing and how likely they are to actually happen

• Erin Reade's "Erin in the Morning" -- podcast -- outlines dangers state-by-state up to the minute for TQ people -- "This is what I'm living through, this is what I face."

• How do we support people who can't move out of hostile states to safer states?

• People are making assessments of what they can or cannot do to keep themselves safe

• People recommend making sure legal documents are in order (parental, gender docs)

• Rainbow Railroad - support for trans people who live in hostile places

• There's grief and despair but there's also anger and resistance

• There are preemptively comply with what they see is coming; we can counter that by building communities of resistance, being ready to push back, being louder instead of hiding

• Many of us have faced horrible conditions in the past; we don't want to retreat from that progress, ceding ground

• Not everyone has the power or means to fight. Rather have people survive than fight.

• There's a whole hormone DIY or mutual aid hormones etc going on; it's starting and growing, but people are going to go to jail for that, lose custody of kids, etc

• Long-time suppliers of hormones in Europe have been raided and shut down, no one knows why, important to keep those sources under wraps

• What are we going to feel when we know we are liberated?

• Liberation happens on the local level; need to do local resource sharing

• Find and/or create groups you can join with locally, organize with locally, figure out who has needs now and ways

• Back in the day Prodigy bulletin boards and strap-on.org were important hubs for trans and queer people, especially when they weren't living in places that were remotely safe for trans or queer people

• Queer and trans young people are on Roblox, Minecraft meeting together

• There's gonna be a lot of organizing on federated social media (e.g. Mastodon), servers run from home, people hosting their own shit

• People are using Tumblr and Discord a lot

• As things get more and more federated it will be harder and harder for authorities to control

• Facebook likes to shut shit down, say that there are violations of terms of service

• The tiniest glimpses of queer and trans visibility were and are so important for so many people

• They're not going to destroy the visibility that we have now

• The cat's out of the bag -- they can't get rid of us

• "I miss when being queer was really exciting"

• How do we protect trans and queer youth? (e.g. spike in calls to suicide hotlines after the election)

• How can we protect trans and queer elders, especially those who recently realized they were trans or queer?

• How do we talk to gay/queer/trans people who are very pro-Trump?(!?!?!) How do we address that problem?

• People who get in those mindsets from an emotional place can't be gotten out of that space through logic or reason -- you can sometimes counter that with the opposite emotional persuasion

• People tend to go to extremism when they feel like they've been left behind

• People are only going to change if they WANT to change

• How do we pad ourselves emotionally so that we can hold people accountable and have heartfelt conversations -- ways to enter community or being allies even if they've made mistakes or caused harm

• Not every job is for every person; some people make meals or bring water to protests but don't march; there are people who make space to be together.

• If you'll be triggered by bigots it's not your role to deal with them but you might know people who can take that on

• For the people who are down to do that rough work, they need to have trainings, resources, get them ready to not be so activated when having those conversations, e.g. like people did during the civil rights movement

• Deep canvassing -- whole concept is spending 20+ minutes at someone's door having real dialogue. A question that can be asked in that context: "Tell me about a time when you felt othered." Sometimes this can make a shift

• Prentiss Hemphill -- works on the somatic/embodied aspects of doing political work is essential to keep us grounded -- recently published work

• Ask lots of questions, find points of commonality

• Podcast: "It Could Happen Here" -- here's what we could expect with Trump, Project 2025, how it impacts trans people -- helpful because they have had a history of reporting on this when so many people have been ignoring it

• Podcasts: Translash - Imara Jones - "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine;" "The Fascism Barometer," Ejeris Dixon

• Is there some way to have a layer of people doing the education and convincing who are NOT the most impacted people

• Have the people who are less endangered (like queer people who are not trans) to do that work

• "We don't need more allies, we need accomplices"

• There's a lot of labor that trans and queer people do to fight back; the accomplices need to do that labor, move that work forward

• A message from the group in our session -- "Y'ALL need to do the work of fighting back!" (i.e. the people who are NOT queer and trans)

• We've gotten pepper-sprayed; military and police are put through training by getting pepper-sprayed. How do people working towards their own liberation get that kind of training and guidance -- we can get through these experiences

• Role-playing those scenarios can help

• Make sure people are getting training so that they can do these things

• No substitute for the real experience

• Community safety and security is also doing the work of training folks, getting people prepared

• Sometimes you might be trying to de-escalation but you get angry and just want to fight back

• A comrade from South Africa talked about a lot of masculine people getting angry, jumping on cop cars, but then that incurs more violence on people

• We keep doing stuff that's polite, not harming people, non-violent action but it's not working, we revert to peaceful protest only but what are we doing after that?

• It's not a binary -- both legal/safe and not-so-legal/militant actions are both necessary

• How do we protect our groups and movements who are trying to infiltrate and stir shit up? How do we vet people?

• People need a risk assessment -- how likely is it that people show up and instigate and their actions get blamed on us

• Vision Change Win - "Get In Formation" -- guide to community security and safety, VCW also provides lots of trainings and security school

• Queer and trans organizations are learning to do this stuff, prepare people more for actions

• Pepper gel does not get in your eyes like pepper spray does

• "Death before detransition, but it's not gonna be my death..."