 Good evening. Welcome. We'll get started in just one minute. If someone from the audience could let me know in chat they can see and hear me. It's always helpful to us and welcome you to friends. Thank you very much. And right now I will put a link in the chat box. And this link is the link to tonight's event. And we'll have links to anything that comes up links to our presenters. And other library resources. All right, let's get started. First off, thank you all for being here. This is part of our one city one book campaign. And if you've been joining us for the Mondays, I thank you. This is part of our Monday series called know your name. Based on the topics of Chanel Miller's book, know my name. And we will be doing continuing our Monday night series throughout the rest of April. As part of sexual violence awareness month. Tonight we are here for a partnership with Mirman Wars. And in honor of International Transgender Day of Visibility. And some quick announcements. We want to welcome you to the unceded land of the Eloni tribal people and acknowledge the many raw mutish Eloni families as a rightful stewards in the lands in which we work and reside here in the Bay Area. We are committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from the nations with whom we live together. We encourage you to learn more about first persons and land rights and are committed to hosting events and providing educational resources on these topics. We'd also like to make a statement about the recent violence targeting Asian and Asian Americans. The library condemns the horrendous violence against Asian and Asian Americans. We acknowledge the violence that has been committed to the violence in our community, our state and nationwide. Both the reported and the invisible crimes that have occurred. We stand in solidarity with our Asian communities, neighbors and colleagues distressed and hurt by these attacks. We acknowledge that these events are complicated. By the entanglement of anti-black and anti-Asian stereotypes that have been committed to the black community and harm done to the black community by the coverage and hateful commentary that has been deployed. Anti-black and anti-Asian racism both uphold white supremacy. And we are all harmed by these racial structures. Still a pandemic out there. Many of our libraries are trickling open. So protect my library family out there and continue to mask up. As I mentioned, this is part of our know your name series, and I'm happy to be part of it. I'm happy to be part of it. And I've heard many events happening throughout Mondays. And I am so happy to those who have joined me throughout the whole whole Monday series. It's been fun. And it's been powerful and moving and a little bit sad sometimes. And I'm just happy to have that community and see you every Monday night. We do have several events coming up with. No, with one city, one book campaign. And I'm happy to be part of it. I'll put some links into the chat box. Next Monday, we're going to do some art again, bringing back the art with Katie Petro. And then the following Monday, April 12th. We are hosting. Aisha Shahida Simmons. And she has, she's a film director. And educator, author and survivor. And she will lead a, we'll watch the film, her documentary, and there will be a film in Q and A discussion after the film. So please make sure you come to that. Simmons is also a 2020 Lambda award winning. More art, more art. Art heals. The one and only Dr. Carol Queen will be with us on Tuesday, April 13th talking about sexual, healthy sexual relationships. And then again, we are so fortunate to have Mayor memoir join us again. For a healing circle for survivors of childhood sexual assault. And that is on April 20th at seven p.m. Please join us for that. Many partners for this one city, one book campaign. And our friends of the San Francisco library are our biggest supporters and biggest partners out there. Thank you to them. All right. So without further ado, tonight's event, I would like to introduce you to Mayor memoirs. Co founder. Amita Swadi. Amita is an organizer, educator, storyteller, and strategist working to end interpersonal and institutional violence against young people. Her work stems from experience as a non binary FIM, queer person of color, daughter of immigrants from India, and years of childhood abuse by their parents, including eight years of rape by their father. In 2016, Swadi received a just beginnings collaborative fellowship, allowing them to launch Mayor memoirs. In 2016, a storytelling and organizing project, uplifting the narrative's healing and leadership of two spirit, transgender, intersex, non binary, and queer black indigenous of color survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In 2016 to 2018, they recorded 60 stories of survivors across 15 states. And have presented over 100 trainings and key notes on this intersectional praxis at colleges, conferences, and nonprofits. From 2009 to 2012, Swadi was a project coordinator and cast member of secret survivors and off Broadway, an off off Broadway production. They co created with the award winning Ping Chung and company featuring adult survivors of child sexual abuse, telling their stories through theater. Swadi is also a published writer whose work has appeared in anthologies, Dear Sisters, queering sexual violence, pleasure and beyond survival stories, survival stories and strategies from the transformative justice movement. And we'll put all those links in the box in the chat box so you can check out these books from the library. Over the past 20 years, they have been executive director, board chair, youth organizer, faculty member and consultant at organs, organization serving low income and immigrant LGBTQ. Communities of color. Swadi holds a master's in public administration from NYU, where they were the Reynolds fellow in social entrepreneurship and a bachelor's in foreign service and service from Georgetown University. All right. And again, we thank you all for being here tonight and I'm going to turn it over to Amita Swadi. Thank you so much, Anissa. I appreciate the very thorough introduction very much. And I just want to also thank my friend and colleague, Robin Takayama, who is a journalist in the Bay Area for introducing you and me, Anissa, so that this collaboration could happen. So thank you, Robin, if you are watching out there. I did have a chance to read Chanel Miller's book. I appreciate even though I live in Los Angeles on Tongva land, you know, I appreciate the California connection with another Asian American survivor as well. So much love to you, Chanel, for sharing your story. We all know very much in