A quick glance at our Summer events!
Summer is still poppin’ at QEJ with out awesome August events. Check it out!
- Jay’s Walking Tour on Saturday, July 30th. The famous Jay Toole, QEJ’s shelter organizer, will be leading a tour of her life through the 60′s as a homeless butch lesbian. The tour will begin at 12:00pm in Washington Square Park and last about 2 1/2 hours.
- Queer Writing Workshops on August 3rd and August 10th–both from 6:30-8:30pm. Lead by Brooklyn-based writer, Sassafras Lowrey, these workshops are for shelter residents and friends to explore their creative side and share with a queer-friendly group. Food and metro cards will be provided. Our writers will have a Queer Performance on Friday August 12th at 6pm where they will read their work. This event is open to the public.
- Are you interested in being a shelter facilitator? QEJ works in several shelters around NYC organizing queer shelter residents; if you want to learn more join us for Shelter Facilitator Orientation on August 5th (6-7:30pm) and August 6th (1-2:30pm). You only have to come to one! At this orientation Jay and Carlos will lead the group in learning how to facilitate shelter sessions.
- Come to QEJ’s 2nd Leadership School on Saturday August 13th from 12-5pm. This 4-5 hour workshop is intended for activists and shelter residents and will discuss queer history, defining racial/economic justice, and learning about the systems of economy. Food and metro cards will be available.
- Sunday August 15th is QEJ’s August Game Night! From 6-8pm we will be relaxing with some snacks and fun games. Scrabble? Monopoly? Spades? What’s your favorite game? Come school us (or watch us school you) as we enjoy a relaxing Sunday night together.
- Saturday August 20th is the 2nd Monthly Resident’s Movie Night. Join QEJ and friends from 6-9pm as we watch The Aggressives, a hard-hitting documentary about masculine butch lesbians. A discussion will follow the movie showing. Food and metro cards available.
- Monday, August 29th, QEJ’s Board Chair Terry Boggis will lead a Know Your Rights Training at 6pm. This event is for anyone interested in understanding their legal rights family issues and family law.
All events unless otherwise noted are held at the QEJ office. Metro cards are available to those who need it. We are located at 147 W. 24th St., 4th Floor New York, NY 10011
Support us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Queers-For-Economic-Justice/18201778500
Welfare Warriors’ Documentary ‘Taking Freedom Home’ Released!
Taking Freedom Home chronicles two years in the life of the Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative (WWRC), a project of Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ), a New York based non-profit organization. The film sheds much needed light on the challenges faced by low income LGBTGNC (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender nonconforming) residents of New York City as well as their intersectional social justice organizing strategies.
Equal parts video postcard and revolutionary workbook, the film utilizes memory, artistic expression and group analysis to reveal a process of personal healing and collective empowerment. Taking Freedom Home celebrates the creativity and vibrance of diverse LGBTGNC movements and particularly the historical initiatives of trans and gender nonconforming people of color in New York and throughout the US from the Stonewall Uprising in 1969 to the Critical Resistance (CR10) conference in 2008.
This documentary video was co-produced by Queers for Economic Justice and Wapinduzi Productions to document the Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative’s storytelling process. It accompanies A Fabulous Attitude!: Low Income Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Gender Non Conforming and Queer People Surviving and Thriving on Love, Shelter, & Knowledge, the collaborative’s 70-page research report on low income LGBTGNC issues.
The Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative was a participatory action research project of Queers for Economic Justice that convened from 2007 to 2010. We came together to investigate the disturbing and infuriating poverty-related violences low income LGBTGNC people navigate every day. Trained in research by a graduate student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and in documentary video production by the founder of Wapinduzi Productions, we videotaped 10 storytelling interviews and conducted 171 surveys with low income LGBTGNC people of color and white folks in the NYC area.
Our findings show that the majority of low income LGBTGNC people are strongly involved in their communities and use many strategies to fight for justice. We deal with continual discrimination and violence at the hands of police as well as staff and guards at government and nonprofit institutions. Those in our research also create personal and community projects that make their lives richer and stronger. Still, the struggles low income LGBTGNC people face are harsh and isolating 69% of survey takers have been homeless at some point in their lives and 40% use isolation as a means to avoid being targeted. Our work shows how racism, transphobia, and homophobia entangle with economic injustice to create such conditions.
