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Auburn Wideman

A LOVE LETTER FOR TRANS DAY OF RESILIENCE

Auburn Wideman · March 31, 2023 ·

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This is a love letter for trans people, for everyone out there gender-bending—experimenting with and embodying radical possibilities for existing in this world. You are radiant in your truth, glorious in your power. 

Today, on Trans Day of Resilience, we are sending love in the midst of an onslaught of hate. In the last three months, lawmakers have introduced over 400 anti-LGBTQ bills. As usual, the South is the primary testing ground. 

Many of these bills target trans youth—our babies, our futures, and our promise of liberation. They attack books and drag shows as cover to strip us of our rights and our humanity. They are coming for our people locked up inside and our people on Medicaid. They are coming for our most vulnerable because they are gearing up to come for all of us. 

It is hunger for power, not transphobia, that is the primary motivator for the people who are behind these bills. They are exploiting deep-seated cultural fears around gender to make an opportunistic power grab. Our rights and bodily autonomy are being gambled with to fuel rising authoritarianism. The impacts will not just be on trans people.

Their laws seek to write us out of existence, but these hate tactics aren’t new, and neither are we. We are birthed from a rich history, a legacy inherited from the trans elders and ancestors who came before us. Our existence is a birthright, passed down through generations who have learned to survive and thrive.

Our Black and brown, queer, and trans elders threw bricks that sparked a revolution. They built bonds of kinship and kept each other safe. And that is just what we’ll continue to do. We’ll take care of each other. We’ll speak up. We’ll fight for one another. We always have, and we always will. Our very existence is resistance, and we will exist long after the structures that oppress us have crumbled. 

They cannot erase us. We will continue to fill the world with our sweet, sparkling trans magic. We will continue to dream of a world beyond the binary. Of liberation from all forms of oppression. Of a world where visibility isn’t tempered with fear but with power and love. 

So today, on Trans Day of Resilience, remember, we will not stop loving you; we will not stop fighting.


Una carta de amor por el Día de la Resiliencia Trans

Esta es una carta de amor para las personas trans, para todxs quienes andan por ahí transformando el género, experimentando con, y encarnando, las posibilidades radicales de existencia en este mundo. Ustedes son radiantes en su verdad, gloriosxs en su poder. 

Hoy, en el Día de la Resiliencia Trans, estamos repartiendo amor en medio de una avalancha de odio. En los últimos tres meses, lxs legisladores han presentado más de 400 proyectos de ley contra la comunidad LGBTQ. Como siempre, el Sur es el principal laboratorio de ensayo. 

Muchos de estos proyectos de ley tienen como blanco a la juventud trans: nuestrxs bebés, nuestros futuros, y nuestra promesa de liberación. Atacan libros y shows de drag, utilizándolos como excusas para quitarnos nuestros derechos y nuestra humanidad. Vienen por nuestra gente encerrada tras las rejas y por nuestra gente que tiene Medicaid. Vienen por lxs más vulnerables de nosotrxs porque se preparan para venir por todxs nosotrxs. 

La principal motivación de las personas que están detrás de estos proyectos de ley es la sed de poder, y no la transfobia. Están aprovechando temores culturales profundamente arraigados en torno al género para acumular más poder de manera oportunista. Están apostando con nuestros derechos y nuestra autonomía corporal para alimentar el creciente autoritarismo. Los impactos no los sufrirán sólo las personas trans.

Sus leyes pretenden borrarnos de la existencia, pero estas tácticas de odio no son nuevas, y nosotrxs tampoco. Nacimos de una rica historia, del legado que nos dejaron las personas mayores y antepasados trans que nos precedieron. Nuestra existencia es un derecho de nacimiento, transmitido a través de generaciones que aprendieron a sobrevivir y a prosperar.

Nuestrxs mayores trans, queer, negrxs y de color lanzaron ladrillos que desataron la chispa de una revolución. Construyeron lazos de hermandad y se protegieron mutuamente. Y eso es precisamente lo que seguiremos haciendo. Nos cuidaremos mutuamente. Levantaremos nuestras voces. Lucharemos lxs unxs por lxs otrxs. Siempre lo hemos hecho, y siempre lo haremos. Nuestra existencia misma es resistencia, y seguiremos existiendo mucho después de que se hayan derrumbado las estructuras que nos oprimen. 