mirror memoirs the power of storytelling and particularly the way that it creates a lot of content for survivors of sexual violence. Those of us who live with the constant global pandemic of rape, culture and sexual violence. It's so common and normalized that often it can be hard to make visible because it is so interwoven into the fabric of everyday life. And so I just always want to honor when other survivors have the courage to tell their stories. Thank you very much, Chanel Miller, for bringing us all together. I am very, very lucky to have an incredible team that has absolutely co-created mirror memoirs with me. And so I, without further ado, want to start to bring my esteemed colleagues and comrades into the room. We are going to focus tonight on a discussion of solidarity. I particularly have had my own arc of growing and evolving, not only deepening my own understanding of myself as a non-binary person, but largely that self-understanding and growth has come from my deep friendships and mirror conversations with other survivors, particularly those who are transgender and non-binary and two-spirit and intersex. And especially, I think, in this moment, you know, Anissa spoke about the ongoing violence against people of color in this country. And particularly, there has been a lot of discussion of the ongoing violence towards Asian-American people in the United States in the wake of the Atlanta mass shooting. I also want to name that we are in the middle of a week of action to support transgender youth in this country because of the ongoing violence of transphobia. And so I am just very, very aware all the time that for myself as a survivor, many of the spaces that have been created by other survivors, for survivors to gather and to heal and to organize together often leave out some of the most vulnerable survivors in our community. So I just want to speak very briefly before I bring my colleagues into the room with me virtually about why we are doing tonight's panel. So as you may know, March 31 is the International Day of Transgender Visibility. And mirror memoirs specifically uplift the leadership and healing and stories of Black and Indigenous survivors who are two-spirit, transgender, non-binary and or intersex, and particularly those who were assigned male at birth. And there's a couple of different reasons for that specific focus. In 2011, which incredibly was already a decade ago, what is time? If this year has taught us anything truly, it is to question the construction of time, I think. But nonetheless, it was a decade ago that this study was out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. And that was as I was finishing the work on secret survivors in New York City and preparing to move across the country to Los Angeles. And I was a graduate student at the time, finishing my master's degree. And I really thought I had stumbled onto something, right? The art of storytelling, the power of storytelling to bring particularly assigned female at birth survivors or cisgender heterosexual men or transgender masculine people. That was the nuanced gender identity spectrum of the cast and secret survivors. And we didn't have any trans feminine survivors in our cast at the time, which was really more of a reflection of my own lack of community with a lot of trans feminine people a decade ago. And I came across the statistic that was newly published at the time from the American Academy of Pediatrics. And you can find this statistic on the Mirror Memoirs website because it's truly what launched the whole project. And they found that gender nonconformity in children is a risk factor for being raped or sexually assaulted for being targeted by sexual violence before the age of 18. And they also found that male assigned at birth children who are gender nonconforming are up to six times likelier to be targeted in that way. And the data just so you know from the Centers for Disease Control in the adverse childhood experiences study is already that one in four girls and one in six boys will be raped or sexually assaulted by the age of 18. And that's across cisgender, transgender, nonbinary gender identities. So what are we saying then if the American Academy of Pediatrics is telling us that assigned male at birth children who are gender nonconforming are up to six times likelier to be raped or sexually assaulted than their gender conforming peers. It means that the most vulnerable survivors in childhood to experiencing sexual violence are in fact the very same people in adulthood who are most vulnerable to experiencing sexual violence. And that is assigned male at birth people who are trans feminine or who are effeminate and gender nonconforming visibly in some way. And when we think about who has become the face of movements to end sexual violence in this country, we have generally speaking, those of us who are assumed to be cisgender women or who identify as cisgender women, we have largely left transgender women to spirit fems, nonbinary fems and intersex fems who are all assigned male at birth out of the equation entirely. If anything, they're an add-on, right? How many times do we go to survivor-led events and hear like women in trans, women in trans as if it's an add-on. And I just want to offer tonight's audience and folks who are watching the recording later the question to grapple with of what would a gender nonconforming visibly end sexual violence and rape culture look like if we actually just uplifted and began with the stories and experiences and needs for support of trans feminine survivors, of assigned male at birth, gender nonconforming survivors and particularly those who are black and or indigenous. And so tonight I am very, very lucky to be graced with the company and the wisdom and really the leadership of three folks who I follow in mirror memoirs who fit into those identity categories. And so I will introduce them in the order that they are speaking on tonight's panel. And then once I'm done with the brief introductions, I'm going to ask all three of them to turn on their cameras and join us for this virtual panel. So we're going to begin tonight with Santos La Rose who is a mixed-race Latinx and indigenous two-spirit fem hailing from Arizona. She has spent the last decade in the San Francisco Bay Area living, loving, breathing and screaming as a poet, writer, sex worker, grassroots organizer and activist. She is an advocate for sex and gender justice, environmental justice, prison abolition, workers' rights, anti-fascism and anti-capitalism. Santos is a self-described downtown girl in an uptown world and she enjoys spending her time with her loved ones reading and