The ability to travel at will is a classic American value. But for transgender women, and Black trans women in particular, the open road is filled with potential landmines. In a country where, in 2022, at least 32 trans and gender-nonconforming people had already been killed before Transgender Day of Remembrance in November, just getting from one place to another can be a dangerous experience.
Enter the Black Trans Travel Fund, which was launched by a Black trans man in 2019 out of efforts to provide safe travel alternatives to Black trans women in New York City. Three years later, the fund’s website says that the organization has redistributed $350,000 to women in need.
The organization has also expanded its scope. In addition to providing money to individuals to cover safe ground travel in New York and New Jersey, BTTF provides Black trans women with the funds to apply for TSA PreCheck status and to obtain or renew their passports. Another initiative provides free books every month through a sponsoring partnership with Noname Book Club, which promotes books by authors of color. BTTF’s expansion includes geographic reach, too; members of the Black Trans Travel Fund team were recently in Hawaii for a conference hosted by the Transgender, Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). When trans organizers put together the first pageant at Jamaica Pride in August, BTTF helped fund the purchase of a car to allow them to travel more safely.
Those accomplishments are fairly significant for a three-year-old organization of, by and for marginalized people who are under attack by both violent hate crimes and hateful laws.
“When we talk about the dangers that transgender people face (while traveling), we cannot not talk about the over 200 anti-TLGBQ laws being passed right now,” said BTTF Communications Director eli dru. As of April, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills had been introduced in individual states, including 140 potential hate laws directly targeting transgender children and young adults.
“And then we add the intersection of race, so when you’re talking about Black trans women, we’re talking about misogyny (and) we’re talking about just a multitude of differences that somebody is holding that are all under attack.” Given that the simple act of getting from one place to another can potentially be more stressful for Black trans women than for other people, dru said, BTTF formed to “bring a little ease” to their trips.
The fund’s travel initiatives react to dangers on the ground. The book sponsorship program, on the other hand, is an effort to inspire Black trans women to organize for a better future. According to dru, the book distribution work is a direct outgrowth of Black Trans Travel Fund’s values, which include “honoring our history” and “access to education and resources.” The book sponsorship initiative, dru said, honors those values while also serving as an opportunity for political education.
It’s great to get people engaged in why they’re even needing these services,” they said. “It allows for a moment for people to build an ideology around liberation, learn about the history, and different ways that people have been successful in their own fights.”
Funding by the community, for the community
As a funder and activist group by and for people who have been pushed to the margins of the country’s economy, healthcare system, laws, and criminal justice system, it’s not surprising that Black Trans Travel Fund’s leadership is taking a cautious approach to working with more traditional funders. BTTF has written a few grant proposals, dru said, but is also in the process of “building a strong framework” to guide the fund in choosing which grants it will apply for.
One consideration is that BTTF doesn’t believe that all money is created equal. The fund, dru said, has decided that “all money is not good money, and we have to be mindful of who we allow to fund us.” For example, dru said, if Jeff Bezos or someone like him was to offer BTTF a grant or gift, “we would have to make a critical decision on whether we want to take that money from this individual…. We legitimize them by even taking their money.” The fund never wants to be in a position, dru said, where a politically questionable funder can say that because it made a grant to BTTF, “we got to be doing something right.”
Beyond political appearances, BTTF is also concerned with making sure that whatever funding it pursues will be sustainable over the long haul. “We’re trying to build institutions that will last beyond the fall of the empire,” they said, later clarifying that they meant the “U.S. imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal empire.”
“If we put ourselves in a position to rely on major funders, what will happen to us when community is all we have?” they said.
This cautious approach doesn’t seem to be having an overly detrimental effect on the fund’s bottom line. According to dru, the group, which is fiscally sponsored by Alliance for Global Justice, currently has a budget of just under $300,000, which comes largely from individual donations — money given by the community, for the community.
That community does include at least one institutional funder so far: Groundswell’s Black Trans Fund, which has provided Black Trans Travel Fund with $3,000 in Community Care grants. The two groups are also affiliated through dru’s service on Black Trans Fund’s advisory committee.
According to Bré Rivera, the director of Black Trans Fund, BTTF “has been incredibly impactful” with the money it has raised since its inception, adding that the fund “moves money to the Black trans community in a way that serves as an example to the rest of philanthropy.”
Most mainstream news coverage of transgender communities in the United States focuses on the forces that victimize them, with a heaping side of news angles that seem designed to portray them as a spectacle to gawk at. Meanwhile, organizations like Black Trans Travel Fund, Groundswell’s Black Trans Fund, and other trans-serving groups nationwide are demonstrating these communities’ inherent strength, creativity and resilience.
Through their ingenuity, resourcefulness, and out-and-proud courage, many trans-serving organizations have valuable lessons to offer more traditional nonprofits and funders alike — particularly when it comes to protecting and advocating for people targeted by the interlocking movements to curtail democracy, reproductive rights, the rights of sexual minorities, and religious freedom.