TN Family as Freedom Project
Celebrating trans kinship and networks of care
The Tennessee Family as Freedom Project amplifies the way Black trans people practice freedom through family-making. For so many of us, family is a site of resistance, from the mamas who stick up for their trans babies at home, in the principal’s office and at the family gatherings to the mamas who take us in, trans children who have been put out of our homes, to the siblings who protect each other online, on the streets and in the school hallways. Black trans people craft possibilities by making all kinds of families, be they kinship networks or circles of community care that thrive despite how anti-black, transphobic, capitalist laws try to erase us. Trans people have always existed, and trans families must be protected.
Led by My Sistah’s House and SisterReach, two organizations dedicated to transforming the lives, access, and landscape of trans people and gender-oppressed folks in Tennessee, in collaboration with national reproductive justice organization Forward Together – Family as Freedom lifts up the lived experiences of those who live in Tennessee who are transforming the definition of family and the image of trans resilience.
In Tennessee, aggressive anti-trans laws have violently withheld gender -affirming care from the people who need it. The state’s desire to punish, surveil, and violate trans people, especially trans youth, is body fascism and reproductive oppression. While this violence is visceral, Family is Freedom supports our collective vision for liberation through community-building and cultural strategy.
We are disrupting the narratives that trans identity and gender-expansive family formations are new concepts. Again, trans people have always existed, and trans families must be protected. Families, communities, and individuals seeking gender-affirming care need access to resources and support.
Family as Freedom deepens solidarity, affirms trans communities and inspires action on behalf of protecting trans folks in Tennessee. Freedom is where care, gender affirmation, bodily autonomy, resources, and possibility exist without state interference. Freedom is family, and family is where you belong.
If you have questions about this project, contact us at media@forwardtogether.org.
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Collaborators
Kah Yangni (she/they) is an illustrator living in Philadelphia, PA. They make hyper vibrant art about justice, queerness, and joy- using cut up paper, drawings, paint, and Photoshop to show a world where we are free. Kah’s art can be found on billboards, one 2,250 square foot mural, and on bedroom walls from West Philly to Iceland. Kah illustrated “Not He or She, I’m Me” by A.M. Wild, a 2024 Stonewall Book Award Honor Book. Kah also illustrated “The Making of Butterflies” by Zora Neale Hurston and Ibram X. Kendi. Her art has been covered by NBC News, Ebony Magazine, Mic, and them, and her poster work is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Free Library of Philadelphia.
SisterReach is a Black woman-led, reproductive and sexual justice organization in Tennessee — and the only reproductive & sexual justice organization in the state. Though, SisterReach is not a trans person led organization, SisterReach is an ally to trans-led leadership and the greater trans community in Memphis, and across the nation. SisterReach currently fiscally sponsors My Sistah’s House, as an actionable step of their allyship.
On July 8, 2023, the Sixth Circuit judges issued a preliminary ruling to allow Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for youth to go into effect. SisterReach moved intentionally to initiate the partnership between their organization, My Sistah’s House, and Forward Together, to model what the reproductive justice framework requires – centering and amplifying the leadership of those impacted. The final ruling on this divisive and transphobic law is expected to be issued in September. While this ruling is concerning, SisterReach also understands that access to healthcare has been and will continue to be out of financial reach for many Black and Trans families. Anti-trans rhetoric is dividing the Black community in TN. SisterReach uses multi-faith-based organizing and education as a key strategy to advocate for their base, which includes people of trans experience and their families.
SisterReach’s overarching goal is to curate opportunities of abundance for all people, and that includes, our Trans Kindred.
My Sistah’s House fosters sustainability and security for the most vulnerable of the transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (TLGBQ) communities, in Memphis Tennessee, providing wraparound services for primarily Black and Brown transgender and non-binary individuals, including safe spaces, emergency shelter, and access to health and social services. A grassroots direct services and advocacy organization, My Sistah’s House was founded in 2016 by two trans women of color who sought to bridge a gap in services for trans and queer people of color (TQPOC) in Memphis, TN, with a focus on transgender women of color.
Forward Together exists to fight reproductive injustice and help our communities imagine a future where we all have reproductive freedom. We envision a world where we have the ability to control our futures through the right to control our bodies. We imagine a world where we can form the bonds and kinship networks that allow us to care for ourselves and our loved ones; a world where those bonds are recognized and supported. We seek to center the people who are most impacted by reproductive justice yet have been left out of the conversation; that’s why we work to build visibility and power for queer and trans communities of color in the reproductive justice movement. We believe that queer and trans individuals and communities are sites of liberation in and of themselves. Through their struggle and victories in living their truth, they provide inspiration for new ways of being that everyone can benefit from.
Forward Together is a national reproductive justice organization that centers peoples, families, and communities who experience reproductive oppression. The organization’s work prioritizes queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and other peoples of color and utilizes a cultural strategy to shift the ways we think about family and to build power and movements, grounded in our lived experiences, histories, theories and struggles for reproductive justice.
Stories
Two of My Sistah’s House (MSH) recipients and members, Tavianna and Malachi, have received wraparound services and a home from their Tiny Home Project in Memphis. They are leading and contributing in their vision and narrative-sharing to the Tennessee Billboard project to highlight how trans family and trans futures deserve to be supported, resourced, and protected.
Watch their story here.