No pueden borrarnos. Seguiremos llenando el mundo de nuestra dulce y brillante magia trans. Seguiremos soñando con un mundo más allá de lo binario. Con la liberación de todas las formas de opresión. Con un mundo donde la visibilidad no sea forjada con miedo sino con poder y amor. 

Por eso, hoy, en el Día de la Resiliencia Trans, no dejaremos de amarte, no dejaremos de luchar.

Canvassing For Survival & Liberation

Auburn Wideman · October 11, 2021 ·

As the compounding crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate collapse, economic inequality, and increased attacks on our access to the ballot continue to ravage our communities – our people are fighting for survival. 

We know that election season is all of the time, not just every four years when the president is at the top of the ticket.

We know that our communities are on the line and that our votes count even in the states and counties where we may feel isolated and dispersed, but we are many.

At SONG Power have a vision of transformative electoral organizing — that is not transactional and intermittent — but instead: 

  • Leads to real material shifts in the Land, Body, Spirit, Work conditions for our constituency (the people who may not even know our name, but are affected by the issues we organize around)
  • Driven by the issues that are priorities to our communities, rather than by the fame or fortune of individuals
  • Incorporates mutual aid — gives back to the community.
  • Builds the power of the community to organize — new leaders and relationships.
  • Rooted in our values in how we treat each other and demonstrates the world we want to live in
  • Connected to year-round organizing, not just elections.
  • Reveals systemic oppressions of capitalism, racism, neoliberalism, imperialism and patriarchy that are embedded in the U.S. electoral process. Elections are a tactic and a means to an end, but are not inherently liberatory.

Canvassing For Survival + Liberation is transformative electoral organizing in action.

“We recognized that in order to bring the people to the level of consciousness where they would seize the time, it would be necessary to serve their interests in survival by developing programs which would help them to meet their daily needs…these programs satisfy the deep needs of the community but they are not solutions to our problem. That is why we call them survival programs, meaning survival pending revolution.”

– Huey P. Newton, To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton

But we don’t just want to survive – we want to thrive. 

We want liberation in our lifetime. 

We believe that the answers we are looking for lie in our communities, with our people, and that behind each door knocked in our neighborhoods are the real political strategists, organizers, and changemakers. 

We are canvassing for our collective dreams, our vision for the future and to find and connect with our beloved community all over the South. 

We are not just putting feet on the ground but our ears to the street – searching for the stories of our people, listening for the rhythm, the words and the phrases that will shape our dreams.

What is Canvassing For Survival + Liberation

Canvassing For Survival and Liberation is a 6 week base building campaign focused on canvassing across the region through three selected sites. 

We are inspired in this plan by Canvassing for Dreams, a SONG Member Initiated Project, produced by Gallery of the Streets as part of [b]REACH: Adventures in Heterotopia.  Beginning in the fall of 2019 through the fall of 2020, Canvassing for Dreams performed theoretical and stylistic interventions in Black counterpublic spaces. The project aimed to queer traditional canvassing and engage communities in public discussions about justice and safety. 

Sites will be chosen through an application process and run by a Local Power Team. Each team will be made up of 5-6 members and consist of the following role: a coordinator, a communications point and a canvass team. SONG Power will offer a paid stipend of $20/hr for up to 20hr/week to each team member. 

Sites will begin the process with onboarding, training and a deep dive into analyzing the needs of their communities, power mapping + assessing the political climate in their area to create a plan tailored to their site. 

Canvassing For Survival + Liberation Site Criteria

  • Align with SONG and SONG Power’s vision, mission + working agreements (will link to this on SONG’s website) 
  • A crew of 5-6 folks who are ready to rock + roll and commit to the 6-week program 
  • Come with a willingness to learn, struggle + grow 

Timeline

  • October 4: Applications Open 
  • October 15: Applications Close 
  • October 15-20: Site Selection, Onboarding + Training  
  • October 20 – December 1: 6 week campaign + canvass blitz
  • December 1 – December 5: Debrief + Assessment
APPLY TO BE A CANVASSING FOR SURVIVAL SITE NOW!
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