Trans Communities Are Under Attack. Here’s How Philanthropy Must Respond
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Image Description: OLTT Action at Houston City Hall in response to trans violence and the murder of Iris Santos, May 2021. Features a group of OLTT advocates holding trans flags and signs in front of Houston City Hall.
Trans communities across the country are under attack. Local and state legislatures throughout the nation appear intent on stripping away our rights and legalizing discriminatory practices that will make it even harder for trans people to live.
At this current moment, we are witnessing an increase in anti-trans legislation, which includes discriminatory bills against trans youth in sports, anti-healthcare access, mandated reporter bills, bills under “religious freedom,” and bathroom bills after the “worst year in history for the number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills signed into law” in 2021.
This onslaught of transphobic legislation is in the context of the GOP and the political right’s larger attempts to suppress Black voters, restrict reproductive health of people who can birth children, and increase policing, surveillance, and criminalization of BIPOC, trans and queer, disabled, and poor communities for decades. These attacks on our bodily autonomy, self-determination, and safety are deeply alarming, even if they are not new to those of us experiencing the intersecting impact of racism, classism and gender-based oppression.
State-Sanctioned Violence Against Trans Youth
On Tuesday, February 22, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a new order to classify gender-affirming medical care for trans children as “child abuse.” Let us be clear: This is yet another direct attack on trans people. Gov. Abbott’s new legislation should be unequivocally understood as state-sanctioned violence on trans people, and will further criminalize trans young people in schools, parents and caretakers of trans youth, and school official allies.
Image Description: A colorful map of the U.S. showcasing the percentage of LGBTQ people living in negative or low equality states. Header reads “Every Southern State But One Has a Negative or Low LGBTQ Policy Tally.” Rating for southern states is 93%, 11% for western states, 45% for midwestern states and 0% for northeastern states .
As a first-generation translatina who came out as queer as a youth and trans as an adult, I can say from lived experience, community knowledge and scientific research, we know the opposite is true: Allowing trans youth to seek resources, access gender-affirming medical care, offer acceptance, and giving them love will lead to better health outcomes, reduce the risk of mental health disparities, and allow safer and happier selves.
This vitriol from elected officials is a political tactic to fan the flames amongst their conservative base, with deadly consequences. As expounded upon in the Transgender Law Center’s “The Roots of Anti-Trans Violence: Texas” regional report, “The threat against trans folks in Texas—and all over the world—isn’t just a weapon, it’s a wall. The barriers put in place to keep transgender people, trans women of color especially, from living within our society eventually keep them from living at all.”
On track to be another record-breaking year of trans murders, Texas has a history of a significant number of violent killings of trans femmes. On February 13, Cypress Ramos, a transgender Latina woman, was found murdered in Lubbock, Texas. And on February 26, another translatina named Paloma Vasquez was murdered in Houston, Texas.
What our communities know to be true is that anti-trans policy at the local, state and federal levels creates a culture that normalizes gender-based violence on all trans people, and in particular, puts trans women of color at high risk by fueling transmisogyny on the interpersonal level.
Listening to Trans Community Leaders
Recently, I spoke with Anandrea Molina, executive director of Organización Latina de Trans en Texas (OLTT), and also a member on Borealis Philanthopy’s Fund for Trans Generations’ (FTG) Advisory Committee, about the murder of Paloma Vasquez, who was a member of OLTT.
Anandrea shared that this is yet another painful reminder of the realities trans people experience, especially trans women, trans migrants, trans sex workers, and those living at those intersections. “The state is hurting us,” Andrea says. “They are enacting gender-based violence in schools, but also against trans adults in society. We don’t have access to healthcare, employment, housing, mental health services — our basic needs are not met. The State of Texas has a debt with us.”
OLTT, like other trans-led grassroots organizations in the South, has been responding to trans violence and also creating spaces of healing, empowerment and community connection for some time. Groups like these, however, are usually under-resourced and largely unnoticed by traditional mainstream philanthropy.
Smaller, emerging groups—the ones on the ground and providing necessary services and resources directly to trans people at great risk—are often overlooked entirely by funders seeking larger, more established organizations that lack trans leadership and close relationships with trans and gender-nonconforming communities. In fact, a 2018 report published by Funders for LGBTQ Issues states that “for every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations, less than 3 cents focuses on trans communities.” Because of this, local trans communities often do not feel the benefit of the dollars that trickle in during moments of crisis. As a fund that prioritizes and centers trans leadership led by trans people of color, FTG’s rapid response grants are vital in moments like these.
Philanthropy’s Responsibility to Resource Trans Organizing
Allow me to make one thing abundantly clear: Trans movement-building consists of more than our suffering.
This moment of trans visibility, as a result of trans death and anti-trans policies, may be an entry point for funders learning about trans issues, but it cannot be the end of the conversation. We know that long-term, general support grants are what will ultimately sustain and strengthen the power-building, programmatic and capacity-building needs of emerging trans-led organizations. We need funders to listen to, trust and invest in trans leadership and trans-led organizations.
Trans organizers are working every day to create a world where the realities and needs of trans youth, particularly Black, Indigenous, and trans youth of color, are heard and respected. The Fund for Trans Generations proudly trusts and supports the trans-led organizations building futures where all our communities can thrive, access joy and experience love. In order for this to happen, it is not enough for foundations simply to disavow transphobic politicians and laws. But we must also all interrogate our own roles—personal and institutional—in upholding cis-heteronormative environments that systemically exclude the very trans people we claim to support.
To the equity-driven funders: We urge you to take action and resource trans communities on the ground. Ask yourselves this: What does solidarity look like with trans youth, adults, communities, organizations and movements?
While trans communities respond to this moment, there are many opportunities for individuals and philanthropic institutions to resource trans-led work. Intermediaries like the Fund for Trans Generations, Trans Justice Funding Project, Black Trans Fund, and Third Wave Fund are doing amazing work, but they cannot be the lone supporters of trans organizers and trans-led organizations.
We know legislation cannot erase the longstanding legacies, history and resilient existence of trans and queer people of color. Just as we have done in the past, and now, we will come together and collectively organize against those intimidated by our gender liberation, sexual freedom and self-expression. In the long haul, we believe that we will win this fight, and we look to our allies in philanthropy to join us as we work to create a truly equitable world that serves us all.
Aldita Gallardo (she/they/ella) is an organizer, facilitator, and resource mobilizer based in Oakland, California, on unceded Ohlone Land. Currently, she serves as Program Officer for the Fund for Trans Generations, a donor collaborative at Borealis Philanthropy that resources emerging trans-led organizations in the United States.
