With a challenging year soon to be behind us, we asked community members to share their vision of what they hope becomes of our city post-pandemic.  

by Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network

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The year 2020 has brought many people in our community, including Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network (TWOC Solidarity Network), heartache, stress, and difficult times. However, what we’ve also seen is the way our community comes together to provide care and mutual aid when we cannot rely on the same from our government. We’ve seen the queer and trans community pool its resources, utilize different levels of privilege, as well as put itself on the frontlines of issues that affect our community at all intersections; we’ve also urged others to do the same.

In 2021, we would love to see a spirit of abundance for the trans community. We would like to see trans specific housing initiatives from our city and state governments, and we would like to see the same governments partnering with Black and Brown trans organizers and organizations already working hard at securing safe trans housing, such as Black Trans Task Force and Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network. We would love for there to be more focus on the ways trans individuals fall between the cracks of social and direct service organizations. We want to highlight that trans folks still receive inequitable funding and service from organizations meant to support them. Our community would be an amazing place if funders and grantors would go out of their way to seek out and fund Black and Brown trans specific orgs and collectives rather than placing emphasis on orgs run by folks who do not serve the trans community equitably. We’ve seen during 2020 that Black and Brown trans workers are increasingly overlooked and mistreated. We want to declare that Black and Brown trans workers have so much more collective power than these organizations know, so watch out!

We would love to see Black and Brown queer and trans joy as something to strive for. We would love to see our community break the chains of guilt around their ability to produce and realize how revolutionary rest and self-care can be! We would love for trans folks everywhere to be free from the constant attacks to body, emotional, and mental health, as well as health care. We hope for the collective healing of our community and other communities against the devastation of COVID-19 and encourage everyone to continue to be safe! We will continue to champion our community in 2021, and hope that you will all be fighting right next to us!

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TWOC Solidarity Network upholds the self determination of Two-Spirit,Trans Women, and Femmes of Color and creates opportunities for collective community care. This fund is one element in confronting the systemic economic disempowerment and violence that Two-Spirit,Trans Women, and Femmes of Color face in our region. We know that unrestricted financial resources can really make a difference, and we believe that the resources necessary to lift and support community already exist in our community and that it is our job to leverage our privilege to support Trans Women of Color in thriving and surviving.

Illustration by Alexa Strabuk