Taking Freedom Home will engage the interest of friends and allies to LGBTGNC movements, advocacy and organizing groups, academics and policy makers, and community members that can relate to the difficulties of being low income and having the desire for justice.
To see the documentary CLICK HERE!
Low-Income LGBTQ New Yorkers Reveal “A Fabulous Attitude” in New Report
The Welfare Warriors’ Research Collaborative (WWRC) of Queers for Economic Justice celebrate Pride by releasing the findings of a three-year community participatory action research project, “A Fabulous Attitude: Low Income LGBTGNC People Surviving & Thriving on Love, Knowledge & Shelter.”
WWRC co-researchers conducted surveys with 171 low-income LGBT and gender nonconforming (GNC) people, gathering information about the economics of peoples’ lives, struggles with social services and police, as well as the many ways people generate justice. They also video recorded 10 storytelling interviews and audio recorded hundreds of hours of our research meetings, both of which were analyzed as data for this report. Some of the findings in the report are:
- Most of the people who participated in our survey (69%) have been homeless at some point in their lives. The majority (58%) currently live in a shelter, on the street or subway, or in temporary living situations.
- Survey takers manage intense targeting by police: over half have been stopped for questioning and almost half have been arrested. Further, 29% have been strip-searched and 19% have been physically assaulted by police at least once.
- Over 70% of survey takers rely on government financial and health benefits. Yet almost half report discrimination in a government or community agency – ranging from verbal harrassment to physical assault – and two-fifths of those were denied services. Staff or employees were involved in over 50% of incidents, police in over 40% and guards in 20%.
As these statistics begin to indicate, the report shows that low-income queers are dealing with issues of government and nonprofit violence, both inside and outside LGBT organizations. The struggles go beyond making ends meet; violences of poverty, racism, policing, and ablism pervade the lives of low income LGBTGNC New Yorkers.
At the same time, low income LGBTGNC communities give back and fight back. 113 responders described the 271 groups and organizations they are part of and 58% take action on their own and with others to resist daily injustices and build the communities they want to live in. Recommendations and desires included in the report include promoting community ethics, ending the use of the law against our communities, and taking action together for economic, housing, racial, sexual, and gender justice.
WWRC findings contribute to the ongoing call for attention to the ways racism and economic injustice intersect with homophobia and transphobia. This is necessary because of the ways LGBT issues continue to be framed in mainstream political and research agendas primarily in terms of sexuality, and to some extent gender, while ignoring racialized and classed dimensions of peoples’ everyday lives. Further, because low-income LGBTGNC people draw on their identities to survive and resist discriminatory and dehumanizing treatment, it is crucial to see and honor each other as members of multiple communities.
Download the full report here.
An accompanying documentary produced by the Welfare Warriors’ Research Collaborative will be screening in NYC and around the country. Portions will be made available online soon.
6/17: Welfare Warriors Release “A Fabulous Attitude” Report & Film
Act Queer! Teleconference: Research in Queer Organizing
Research is something many grassroots movements shun, given its history of pathologizing low-income, queer and trans people, people of color, the disabled, etc.
And yet, there is a wealth of research happening by grassroots organizations, and researchers interested in the strength & resilience of communities.
What are the research strategies being utilized by different queer and progressive groups? What has been successful and what has failed in the past? When complete, where and how is this research distributed? How can the movements engage research towards creating a vision of social justice?
The April 29th call focused on the grassroots research of several organizations:
To hear each presenter press play on the audio. Read materials from each presenter just below the audio player.
Michelle Billies, Dwayne Bibb and Kagendo Murungi, Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative (New York, NY)
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- Their report should be released this summer, stay tuned!
Shira Hassan, Young Women’s Empowerment Project (Chicago, IL)
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- Download their report entitled Girls Do What They Have to Do to Survive: Methods Used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal here!
Juan Battle, Social Justice Sexuality Initiative (New York, NY)
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- Take his survey here!
