ALP is sometimes called on to take a public stance on issues affecting the LGBTSTGNC community. The following statements reflect the analysis of ALP’s staff, volunteers, board, and many of the community leaders and allies with whom the organization organizes.
The Audre Lorde Project sends condolences to the family and friends of Sam Nordquist. Sam, a 24-year-old Black Trans Man from Minnesota, was tortured and killed in upstate NY. Sam and all the lives of our TGNC people are sacred. All of the Trans People of Color that we’ve lost to violence across New York deserve justice and to have their lives honored through radical, concrete change.
In 1989, Audre Lorde spoke at Oberlin College and addressed issues that are still pressing today:
“Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be. No instantaneous miracle is suddenly going to occur and make you brave and courageous and true. And every day that you sit back silent, refusing to use your power, terrible things are being done in our name.
Our federal taxes contribute $3 billion yearly in military and economic aid to Israel. Over $200 million of that money is spent fighting the uprising of Palestinian people who are trying to end the military occupation of their homeland... Thousands of Palestinians, some as young as twelve, are being detained without trial in barbed-wired detention camps, and even many Jews of conscience opposing these acts have also been arrested and detained.
Encouraging your congresspeople to press for a peaceful solution in the Middle East, and for recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, is not altruism, it is survival.”
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal, and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood”
-Audre Lorde
Recently, a memo for the federal Health and Human Services (HHS) Department was leaked, sharing HHS’s plan to define sex as male or female, and only recognize people in these categories based on their sex assignment at birth. This is yet another attempt by the federal administration to harm trans and gender non-conforming communities by rolling back policies designed to protect us against discrimination. While our community is an already vulnerable and heavily marginalized group, particularly around accessing care, our freedom to self-determine our own gender identities and expressions is at stake. It is important to note that this memo is not yet law. We have an opportunity now to mobilize and demand that government not attempt to erase the lives and experiences of TGNC people.
“Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.” --Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.
The Audre Lorde Project (ALP) is committed to bridging struggle across intersections and ending all forms of oppression, including that of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). We support sharing ourselves and our stories to connect our communities. As a progressive organization seeking radical social justice, we recognize the need to strategize, mobilize, and organize to move important and necessary work forward. We endorse this mass bailout because we understand the real impact of the PIC and that people deserve to be with loved ones and at a home while they wait for a trial.
In light of current events we wanted to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter
AUDRE LORDE PROJECT | TRANSJUSTICE
TRANS DAY OF REMEMBRANCE: AFFIRMATIONS
We want to recognize, hold up, and join in solidarity with our imprisoned and detained community members who face lack of access to necessary medicine, violence at the hands of guards and other folks in the prison and psychiatric systems, and lack of protection and agency around pronouns and gender identity. We honor and celebrate you and your resiliency though you cannot be with us tonight. Your community supports you and loves you.
We want to recognize, hold up, and join in solidarity with our documented and undocumented immigrant community members who face incarceration, deportation, and brutality at the hands of Immigrant and Customs Enforcement, the NYPD, and the larger community. We honor and celebrate your resiliency. Your community supports you and loves you.
We want to recognize, grieve and honor all of the trans and gender non-conforming people who were murdered in brutal acts of hate violence, as well as the people we lost to the violences of homelessness, lack of healthcare, and lack of resources. We keep you in our hearts and minds as we continue to fight for Trans and gender non-conforming people of color liberation, and liberation for all peoples. We honor and celebrate you tonight. Your community loves and misses you.
(New York November 18, 2015)– Today, TransJustice, a program of the Audre Lorde Project, created by and for Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color, will host an annual Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR) event to lift up the lives of all of the Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people who were murdered in the past year and celebrate the resiliency of Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color communities. The event will take place at St. Johns Lutheran Church at 81 Christopher Street from 5pm until 8pm. TDOR is being supported by an array of trans organizations in the city including Anti-Violence Project and FIERCE!
<p>On October 2, 2011, Yvonne McNeil was shot to death by NYPD in front of New Providence Women’s Shelter in Manhattan. We as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (LGBTSTGNC) People of Color of The Safe Outside the System (SOS) Collective an organizing program of the Audre Lorde Project stand in solidarity with the McNeil family who are currently seeking truth and justice for their beloved. We also stand with all LGBTSTGNC People of Color that are currently homeless, experiencing poverty, and engaging in survival economies while living in a culture of constant surveillance, policing, mass incarceration, and murder for being who we are and living in our truths.</p>
