Southern Queer Newsroom
I think it's easy to say this year has been difficult. The assault on trans rights has gotten significantly worse over the past 12 months, with institutions like Kennesaw State University complying in advance. Healthcare providers like major children's hospitals and Fenway Health in Boston have thrown trans kids off their healthcare, with RFK and the Trump administration looking to make this assault federal. Corporations ended DEI initiatives, the University of Oklahoma fired a trans instructor after national backlash, and Texas passed an incredibly restrictive bathroom ban.
I don't say any of this to engage in fearmongering or downplay what's happened. It has been a nightmare watching all of this unfold. But what I am grateful for, as we head out of 2025 and into 2026, is that we didn't just watch.
Protests
2025 was an incredibly active year for mass protests. Groups like Indivisible and 50501 helped organize millions of people to peacefully take to the streets during the Hands Off protests in April and the No Kings protests in June and October. Hands down, there has not been this much political activity from normal people in a very long time, possibly ever.
While I understand the complaints leftists have of the marches – insufficient militancy, refusing revolutionary postures, turnout leaning much older and whiter, and the Salt Lake City incident – I think they have in general been net positives. More people have gotten off the couch and are being kept off the couch by outreach efforts by organizers, even if it's something as simple as a mailing list. It isn't an effort quite like Stop Cop City, but the diversity of tactics that is currently being undertaken to oppose the fascists is very real and is getting more normal folks into absolutely vital organizing.
Mutual Aid and Charity
The surrender by mainstream institutions of transgender people to a systematic assault on their autonomy has only recently started lifting in some areas. In the meantime, this has made us far more reliant on each other by necessity, and we've stepped up.
On the nonprofit side, Campaign for Southern Equality has given out $1.5 million in grants since 2022 when their Trans Youth Emergency Project was announced. Local Georgia organizations like the Trans Housing Coalition has done fantastic work on getting Black trans women into housing over the years. Even legislative advocacy from Georgia Equality and Transgender Education Network of Texas has given trans people like myself a place to defend each other and find support in doing so.
Most importantly, though, has been mutual aid efforts. And I mean real mutual aid as defined by Dean Spade (yes he advertises this link on his website, go read it; if you like it, buy a paperback copy). Efforts like establishing the Kennesaw Pride Center in the wake of KSU's closing of the LGBTQ+ Resource Center have helped students continue finding community. Distribute Aid, a Swedish non-profit that largely serves as a "humanitarian aid middleman" and has been heavily involved in disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Helene, held DIY HRT Harm Reduction Toolkit build days across the South. This year, volunteers and organizers built over 1100 kits for trans people in need, supplying everything needed to inject medications safely.
Efforts have been underway to help relocate trans people and their families out of high-risk states and into sanctuary states or out of the country entirely, both through nonprofits and through GoFundMe campaigns. These efforts are likely to expand in the wake of the federal government's attack on gender-affirming care.
If you want to get involved, find a way into the scene. While much of my activism this year was above ground, through local progressive groups, the mutual aid work instead started through protest movements, where people already had connections or lineages with underground organizing. If there is a Food Not Bombs in your city or community, volunteer there a couple times and ask how else you can get involved. If it's a big city like Atlanta or Charlotte, you'll find spaces to hook into that excite you. Punk shows will likely be hotspots, just remember to bring ear protection.
Hope Ain't Pretty, Nor Alone
Hope is not pretty, not in fights like this. Hope is not clean, especially. Hope is not something you're going to be gifted to keep pushing. It is something you have to intentionally find and cultivate. Hope lives in your chest like a fire. Hope has dirt under his nails and blood on her shirt.
I have harped on this before, and will continue to do so; it's easy to feel hopeless, and social media exacerbates that. It's easy to watch a streamer, see the world constantly get worse, and fall into the same pits of despair the rest of the chat is wallowing in that was created by the rampant negativity of the streamer. It's easy to get sucked into mean girl clusters where your social capitol is measured in how quickly you turn into a transmedicalist. That is just how inertia works – if you ain't moving, it's hard to start. So do something.
Go to a protest for trans kids. Go to a house party for trans adults. Learn how to facilitate a support group. Throw a house party or a game night. Advocate for yourself to lawmakers. Get tied in with mutual aid organizations and collectives to do necessary work. Host a panel for people looking to learn more about trans issues. Defend queer student organizations from repressive administrations and fascist organizing. Open your guest room for those passing through. Learn first aid. Volunteer with a soup kitchen or food distro. Give yourself grace when the work chews you up and you're left putting yourself back together.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said something at the end of her concession speech that irked me, more so than the rest of the speech. "Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars." It's poetic, pretty, and hollow. While she charged (if you can use language that strong) Americans to "fill the sky" with these stars, she then dropped out of the public spotlight almost entirely. The work of 50501, Indivisible, DSA, and other progressive and socialist organizations throughout the country carried that on instead. The anarchist collectives stayed working on various projects. Meanwhile, millions of Americans started doing this while looking to other progressive politicians like AOC, Raskin, and Mamdani.
What incenses me most about her adage is how pretty it tries to be. Looking up at the night sky is relaxing, calm, beautiful. But you can't read by starlight.
Don't wait for the sun to rise. Light a fire in your chest. We are going to save us.