5 affirmations by @megemikoart

I’m the only one who gets to define my gender and who I am

My Trans body is beautiful and loveable

I deserve rest, relaxation, and gentleness

My Trans joy and journey exploring my gender deserves to be celebrated

My Trans existence is a powerful act of resistance

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

“If you come here to help me, you are wasting your time. If you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

–Aboriginal Activist Group, so-called-Queensland, settler-colonial-Australia, 1970’s

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let’s explore liberation work in action

What precious parts of yourself escape the powers that be?

From applying preventative measures to anti-oppressive behaviors, let’s build systems that truly care for people. Gadamer wrote on how hermeneutics (the art of understanding) is a process not a problem-method. We all have experiences of truth. This truth doesn’t brandish a capital “t”. There’s an experience of truth in art, in the Other, that we don’t reach by some methodological procedure.

We can resist a judgmental manner while still gaining understanding.

“inclusion is not the goal”

by Frances

For those of us who are socially/politically/economically/institutionally marginalized or oppressed, access (and liberation) is about much more than mere “inclusion.” 
Inclusion is often a symbolic act. While it usually comes from a genuinely good place, it is often tragically inadequate. This inadequacy can do real harm. When a space is labeled as “safe” or “inclusive” but lacks the intention and foresight necessary to ensure this is true, marginalized people can (understandably) feel even more let down and ultimately, unwelcome.

In practice, attempts at inclusion often end up reinforcing harmful hierarchies and patterns of ableist and white supremacist paternalism. The core problematic power dynamics at play do not get challenged or disrupted when those with power “allow” those without power to join them (power as in access to physical mobility, social influence, generational wealth, a gender that at least visually conforms to binary norms, etc.)

Oppressed people seeking liberation do not want to be “granted” the ability to participate. This does not address the root of the problem. Rather, oppressed people seeking liberation want the power dynamics themselves to be resisted and discarded. 
This is why we say “listen to Black women and femmes.” This is why disability activists use the slogan, “Nothing about us without us.” We want liberation, not a seat at the capitalist, ableist, white supremacist table. 

In contexts where we hold any amount of power or privilege, we MUST learn when to sit back and listen. And more importantly, we must be able to hear what’s being said, what’s being asked for, what boundaries are being established. 
Our systems and institutions rely on unequal power and resource distribution. This means that with our current reality, there will not only always be people at the bottom, but there NEEDS to be people at the bottom. 

When elites “grant” access to specific marginalized groups or individuals, they’re still maintaining this system of lethal imbalance. Conditional acceptance is a distraction and a waste of our precious time and energy. 
None of us are free until all of us are free. 

decolonization is not a metaphor

Anarchism is not…bombs, disorder, or chaos. It is not robbery and murder. It is not a war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite of all that. Anarchism means that you should be free; that no one should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or impose on you. –Alexander Berkman

daisy’s written work

feral visions

by Anjali Lynn Nath Upadhyay M.A.²