The queer tradition of mutual aid lasts all year, but today is the annual Giving Tuesday, which is meant to “encourage people to do good,” per the observance’s official website. Giving Tuesday, which falls on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving each year, was established in 2012 by New York’s 92nd Street Y in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, and focuses mainly on charitable giving.
It’s important to remember, however, that mutual aid is different from charity and is grounded in radical traditions. Trans activist Dean Spade, for instance, defines mutual aid as “a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable.”
In other words, you know that joke about passing around the same $20 to people who need it? That’s (a very simplified form of) mutual aid.
If you’re feeling particularly giving today, here are some opportunities for you to get in the spirit by donating to worthy queer causes — or to accept help if you need it. This is by no means an exhaustive list and there are doubtlessly countless opportunities for mutual aid in your local community, but below are some organizations doing amazing work to get you started.
Trans Housing Coalition
This project began as a GoFundMe campaign, created by Atlanta-based photographer Jesse Pratt López in December 2019. The campaign has raised over $2 million for permanent housing and other resources for Atlanta-based trans people since, especially Black trans women, and partnered with other local organizations to officially become the Trans Housing Coalition in August.
López’s work, as with most mutual aid projects, is grounded in lived experience. “As a Trans woman myself who has experienced temporary homelessness, I realized that I had never met another Trans woman who hasn’t dealt with housing insecurity and who didn’t have to do sex work to survive at some point,” López writes on the Trans Housing Coalition site.
Third Wave Fund
New York-based Third Wave Fund is a gender justice organization that directly supports the work of grassroots organizers and up-and-coming nonprofits. The organization is also unique in that it is led by and for women of color, LGBTQ+ people, intersex people, and sex workers who are under 35 years old. According to its Twitter, Third Wave Fund has provided $720,000 in rapid response funds to BIPOC-led organizations in just eight months, including the Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective, and the Minnesota Healing Justice Network.
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Funds can be directed toward the Sex Workers Giving Circle, which is housed under Third Wave Fund and was one of the first sources of funding for the Black trans led-G.L.I.T.S Inc.
For the Gworls
Remember when parties were a thing? For the Gworls, a New York-based collective run by Black trans artists Asanni Armon and Maahd, used to throw parties that raised funds for the needs of Black trans people, specifically rent, gender-affirming surgery, and other medical-related needs. While parties are obviously on pause for now, For the Gworls has been collecting and disbursing funds throughout the pandemic.
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Its latest Instagram post notes that new applicants who need rent relief face a waitlist of “about 4 months” before they’re able to access funds, while its surgery waitlist is “about 12 months.”
Out in the Open
Out in the Open is a Vermont-based organization that works throughout northern New England to serve the rural queer population. Rural areas, as its website notes, have been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, which was exacerbated by the fact that 2019 was a record year for rural hospital closures, meaning that already strained medical facilities have been stretched to (and beyond) their limits. Additionally, rural areas suffer from a lack of public transportation, as well as rising housing costs as people flee from larger cities due to fears about viral transmission in urban areas.
Out in the Open’s mutual aid fund prioritizes the most marginalized, including QTBIPOC, sex workers, undocumented people, disabled people, and food/housing insecure people, and all donations are distributed directly to those who apply for aid. It is providing disbursements of up to $400 per individual, and offers support for “groceries, supplies, housing support, medical support, and other thriving and survival needs.”
Black & Pink
In addition to Giving Tuesday, it’s also World AIDS Day. Black & Pink is a national prison abolitionist organization which is led by and for LGBTQ+ and/or HIV-positive people who have current or prior experience with incarceration. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, it offers programming that assists formerly incarcerated LGBTQ+ people with reentering their communities, rent assistance for housing unstable trans women of color, and a newsletter for currently incarcerated LGBTQ+ people.
The organization, which was founded in 2005, has a specific COVID-19 fund for incarcerated people and those who have been freed from lockup facilities during the pandemic. These funds provide access to hygienic supplies, food, medical supplies, and phone and video calls, as well as emergency housing.
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You can also donate to the organization itself, and Black and Pink is also encouraging people to participate in its annual Holiday Card Campaign for Giving Tuesday.
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