‘We Take Care of Each Other’: Building Community in a Brutal Political Moment

Amid escalating hostility and loss, the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) shows how Black and brown trans communities sustain one another through ritual, rest and radical care.

This essay is part of an ongoing Gender & Democracy series, presented in partnership with Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund, highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy. You’ll find stories, reflections and accomplishments—told in their own words—by grassroots leaders, women of color, Indigenous women, and trans and gender-expansive people supported by Groundswell. By amplifying these voices—their solutions, communities, challenges and victories—our shared goal is to show how intersectional organizing strengthens democracy.

The Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) has never had it easy. Founded in 2004 by Alexander L. Lee, with funding provided by the Soros Justice Fellowship, TGIJP’s mission was simple enough on paper: Provide legal services to incarcerated transgender, gender-variant and intersex Californians. 

The same year of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage (which led to 11 other states passing constitutional amendments to ban it). Years made memorable by the rise of Facebook, Shake Shack and the Nintendo DS, it wasn’t exactly the golden age of the TGI abolitionist movement. 

In 2005, when Lee brought Miss Major Griffin-Gracy onto the team, all of her years of community organizing and direct service work came right along with her. Miss Major, as she’s known by her trans family near and far, entered into TGIJP already having earned the trust of dozens (if not hundreds) of disenfranchised and disempowered Black and brown transgender women and femmes.

As more and more Black and brown TGI community members came together under the radical banner of freeing and empowering one another, TGI Justice Project continued to expand its programming accordingly.

Now, more than 20 years later, the Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGIJP Black Trans Cultural Center has more full-time staff and offers more services than ever before, including everything from legal case management and housing subsidies to spa treatments and Reiki sessions. 

Now, you may be asking yourself: How are all of these formerly incarcerated Black and brown transgender, gender-variant and intersex people managing to do this work in the nightmare that is 2025? 

The answer is simple: We take care of ourselves, and we take care of each other, just like we always have. 

As a younger Black trans person who is also currently system-impacted, I often look to transcestors like Miss Major, Bobbie Jean Baker, Rickie Blue Sky and Etta Louise as my elders and guides. They have all heavily impacted the way I approach community care work and I spend a lot of time sitting by the community altar on the third floor of TGIJP’s building just listening to them.

Having an 8-by-18 altar located in our office is a way that we practice collective community care, awareness and mindfulness. Any staff member or client is welcome to visit the altar and spend time honoring those who have passed on by sitting quietly, playing music, laying out flowers or changing out the waters and snacks that we place as offerings to our loved ones who’ve gone. 

Today, we can manage by knowing that our elders and ancestors have tread these paths before.

We also hold a moment of silence at the start of every biweekly staff meeting to remember our community members who are sick or who have passed away, and to extend our intentions and strength to incarcerated community members who are alive and oftentimes forgotten.

Our staff are truly swimming in the deepest waters we’ve swam in for some time, and we’re doing … okay, all things considered. I came into the office this morning, and the energies were quiet. Mama Major’s recent passing is clearly affecting us, and we don’t bother faking that we’re okay when we’re not. We do what we have to do to get our work done, and then we leave. Another way of demonstrating our humanity in response to an unnerving world: asking for and taking time off as much as we can.

TGIJP gives all staff an hour-long paid lunch, as many paid breaks as needed, and we also frequently send staff home early if we’ve gotten our work done quicker than expected. It is essential that we prioritize our humanity over our productivity. We cannot afford to cow down to this work-til-you’re-dead culture. Our work is meaningful, and we must be alive and well to continue it. Therefore, we take paid time off, and we rest.

We also take time to rest together. Our building has a communal gathering space on the third floor with five couches, two armchairs, and one large live-in stuffed animal. Our staff take naps up on the third floor, and we also host our team bondings there. We’ve participated in self-defense workshops, naloxone administration trainings from the DOPE Project, and several art therapy sessions (led by yours truly). 

Giving our staff an opportunity to spend time together not in “work mode” also builds up our individual abilities to truly trust each other and to organize across our many different intersections and identities. 

As a team full of Black and brown TGI people who’ve been directly brutalized by “the powers that be”—as Miss Major would say—it is crucial that we know each other beyond the titles of “coworker,” “supervisor” or “CEO.” Seeing our staff sit and paint together while some jazzy R&B plays in the background has been immensely healing.

In sum, none of the work we do can be done without taking care of each other, without setting ourselves and clients up for long-term success, increased independence, self-assuredness and a core understanding of our inherent value in a world that constantly tells us we’re predators, terrorists and pariahs.

TGIJP doesn’t have all of the answers, but we know that today, we can manage by making space for one another to exist authentically. Today, we can manage by knowing that our elders and ancestors have tread these paths before. Today, we can manage by living together in this new free world that we’re jointly building every single day.