Let's Get Free: A Racial Justice Approach to Supporting Gender Expansive Youth of Color

Centering the lived experiences of the youth--creating community that sees all the kiddos as individuals

-None of us are free until Queer, Trans, GNC and non-binary, Indigenous, YoC are free
-Gender binary and gender norms are rooted in white supremacy
-We don't have time to not talk about race
-If it's not racially just it's not trauma informed
-Resilience is the baseline, not the benchmark (survival isn't enough--why do people have to be resilient--let's address the harm so we're not always bouncing back from harm!!)
-Trauma is atmospheric, so our healing must be
-Nothing about YPOC, without YPOC
-Gender expansive youth of color are the experts of their own experience

PAT PARKER:
"The first think you need to do is forget that I'm black. Second, you must never forget that I'm black."
-This is just the first step
-Seeing people as whole people--not just their identity markers, but not forgetting their identity either

RYSE CENTER:
-Centering young peoples' voices
-Fostering creativity
-Restorative justice approach
-Youth organizing club
-Sanctuary and safe space
-Opportunities to connect, heal, learn, and lead

IN GIVING SERVICES
-Avoid weaponizing the available and treating them as band-aids for a broken system
-Naming the problems of the system so that people know they aren't the problem
-PPL often sitting in their own pain while trying to do the work of advocating for themselves and uncared for
-Conventional research doesn't center and cherish trans and gender diverse ypoc (seen as problems to be dealt with)
-Ppl are problematized--shows up in state violence, shows up to make the people bad rather than addressing the problem that hurt them


COLLECTIVE LIBERATION--we are a part of the process, we can create the space but it's also for us, it is work we can do together

HEALING CENTERED ENGAGEMENT
-Healing and well-being and fundamentally political
-Young folks develop and analyze these practices and policies that create the trauma in the first place

BELOVED COMMUNITY
-We lead with love and rage
-We prioritize relationships
-We acknowledge injustice and harm
-Modeling healthy relationships by engaging the young ppl with love
-We stop to acknowledge grief and loss
-Grief is needed for healing and movement

SELF CARE
-Seen as an individual rather than systemic--and then we come back to the problematic system
-How can we learn about ourselves from the joy that we give/get from our experiences
-Creating space to center joy and pleasure allows sustainability, collective liberation and healing

Apologizing is important. Acknowledging the harm that has been done.