Welfare Justice Campaign Delcare Victory; Reina Featured in Gay City News
After 5 years of struggle, the Welfare Justice Campaign declares victory for transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers accessing welfare. Gay City News writes;
Appearing at a February 17 press conference at the Housing Works Bookstore in Soho, Reina Gossett, a representative of Queers for Economic Justice, hailed the breakthrough, which won final approval in December from HRA Commissioner Robert Doar, but cautioned, “We still have far to go. In the past, similar city policies have failed in the training phase using inadequate curriculum and trainers lacking cultural competence. We need everyone’s support to insure that all HRA employees are trained.”
Congratulations to the Welfare Justice Coalition including Queers for Economic Justice, the TransJustice program at Brooklyn’s Audre Lorde Project, Housing Works, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
Feb 17: Trans Victory! Welfare Justice Press Conference
On February 17 at 10am a press conference will be held at Housing Works Bookstore (126 Crosby St, between Prince and E. Houston) that will announce a victory for the Welfare Justice Campaign.
The Welfare Justice Campaign is a joint project of Queers for Economic Justice, Audre Lorde Project, Sylvia Rivera Law Project and Housing Works.
Click here to read the full press release.
Welfare Justice Campaign Needs You!
Community Update – Welfare Justice Campaign
Thank you to everyone for all your support of the Welfare Justice Campaign! To date we have collected over 1,300 petitions and postcards. The campaign has received support from New York City elected officials including Council Person Letitia James, Council Person Rosie Mendez, and Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
All of your support has been critical to the campaign. We are excited to update that we recently received word from the Human Resources Administration that the new procedure should be approved by the end of the month. This is great news as we’ve been pressuring HRA for a projected approval date for months. After over five years of organizing by Trans and Gender Non Conforming communities in New York City we are weeks away from a major step towards winning Welfare Justice! for Trans and Gender Non Conforming people in New York City.
Please continue to build support for the campaign by collecting petitions and postcards, signing up as an endorser, and getting the word out. We are always looking for volunteers for the campaign, contact mvazquez@alp.org.
Thank you!
Audre Lorde Project/TransJustice, Housing Works, Queers for Economic Justice, Sylvia Rivera Law Project
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WHAT YOU CAN DO
Join us in continuing to pressure HRA and Support Justice for Trans and Gender Non Conforming people!
1) Endorse the Welfare Justice Campaign! We are calling on organizations and individuals to support Welfare Justice for Trans and Gender Non Conforming People by endorsing the campaign today. To endorse please submit the form on ALP’s website at Endorse. If you have any questions or need a hard copy of the endorsement form please email endorse@alp.org or call 718-596-0342 x 32.
2) Sign the e-petition and get others to sign. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/endtransphobianow/
3) Collect HRA Postcards. We are also collecting signed postcards to send to HRA. You can either:
· Make your own copies – Download the HRA Postcard, print it, sign it, get others to sign and mail the signed postcards to TransJustice, ALP, 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217. Download postcard here
Or
· Request postcards – Contact Mya Vazquez at 718-596-0342 x 23 or mvazquez@alp.org , tell us how many you want and where to mail them to.
4) Get involved with the campaign. To volunteer with the campaign or get more information contact mvazquez@alp.org
TransJustice, a project of the Audre Lorde Project, is one of the first community organizing groups created by and for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) People of Color in New York City. The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color Community Organizer Center based in Brooklyn, New York.
Campaign Background
Since 2005, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) communities in New York City have been urging the Human Resources Administration (HRA) to address the rampant Transphobia, discrimination, and harassment that Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people in New York City face when seeking to access welfare/public assistance.
In June of 2008, a week before the Fourth Annual Trans Day of Action (annual March organized by TransJustice of the Audre Lorde Project) which was set to protest at HRA headquarters, HRA officials agreed to meet with TransJustice to hear community concerns. After this first meeting with HRA in the Fall of 2008, TransJustice formed a committee of organizations including the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Housing Works, Queers for Economic Justice and others, to develop a HRA procedure to address transphobic discrimination at HRA. To date HRA has not approved this new procedure.
In 2005 the New York City Human Resources Administration and a Citizen Advisory Transgender Sub Committee developed Best Practice Protocols for Working With and Serving Trans and Gender Non Conforming Employees and Clients (the new procedure is based on this document), these protocols sat on the shelf for years and were never implemented nor adopted by HRA. This cannot happen again.
Welfare Warriors: Organize, Educate, Research, Make Movies
The Welfare Warriors have been busy organizing, doing political education, research and making a movie!
Organizing
We continued our work in the Human Resources Administration (HRA) campaign advocating welfare justice for trans and gender nonconforming people. We joined Trans Justice, Housing Works, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and others in meeting with an HRA deputy commissioner. Our goal was to push a policy against transphobia at HRA sites defending trans and gender nonconforming people’s access to vital services like public assistance. We are currently organizing a set of actions to confront the rampant discrimination at HRA and implement a procedure that would confront transphobia and discrimination.
In July, the Welfare Warriors held their three-week-long, intensive “Train the Trainers” organizing school, facilitated by Welfare Project consultant Kai Lumumba Barrow and hosted by the Brecht Forum. We met daily to develop strategies to prevent burn out, further our political analysis concerning systems of power, concretize plans to support wealth redistribution, and build our organization skills against racism, classism, ableism and gender oppression. Our methods included compelling workshops, role playing and popular education.
As part of Train the Trainers, Kai facilitated a week-long campaign training workshop aimed at stopping transphobic violence in the NYC shelter system. The workshop helped us focus our goals, obstacles and strategies of an 18 month campaign. The school culminated in a group writing of the Welfare Warriors Manifesto and a surprise soapbox speak-out at Sheridan Square Park marking the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion and drawing connections between the conditions low-income queer, trans and gender nonconforming people face today and the conditions that helped spark the Stonewall Rebellion. Watch the October 2009 Edition of PBS’s In The Life to see footage from the Train the Trainers Organizing School.
Political Education
In August the Welfare Project launched Connecting Communities. Part political education session and part town hall, Connecting Communities is an ongoing series of discussions making connections between the issues and experiences of people navigating the welfare system and other institutions. Our first meeting, planned by welfare project interns Ash Hammond, Mel King, as well as Welfare Warriors Dwayne Bibb and Sandie Green, addressed trans and queer reproductive justice issues in the welfare and prison systems.
Miss Major, a Stonewall veteran and organizing director of Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) in California, Terry Boggis, Center Kids Director at the NYC LGBT Center, Mya Vasquez Trans Justice coordinator at Audre Lorde Project and Stephanie Rivera of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project all spoke to an audience of sixty about topics ranging from trans experiences in prisons, violence at the HRA office, and queer parenting to reproduction in the face of eugenics. For the event we also published article on Reproductive Justice for Queer and Trans Communities in the Prison System and the Welfare System written by Ash Hammond, which has drawn trans people into the discourse concerning reproductive justice, state-sanctioned reproductive violence, and how communities can fight back.
Research & Documentary
As part of polishing up our Welfare Warriors documentary, we’ve screened a rough cut and fine cut of the film, which captures our process and stories of our community members surviving violence, challenging injustice and building a sense of community over the last few years. We will also release the results of our 18 month research project through the documentary before disseminating our findings through a zine, report and a class at La Guardia Community College this coming November.
