Where do we go from here?

It can be odd talking to people these days. A simple, "How's it going?" can be responded to with a "Well, you know..." because no one wants to talk about the constant dumpster fire that is the news. For some of us, that dumpster fire feels like the smell of smoke. For others, it feels like the heat of nearby flames or worse.

Meaningful talk

So it makes sense that many of us don't want to talk about it more, or rehash was is already known. But there is also value in cathartic, meaningful conversations that lay the foundation for community, mutual support, and action. That was the consensus coming out of our November 10th, 2024 Community of Communities mutual learning workshop. We were all processing the election results and were struggling with how to talk with family members and others about all the issues.

Many of us were fearful of what was happening and what was to come but we all saw the common first step was talking to those around us. It wasn't about winning arguments but asking sincere questions, taking a break from conversations when needed, and focusing on disagreements that can build relationships, not break them.

Towards Action

So conversation and dialogue is the first step. But we also need to move toward action. We need to learn what it means to actually be in solidarity with each other. While that sounds like a wonderful idea, most of us are so out of practice, we don't know where to start. All this will be the focus of the Community of Communities mutual learning workshop on April 6, 2025 from 12:30 to 3:30 pm at Red Emma's Free School Classroom (register here).

In their book on solidarity, Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor articulate three steps to transformative change:

1. Create an expanded sense of us.
2. Create a vision for transformative change.
3. Create a strategy for implementing that vision.

The issue is we haven't really gotten past step one. So many of us are stuck in our silos ready to call out people for breaking rules that they had no part in creating. How can we say we support democracy when we create rules that others have to follow?

Relationships, Not Rules

The choice here is not to pendulum swing from creating rules for others about what can be said to an "anything goes" naively individualistic false conception of freedom. It's about an orthogonal turn towards relationships. It's not what people are allowed to say but how what they say and do helps or hurts others.

In their book, Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor quote community organizer Saul Alinsky:

Likewise, Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers probably didn't love the Confederate battle flag that the white southern Young Patriots Organization carried. However, he was able to look past that to see the common social, political, and economic interests between their organizations. What if we expanded that discussion of gender identity to not just focus on transgender people but anyone who has hormone replacement therapy? This would then include "cis" men who do not feel masculine enough and get testosterone replacement therapy. The concept of LGBTQ+ as a movement is a recent creation. Despite their central role in instigating the Stonewall Uprising, many trans people were actually keep out of the Gay Rights movement of the 1970s and 1980s. They had to fight to be part of the coalition. Yet when they joined, the interests of the Gay people involved where not diluted but rather strengthened.

Space to Explore

Oddly enough, it feels uncomfortable for me to write those words about the LGBTQ+ movement as a cis straight man even though I'm not questioning anyone's identities or life experience, I'm just talking about language and organizing strategy. That's because one of the things we are missing is the space to explore these new relationships and coalitions between us. That is the purpose of Community of Communities. That discussion of hormone therapy above may be completely off base. That's fine. Come talk to me so we can find better ways to build bridges between transgender and cis people. After all, the question when we talk to others shouldn't be:

The question should be:

So please come explore with us this Sunday April 6th at 12:30pm at the Baltimore Free School Classroom in Red Emma's (3128 Greenmount Ave, Baltimore, MD). You can register here to give me a sense of how many people to anticipate.