Mission

The goals of TGC are for members to:

  • Learn about transformative justice and abolitionist frameworks and find ways to apply them to our everyday lives;

  • Unlearn toxic gendered behaviors and stop intergenerational cycles of gendered harm in our own lives;

  • Create a community of support for one another; and

  • Imagine what healthy and liberatory queer/trans masculinity can look like.

TGC is strongly rooted in the movement for police and prison abolition, using the practice of transformative justice to root out internalized oppression, find ways to address harm within our own communities rather than relying on the state, and build the worlds we want to see.

TGC is open to any Black or brown person living anywhere in the world who identifies as transmasculine or masculine-of-center.

About TGC

Transform Gender Collective (TGC) is a transformative justice, support, and accountability collective by and for transmasculine and masculine-of-center Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).

Vision

Transform Gender Collective (TGC) envisions a world where our trans and queer BIPOC communities have access to safety outside of institutions and the state, with the ultimate goal of abolishing prisons, police, borders, and all state institutions. TGC recognizes that all forms of institutionalization do not truly address harm and only create more harm. TGC also recognizes that all people are simultaneously harmed by others and cause harm to others and thus, it is imperative for us to find ways to address harm within our communities. We seek to find ways to access safety and address harm within our own communities without perpetuating further harm. We envision our trans and queer BIPOC communities building structures of safety, support, and love through practicing community accountability, healing, and transformative justice. We hope that through practicing transformative justice, TGC’s members will work to unlearn toxic gender roles and behaviors, while also feeling supported in their non-conforming racialized genders.

We envision that our practice of transformative and healing justice will allow us to imagine and create new accountable masculinities.

Our Values

  • We believe that each of us is indispensable. We are against the carceral system’s logic of disposability. Our value of indispensability goes hand in hand with our core belief in the importance of accountability. We believe that people can be held accountable for the harm they have perpetuated and be understood as fundamentally indispensable. None of us are disposable, and all of us must be held accountable.

  • We believe that active repair work must follow interpersonal, communal and systemic harm. This includes making amends for harmful behaviors practiced in our everyday lives and paying reparations for historical and systemic violence that we are complicit in. We also believe that our communities should be well-resourced so we can actively undertake repair work as a form of accountability.

  • We believe that our communities are all we have. We do not rely on law enforcement and state-based systems to keep us safe; we build webs of care and community support so that we can keep each other safe. We value strengthening our communities through building healthier and more trusting relationships.

  • We value collective care and self-care as a form of healing. We know that healing is greater than the individual; healing must involve dismantling the systems and institutions that cause us harm and trauma in the first place. We know that many people cause harm because they are traumatized by these systems. We value healing of our communities and selves as a way to reduce and combat the intergenerational cycles of violence that pervade our world.

  • We believe in the capacity of all individuals to transform. We believe that personal transformation is key to societal transformation and one cannot happen without the other. We value the self-reflection and growth that comes from holding ourselves and each other accountable.