Download QEJ’s most recent report entitled Tidal Wave: LGBT Poverty & Hardship in a Time of Economic Crisis.
If you have questions, comments, or know of other resources or events related to this topic, please feel free to post in the comments section!
The purpose of Act Queer! is to connect grassroots LGBTQ racial and economic justice organizations with national queer and/or allied coalitions and organizations to share information and strategies on racial and economic justice research, organizing and advocacy.
Building a Queer Left
QEJ is working on a new research report through the Building a Queer Left project (BQL). The BQL project seeks to build a progressive and radical coalition of organizations who approach their work in queer communities through a racial and economic justice framework. This coalition is determined to identify what issues are present within the “other” gay agenda.
The creation of an organizational directory is one of the tasks of the BQL coalition. This directory will feature organizations/groups/projects that are organizing around issues affecting our queer communities. This directory will be available to the public and can be used as a tool for grant proposals, referrals and coalition-building. We hope to complete this report by the end of the summer. Stay tuned!
April 29: Act Queer! Teleconference: Research in Queer Organizing
Research is something many grassroots movements shun, given its history of pathologizing low-income, queer and trans people, people of color, the disabled, etc.
And yet, there is a wealth of research happening by grassroots organizations, and researchers interested in the strength & resilience of communities.
What are the research strategies being utilized by different queer and progressive groups? What has been successful and what has failed in the past? When complete, where and how is this research distributed? How can the movements engage research towards creating a vision of social justice?
JOIN THE CALL TO FIND OUT!
Please RSVP to this call.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
2pm-3:30pm EST/11am-12:30pm PST
Conference Call # (712) 432-0600
Password: 751219#
Moderator: Kenyon Farrow, Queers for Economic Justice (New York, NY)
Presenters include:
Michelle Billies and Dwayne Bibb, Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative (New York, NY)
Juan Battle, Social Justice Sexuality Initiative (New York, NY)
Shira Hassan, Young Women’s Empowerment Project (Chicago, IL)
Other Presenter TBA!
The purpose of the Act Queer! teleconference series is to connect grassroots LGBTQ, racial,and economic justice organizations with national queer and/or allied coalitions and organizations to share information and strategies on racial and economic justice issues.
Welfare Justice Coalition to Announce Win For Transgender New Yorkers
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 5, 2010 Contact: Jen Roman, Kris Hayashi
E-Mail: jroman@alp.org
- Phone: 718-596-0342 x 32, 646-305-4177(cell)
HISTORIC VICTORY: WELFARE PROCEDURE APPROVED TO ADDRESS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST TRANS AND GENDER NON CONFORMING PEOPLE, BRINGING NYC CLOSER TO BEING INCLUSIVE FOR ALL NEW YORKERS.
NEW YORK CITY HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION (HRA) APPROVES PROCEDURE
FOR SERVING TRANS AND GENDER NON CONFORMING CLIENTS
(New York City, February 5, 2010) – TransJustice of the Audre Lorde Project, Housing Works, Queers for Economic Justice, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project will announce a victory for their Welfare Justice Campaign at a press conference on February 10, 2010 at 10AM at the Housing Works Bookstore, 126 Crosby Street (between Prince St. and East Houston), Manhattan, NY. On December 23, 2009 — after five years of organizing by Trans and Gender Non Conforming communities — the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) passed a procedure to stop rampant transphobic discrimination and harassment in New York City’s welfare system. Speakers include Jane Corbett, Executive Deputy Commissioner of HRA and members of the Welfare Justice Campaign.
Transgender and Gender Non Conforming people face extreme, abusive, unjust discrimination when trying to access government benefits in New York City. Some transgender people are denied the ability to even apply for benefits and told to come back when they “dress more like a girl, or boy.” Since 2005, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) communities in New York City have been fighting back by urging HRA to address the widespread Transphobia, discrimination, and harassment that Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people in New York City face when accessing public assistance. In 2005 HRA and a Citizen Advisory Transgender Sub Committee developed Best Practice Protocols for Serving Trans and Gender Non Conforming Clients (the new procedure is based on this document). Unfortunately, these protocols sat on the shelf for years and were never implemented nor adopted by HRA.
