Can you tell us about your process when coming up with events?
Yes and no. So the dyke march had asked us if we wanted to participate. We also have a steering committee and then we also kinda just have more of a loosely-affiliated spokes council of people who stay in the houses who often organize stuff with us more directly. Within NJNP, we have a couple of folks who are really active such as myself and Tiara who you saw in the film, who’s planning the ball. There’s also Kim, Bianca, Jessica, and Tracy. I don't know if you saw any of the banner drops we did but Tracy was the other climber. So we mostly operate around consensus and whoever is committed to doing the work at the time.
In your film, you also mention that you try to host events that aren’t always rallies or protests, what other events do y’all put together in order to bring the community together?
We do the ball—Tiara kinda just goes all-in on balls when she has the time and capacity to plan them. We try to make sure there is always an event around pride. If we’re doing an action around pride or around that time of the year we always try to make sure that there is also a kind of space that is demilitarized, that has no police, that's conflict-free so people can just chill. I also think Tiara is trying to plan another ball for sometime in the spring.
We know Tiara is really into dance, have y’all ever thought about hosting dance workshops through NJNP for queer and trans youth?
We did an action camp last year where Tiara had six different dance class sessions. We do kinda see that as really valuable. We can't be out there fighting all the time, we also need to curate community spaces where people can enjoy themselves and also pick up different skills that they might have always wanted to do but never had a person that can show them.
Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where we stop referencing trans women as trans and just as women?
I think in a lot of ways we do. I do personally. A lot of times I do say trans women because I'm trying to make a political statement towards the experiences of trans women. I see a lot of people, that when they do say women, they are automatically thinking of trans women. I don't know if we’re necessarily at that time where that is just assumed. I'm in the activist community so I kinda live in a bit of a bubble, so when people are in my circle they are definitely referring to trans women.
Who has inspired you to get into the activism work you currently do know?
So many, I have been incredibly inspired by the work of the black panther party. I’m incredibly inspired by being able to create this movement where you can have the resilience over the things that are harming your community and that the same time you can be doing mutual aid and supporting community members and use that as a mechanism to help build capacity to help make a movement even bigger. I think that's truly inspiring. They're huge idols of mine. Fred Hampton, Huey Newton. Of course, I'm also big fans of Sylvia and Marsha P. Johnson, these are also people that have really inspired me a lot.
How has having to experience life on the streets changed your overall perspective of activism through NJNP?
I dropped out of high school so when I first got involved in activism I didn't know what half these different terms meant and that took a long time to just understand. I feel like in a lot of ways it kind of makes me feel more rooted in my politics and my principals. It definitely helps me see a lot of different intersections and class issues.
What are your current goals and aspirations for NJNP?
Well, right now we're still trying to get a third house because we have a lot of folks in one place that we’re trying to get to another place, and then also some of the people who were at the older house haven’t really had a place to go in a minute. Longer-term I really want to try to figure out how to get some sort of property and have that be longer-term because renting is just throwing away a lot of money. Other than the housing stuff we’re still doing a lot of work around decriminalization now. We’ve been apart of this coalition to decriminalize sex work for the past two and a half years. We’re also hopefully going to be working with the Marsha P. Johnson Institute with decrim now that might be the next thing we work around. We definitely will still be trying to call out some of the bigger mainstream establishments within the LGBT movement who are still supporting the enemies that are trying to kill us. I think we’re also gonna start taking a different direction going after some of these rescue groups that have been mobilizing against Decrim now.
What’s life like for you outside of No Justice No Pride?
I end up doing a lot of support work, I'm also a sex worker, I like to ride bikes. I also DJ and make music. I find myself working a lot.
How can people help the trans community?
Give trans individuals money.
What scares you the most?
Landlords. Nothing will make me completely freeze up and not be able to do anything for hours.
