Community Call to Action: Survivor Support Strategies

Safety for Black people of marginalized genders is an urgent need across the globe. One way we are pushing for safety is by supporting six Black trans survivors to get freedom from abuse and follow their dreams through the DC Survivor Support Fund.

Are you looking for ways to support the DC Survivor Support Fund, but you’re not sure where to start? Here are some strategies to help support the survivors!

Offer your resources to survivors:

1. Become a monthly sustaining donor to the Survivor Support Fund here so we can cover housing, groceries, transportation, and everything else survivors need to access healing. If you’d like to send gift cards or vouchers, email us at DCSurvivorFund@gmail.com.

2. Offer your services to the survivors (resume/job prep, healing, legal, consultations, moving or realtor services). Reach out to us via email to get started.

3. Share grant and rapid response fund opportunities (for Black trans women) the survivors can apply to. Reach out to us via email to get started.

Organize your community to move their money to survivors:

1. Get your community to show up for survivors by sharing these graphics via social media and direct asks. See the fundraising toolkit for more.

2. Plan a fundraising event with this toolkit to use creativity and community building to move more money to survivors! Email us and we will get in touch.

3. For white folks, and inviting in white trans and queer folks in particular, join our fundraising and resource support team to help fundraise and/or support with researching resources for survivors (getting jobs, lease co-signers, name changes, obtaining an ID, starting a business, etc.) so they can build in the direction of their dreams. Email us to get onboarded.
   
   

Educate yourself to stop cycles of violence in our community:

Here’s some of the readings the survivor support group have been marinating on:

• Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

• Building Accountable Communities website

• Community Accountability Working Document | INCITE!

• Why Misogynist Make the Best Informants

• What about the rapists? Anarchist approaches to crime & justice

• Learning to Exhale zine

Read and support the work of Black TMA (trans-misogyny affected) organizers:

• @abolish_time on Instagram & Patreonreon

• Nsambu Za Suekama: Femme Queen, Warrior Queen: Beyond Representation, Toward Self-Determination & The Devil Wears Dashikis, Pt. 4: Theoretical and Practical Lessons for the Struggle (Conclusion)

Here are some articles about white people and anti-Blackness in queer organizing:

• White gay privilege exists all year, but it is particularly hurtful during Pride

• A conversation on white supremacy and racism in the queer community

• Queer Politics and Anti-Blackness

Thank you for supporting the DC Survivor Support Fund. As Gwendolyn Brooks so wisely wrote in 1970, “we are each other's harvest: we are each other's business: we are each other's magnitude and bond.”

— DC Survivor Support Fund Team