Letter from the Executive Director

Beloved community,

I know we are all struggling immensely. Most of us already have been for a long time, and the current administration is deepening long-standing divides in care, opportunity, connection, and well-being for our communities.

Trans and gender-expansive (TGE) people are already significantly more likely to be un- or under-employed, compared to our cisgender peers. Now, TGE people are even more impacted, because we are disproportionately discriminated against through the anti-trans and anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) purges currently taking place across a wide range of sectors. This mass loss of individual stability and livelihoods—paired with increased social and political stress due to legislative erasure and targeting, harassment, bullying, hyper-visibility, and violence—is also fueling an extreme increase in mental health crises. Our youth, elders, and BIPOC, undocumented, rural, Disabled, and/or other multiply marginalized folks are even more disproportionately impacted.

At the same time—when we are experiencing the highest levels of crisis and need—fear of backlash, funding stream losses, political pressure, and optics are prompting funders and intermediaries to exclude trans people and TGE-focused organizations, like Trans-Wa. 

This combination—extreme increases in urgency paired with extreme decreases in funding opportunities—is further widening the already chasmic gap between Trans and Gender-Expansive people and the resources, opportunities, and conditions that we need to thrive.

Trans people deserve to live in comfort, safety, stability, and joy.

We also are critical, foundational movement-builders. We—trans and gender-expansive people, especially our Two-Spirit, Black, POC, and Disabled siblings—have resistance in the ancestries of our chosen families, communities, and lived histories. Our very existence through time has depended upon our ability to organize, collaborate, build communities and coalitions, cultivate joy, center rest and humanity, and lead. Our existence is a symbol and a result of decolonization, and Black and Indigenous leadership. Our existence is a beacon of the impending failure of white supremacy and the patriarchy. They are targeting us because they know that they cannot succeed while we exist, while we are visible. 

If you aren’t moved to action by our humanity, please, be moved by your own. Please be moved to action by anything and everything—whether it is trans folks being erased, state-sanctioned violence against Black people, murdered and missing Indigenous girls, the roll-back of Disability rights and protections,  attacks on DEI, women’s rights being stripped away, mass firings of government workers, the devastation of America’s agriculture system, bombings resuming in Gaza, President Zelenskyy fighting desperately for the safety of Ukraine, or the driving desire to prevent further harm from coming to you and your loved ones. Please. If you are ever going to be moved to action, please be moved to action now.

The only way for us to be free is to loudly, unapologetically, and collectively demand freedom together.

Please consider supporting Trans-Wa, other trans-led and trans-focused organizations, and TGE individuals. Please find ways to support us financially. Please find ways to support us by taking action. Please find ways to advocate for our—and your own—existence, autonomy, and self-determination.

Support trans folks. Support our collective liberation. And please take care. ♥️

In resistance and solidarity,

Serin Bond-Yancey (they/any)

Executive Director