Jane Corbett, Executive Deputy Commissioner of HRA and Kavita Pawria, HRA Director of Office of Refugee and Immigrant Affairs have been working along side community groups for the last two years to develop a HRA procedure on serving Trans and Gender Non Conforming communities. On December 23rd, 2009, after years of organizing and advocacy by the community, HRA Commissioner Robert Doar finally approved the new procedure. HRA Executive Deputy Commissioner Jane Corbett stated that, “After much cooperation both within the agency and with community leaders outside of HRA, the procedure was finalized and distributed to staff last December. We expect that this reinforcement of City rules will improve our customer service.”
According to Mya Vazquez, of TransJustice of the Audre Lorde Project, “Due to wide spread prejudice in order to survive we’re forced to apply for public benefits, yet when we go to welfare centers, we’re harassed, jeered at, and faced with discrimination because of our gender identities and/or expression.” She states that, “The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell campaign’ has taken up so much national attention and resources, yet the issues of daily survival that Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color deal with go unnoticed”.
Tracy Bumpus of Housing Works states, “This procedure is important because the greatest fundamental human right is to be free to love and live as our minds and hearts guide us. But for Trans and Gender Non Conforming people what is the value of freedom if we are afraid to seek the life sustaining services offered by HRA because we are discriminated against, made fun of and made to feel less than human. Hopefully this procedure will change the outdated ways of thinking that people seem unable to let go of.”
While approval of the HRA procedure is a major win, it is only the beginning. Reina Gossett, of Queers for Economic Justice states, “The approval of this procedure is a major victory for Trans and Gender Non Conforming communities, however 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 on the new procedure and that our communities are central to the development and implementation of these trainings.”
The Audre Lorde Project (ALP) is a Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color Community Organizer Center in NYC. TransJustice, a project of ALP, is a Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color organizing group.
Housing Works provides homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS and their families with housing, meals, medical care, drug treatment, social support, employment opportunities and other lifesaving services.
Queers for Economic Justice is a progressive organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation.
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.
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QEJ on YouTube
QEJ’s mission demands involvement in all media, so it should be no surprise that they’re all over youtube. Here’s Kenyon Farrow speaking at the plenary session “HIV/AIDS Crisis: This Is What We’re Doing About it!”, part of the 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change.
Jay Toole facilitating a mock hearing, The People vs. Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The clip discusses Bloomburg’s broken shelter system and its very real impact on the lives of New Yorkers.
Reina Gossett talking about welfare and social reform as a panelist on Activism at the Intersections, hosted by Sager Symposium
And Kenyon Farrow again, discussing the importance of reproductive justice to gay black men at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy program.
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.
Welfare Warriors Launch Survey for Low-Income LGBTGNC New Yorkers
QEJ’s Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative needs your help to distribute a survey to document issues impacting low-income LGBTGNC (gender nonconforming) folks in the NYC area. We are a New York City-based participatory action research project of Queers for Economic Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
As a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people from many different backgrounds, we want to find out more about our community in NYC and the surrounding areas.
We value your feedback, and would appreciate if you took a few moments to respond to some questions. To go to the survey, click on the link below:
The Low Income LGBTGNC and Gender Nonconforming Peoples’ Survey
About the QEJ Welfare Warriors:
WELFARE WARRIORS
WE BUILD COMMUNITY AND TRAIN LEADERS
In the wake of the recent federal reauthorization of welfare reform, QEJ organizes low-income LGBT people on public assistance, and offers them the opportunity to become involved in fighting for a more humane, just and inclusive welfare system. Low-income LGBT people work with QEJ on:
- Leadership Development Course: This 10-week course provides low-income LGBT people with political analysis, and concrete advocacy and community organizing tools, to help them increase their ability to be effective advocates for social change.
- “Welfare Warriors”: Through events like our annual “Economic Justice Day of Action”, this grassroots community organizing effort brings LGBT people on public assistance together to work on issue-specific campaigns that will make the welfare system more inclusive of LGBT and gender-non-conforming people and their families, and more humane for all.
- Research Collaborative: We are engaged in a groundbreaking, community-led research project documenting the issues facing low-income queers.