Black Queer and Trans People are Re-Configuring Mutual Aid as We Know it

A rally for trans rights. Photo by Ted Eytan.

As a population uniquely predisposed to violence, job insecurity, criminalization, and discrimination in practically every sense of the word, Black LGBTQ+ people aren’t used to having their needs met. Oppression against Black queer and trans people pervades virtually every institution and setting, and this oppression inexorably influences the way vital resources are allocated. As such, Black LGBTQ+ people often don’t receive the requisite support they need from private and state institutions, despite experiencing heightened levels of poverty, criminalization, health disparities, and exclusion in the U.S. Black trans women and gender-nonconforming people, in particular, experience some of the highest levels of killings, violence, poverty, policing, criminalization, and incarceration of any group in the U.S. And what’s worse, all of these abject conditions were only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Black LGBTQ+ people, the pandemic has only brought worsened strife. A study by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) found that Black LGBTQ+ people were more than three times as likely to ask for a delay paying rent than the general population and nearly twice as likely as non-LGBTQ+ Black people. The economic impact of COVID-19 is confounded by death rates and infections that have been disproportionately high among Black people. More than a third of U.S. deaths from selected states and cities with data on COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity were Black people, despite their making up roughly 13% of the population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With these ongoing realities continuing to mete themselves out on Black queer and trans people, the community has turned to each other for food, funds, and other life-saving resources. And in the process, they have reconfigured and reconceptualized what it means to practice mutual aid. 

Emergency relief funds, particularly those set up on crowdfunding websites such as GoFundMe, are perhaps the most visible example of queer and trans people engaging in mutual aid to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. These mutual aid funds, in which individuals are asked to donate to benefit struggling queer and trans people, sprung up rapidly at the beginning of the pandemic. Even now, in 2022, they remain in full force. They are diverse in their ends, including everything from efforts to raise funds to bail LGBTQ+ incarcerated people out of carceral facilities, to requesting funds because of a lost stream of revenue. Invariably, though, individual mutual aid funds for Black queer and trans people have proven to be life-saving, helping people out with food, rent, and other immediate needs. This money is critical for a population that has faced widespread job insecurity under COVID-19, as 18% of Black queer and trans people reported losing their jobs due to the virus, compared with 16% of straight Black respondents and 12% of the general population.

Mutual aid funds, however, have not only been employed in the case of emergencies. A considerable number of mutual aid funds have been established to provide funds for leisure activities or otherwise items that would bring Black queer and trans people pleasure and joy. A GoFundMe was organized in 2020 on behalf of Tourmaline, an activist, and producer of several films about Black queer and trans lives. The purpose of the fund was not to provide her with food, groceries, rent, or other things typically deemed necessary. Instead, the fund was created to raise money to buy the activist and filmmaker a Mercedes Benz for her birthday. Being indebted to Tourmaline and her scholarly work to publicize knowledge about Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the event organizer wrote the following: “Let's continue to fundraise beyond Black trans angels’ survival and basic needs – let’s continue to support their EASE, PLUSHNESS, PLEASURE, FRIVOLITY, JOY, [and] LUXURY.” 

As the event organizer cheekily acknowledges, the fundraiser might appear to be contrary to the ideas that undergird mutual aid, ideas that argue that mutual aid is an exchange done solely for mutual benefit and survival. But if we define mutual aid as a long-term commitment to community, one sustained beyond times of crisis, emergency, or pandemic—which is the conception that I, the writer of this piece, espouse—the fundraiser is, in fact, emblematic of the practice. The world is such that Black queer and trans people can’t easily access pleasure, joy, and abundance; these indulgences are often only available to white, cisgender, and straight subjects. “BIRTHDAY BENZ for TOURMALINE” goes against this orthodoxy by indulging in the exuberance that mutual aid can engender, thus situating itself among a well-established practice of Black LGBTQ+ people preserving themselves—including their pleasure and joy—when white supremacist, cisheterosexist society sees their lives as disposable and not worthy of experiencing fulfillment.

One could argue that the proliferation of mutual aid funds for such vulnerable populations as Black LGBTQ+ people on crowdfunding platforms has led to the individualization of the practice of mutual aid. After all, mutual aid is a collective, community-oriented endeavor that attempts to bring into its fold as many people as possible. The ultimate underpinning aspect of mutual aid, though, is its recognition that people need each other. Through mutual aid, people provide and receive resources beyond service delivery and charity, showing that everyone needs care and can provide care in a unique way. Providing care in unique ways is the part to which we should pay particular attention. 

Black queer and trans people often can’t rely on the government or local charities for help. During the Trump administration, nondiscrimination protections in health care were set back. There was even once a field hospital set up in Central Park that required health care workers to sign a “statement of faith” confirming their opposition to same-sex marriage. Such instances of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination have not abated after the Trump administration. For example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill—dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill—in March of this year, which prohibits public school teachers in Florida from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity. These anti-LGBTQ+ acts are indicative of conditions that actively prevent LGBTQ+ people from getting the proper resources they need, conditions that preceded, precipitated, and succeeded the acts. It is in this context that individual mutual aid funds are set up to take care of Black queer and trans people, care being not only one of the most important pillars of mutual aid but absolutely indispensable for one’s ability to survive and thrive. 

Mutual aid is a critical part of the long-term process to move toward collective freedom. It is not an end game, but instead a strategy that responds to immediate needs and creates opportunities to solve long-term crises. It recognizes that individuals’ liberation is interconnected. The liberatory aspect of mutual aid is why it’s absolutely essential for Black LGBTQ+ people: a population often rendered disposable and perpetually consigned to state violence, discrimination, and neglect. For them, mutual aid is not a form of charity. It is a stepping stone toward liberation. Their practicing mutual aid, therefore, should frame and influence the way mutual aid is practiced everywhere, from the digital space of crowdfunding platforms to the streets of large metropolitan areas such as New York City. Black queer and trans people are keeping mutual aid alive and continually transforming how it functions. Organizers for mutual aid can learn a lot from this work. It should be the goal of organizers to forge a world in which their needs are not only met, but transcended by endless opportunities for joy, abundance, and pleasure.

Giselle Williams is a sophomore at Columbia College. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and her interests include feminism, grassroots organizing, state violence, racial capitalism, anti-colonial movements, the prison–industrial complex, and U.S. empire. Giselle tentatively plans to major in History with a concentration in Philosophy.