Transgender Day of Remembrance was on November 20, and how T4T Care Collective spent the day reflects a year’s worth of learning.
Some background: our collective is a year old as of November 2025, after a few of us gathered in a park for a Community Assembly hosted by Triangle Mutual Aid right after the 2024 general election. Someone made an announcement, “If you’re trans and want to help ensure access to gender affirming care, meet me over here.” Then, a group chat was formed and a small crew starting meeting virtually. All we knew is that something like a trans mutual aid group needed to exist, and we had no idea that attendance to our initial interest meetings a few months later would cause our group chat to explode in size.
Conflict arose often in the early days, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise. We had flung hundreds of people in a group chat with no structure. Complete strangers (or, as we soon found out, many exes) were expected to navigate this new project productively and compassionately, looking down the barrel of an increasingly hostile political climate. Many people were also trying their best to show up without their basic needs met, and we all had various levels of awareness of how many us propagate and benefit from the marginalization of other trans people. (By the way, you can find an incredible resource for how to navigate conflict in mutual aid here, with the slides presented in the video here.)
However, we learned from our mistakes and listened to those of us with leftist organizing experience. We ultimately drafted codes of conduct for our online spaces, elected moderators, formed working groups to take on projects, and started to build trust with one another. (Note: it was incredibly helpful to reference and build consensus around aspects of Florence Ashley’s “Trans Rules of Engagement” as we went.) But it was when we began regularly meeting in person (and centering our emotional well-being) that everything became smoother.
As someone wisely put it early on, we all needed to “touch grass.” To get things started, some seasoned community organizers planned socials and other projects, including building HRT care kits with needles, bandaids, alcohol wipes, etc. A T4T community garden was created, and some of us met for work days and collaborated on caring for the emerging veggies. When there was a particularly horrible news day, we held an emergency gathering, where people could share a meal and process alongside other trans people. Our in-person events all required masking, and we worked to make them more accessible by offering food whenever possible. Meanwhile, people used our massive group chat to help each other out directly — with rides, rent money, emotional support, advice, and more. In addition to providing each other care in these ways, offline actions served the entire collective, because we began to more easily assume best intentions as we tried to make organizational decisions online.
A major turning point was when T4T Care Collective began holding town halls across the Triangle. They were proposed by an experienced community organizer who saw the need for us to address the issues surrounding how we started. These events were meant to be opportunities for true co-creation, asking each other questions like, “In your wildest dreams, what does T4TCC look like next year? What makes a community space safe, powerful, and resilient?” The result of the in-person events was a Virtual Assembly, whereby we established consensus for shared values that had emerged in conversation with one another. We also aligned on some essential next steps for our organization.
Shortly after our Virtual Assembly, we gathered to care for each other materially and emotionally for Trans Day of Remembrance (and — our add-on — Rage). There were some hiccups, of course. We got reprimanded for starting a fire for our rage release activity (oops), and our agenda had to be reshuffled throughout the evening. However, when all was said and done, we shared a meal, swapped some winter clothes, created an altar for our trans elders, held an organizing meeting, got to know each other, and held space for grief and rage. There were plenty of resources to take home, and some people who had met through the collective gave each other rides. It was beautiful to witness and felt like the antidote to the many oppressive systems meant to keep us scared and isolated.
We’ve come so far since our bumpy start, when so many of us knew far fewer trans and gender expansive people in our community. We have had to be willing to be honest, open, and iterative to try to build true solidarity, especially as many of our spaces continue to be disproportionately white and transmasculine. We have a lot of work to do to be in alignment with our values and need to contend with that.
It’s incredibly meaningful and impactful to show up with what you have and offer what you can, building in care and consideration for the emotional toll of being part of marginalized communities. Being willing to gather imperfectly seems to be a huge part of being effective. Something beautiful and unexpected can emerge as a result.
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