Survivor Story: “We deserve better.”
My name is Tamika, and I’m a survivor of abuse from the white organizer who runs No Justice No Pride. I joined an NJNP house to support the young trans women living there. Being manipulated by the white organizer is one thing I endured to be a guardian of the young transgender women within the collective. But when it became verbally abusive, I had enough.
It was a combination of coercion, manipulation, verbal abuse and control I lived through over the course of 2 years that made me say enough is enough and stand up against any further harm.
I walked away in February of 2021 because of how horribly I was talked to, as if I was incompetent at decision making. I have never been disrespected by a colleague in any work environment before in such a way.
You can learn more about my experiences at this blog post I wrote earlier this year.
During my time at NJNP, I witnessed the abuser do a lot of hurtful and harmful things. This includes physically harming NJNP collective members, verbally abusing members, coercive tactics, financial abuse, holding housing availability over people's heads.
There was a time they withheld a letter to a probation office to control someone’s behavior. They even went to people’s job’s and dumped their belongings there after evicting them.
I can list a dozen more hurtful things but you should get the point. No one should be hurt or harmed so many times by one person.
And this abuse hasn't stopped. The irresponsible and cavalier way they shirked off bills that they put in collective member’s names, leaving them hanging as if Black and Brown transgender women, queer and femmes have thousands of dollars to pay them off after promises that this would never happen. I have a bill for $16,600 hanging over my head that the abuser is responsible for.
The leases and utility bills that the abuser put in survivors’ names and stopped paying will prevent former collective members from moving on to places of their own for years to come. Bills the collective had been maintaining since September 2019 (when we moved into the first house) up until recent months and they didn’t have the decency to reach out to say hey, there’s a problem.
They owe me and other former and active collective members that much respect; instead, we discover our debt by receiving a letter from a lawyer demanding payment. Payments demanded from many folks who are unemployed, marginalized Black Transgender women, femmes and queer folks that they were entrusted to provide stress free, safe housing for.
I left NJNP housing in late February 2021, and now I not only owe $16,600 for a home that I don’t live in, but I am enduring ongoing housing instability and homelessness. And that’s just me. People currently in the house are in horrible conditions. Since the abuser stopped paying the bills, some of the houses have no electricity, no heat.
Black trans and queer people deserve better than this treatment. We deserve better than to have a white organizer lure us in with promises of collective housing and stipends, only to abuse us behind closed doors and gatekeep us from community and resources. The trauma survivors have experienced is hard to put to words, but we believe in a future where no one has to go through this again.
Please donate to the DC Survivor Fund to help get safe housing for survivors of this abuse, and to help survivors of abuse follow their dreams. We want to live full lives.
We have dreams of being artists, mentors, stylists, organizers, writers, mothers, gardeners. We have dreams of communities where we learn from each other, learn about liberation, provide for each other, and are safe. Please help us achieve our dreams.
— Tamika