writing poetry and fiction, dancing, laughing and playing games. And she says, see you on the dance floor. So welcome tonight, Santos. Thank you for being here. Next I'm going to introduce, and Santos is a recorded storyteller and core member in the Mirror Memoirs Audio Archive. Next I will introduce Ebony Ava Harper who is a Mirror Memoirs board member. We are so lucky. Ebony is a Jamaican descendant, Sacramento-based, nationally recognized activist, philanthropist, writer, editor, and activist. She is a great educator, an advocate for transgender, advocate for marginalized communities and truly a tremendous inspiration to many including myself. Harper left the California endowment in 2019 to step into the role of the director of California Transcense, an organization that she envisioned and founded. This statewide initiative works to promote the health and wellness of transgender people throughout the country. She is the first trans person to host the California state capital 2019 tree lighting with Governor Gavin Newsom and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and she was the grand marshal of Sacramento pride in 2019. She has been an international keynote speaker on trans issues, climate crisis, and global justice. And finally I want to introduce Ducky Jones who is also a recorded storyteller and core member of the community. Ducky is a 40-year-old multiracial, black and Latinx, intersex, queer, non-binary, disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent activist for low-income, disabled, LGBTQIA plus and undocumented communities. As a disabled person, Ducky wants to assure our gaps in access are attended to and our collective voice is heard. They feel most fulfilled when able to communicate with the community. Ducky is an advocate for disability justice, sexual assault and allyship through storytelling, poetry, writing, spoken word and rapping. In addition to being involved in mirror memoirs, Ducky is an educator with the fireweed collective and is on the advisory board of Borealis philanthropy. Ducky is motivated by involvement in disability justice work because the change they advocate for personally affects them. Ducky is an advocate for disability justice work. I invite you to turn on your cameras. We did a little preparation for you all tonight. We have a set of questions that we are going to start with and we are going to invite you throughout the evening to go ahead and add any questions or comments you may have and we will have our friends at the San Francisco public center. As you know, mirror memoirs is an abolitionist organization, meaning as an organization we do not believe that police, prisons or state controlled institutions such as psychiatric institutions will ever end rape culture, child sexual abuse will ever truly keep our people safe. As a survivor of multiple forms of violence yourself, including child sexual abuse, it is important to understand that abolition is necessary and that police and prisons are not the answer to ending sexual violence and rape culture. Santos, I am going to begin with you. Thanks, Amita. Just to put it pretty plainly, prisons don't work and that is just the fact of the matter. The media would like us to believe that prisons are full of unpredictably dangerous and full of people from vulnerable communities who were in desperate situations and who engaged with drugs, property crime and conflict with loved ones and community members. I just want to end, I want to say that the rate of recidivism for released prisoners is about 76% within the first five years and this is all because of mandatory and minimum sentencing practices including parole and three strike rules to ensure that no one can escape this harm. Prisons in themselves are factories for abuse and harm, rape and all of these atrocities that people are capable of and a lot of people tend to not think of as an oppressed class, which they definitely are. And also just to close out if you're thinking that what exactly could a world without prisons look like? Prisons are unnatural. Somebody made prisons so they can be unmade. We can have a world without prisons and police and all of these systems that are designed to target our vulnerable communities and tear our families apart. I believe in dreaming of a bigger world and I encourage everybody else to imagine a world without police or prisons. Thank you so much Santos for kicking us off this evening with that beautiful vision. I love inviting you to join me in the chat to start dreaming put on your most expansive political imagination hat and seriously dream with us. Ebony, I would like to turn the same question over to you. Why as a survivor of multiple forms of violence yourself including child sexual abuse, why do you believe that prisons and police will not be the answer to ending this violence? Thank you for talking about how prison go into how the industrial complex goes into low income neighborhoods and prey on vulnerable people. We have to address that first. And I grew up in the hood. I grew up in South Central and I saw a lot of abuse that was that the police kind of instigated not kind of that they did instigate and I saw the cycle of prisons and even in my family immediate family I have family members that were in and out of prison and I was like, did it teach them anything? Absolutely not. It taught them how to be better criminals. And then when you factor in, I know a lot of people are like, well where are we talking about abolition? Why is this important? Because we're talking about trans people and trans people are one of the vulnerable in prison and get caught in that circle and we're even more vulnerable to sexual violence in prison than other inmates. I have friends that have been sold for cartons of cigarettes and I have friends that have been gained raped in prison. Sexual violence doesn't stop on the street. It's not only by the inmates but also by the CEOs and guards. When I was a young person I was put in the back of a police car and the officer was trying to have me sexually that happens a lot to trans people because sexual violence isn't usually about overpowering someone and getting the power from them and we need to know why that person needs to do that. I also want to talk about statistics. Out of every thousand sexual assaults 995 perpetrators will walk free. That's remarkably most of these people. The police 46 reports lead to arrest. Nine cases get referred to prosecutors. Five cases will lead to a felony conviction and 4.6 rapists will be incarcerated. That's an incredibly low number and so most of these rapists are walking free. Most of this stuff is not even reported. People love to try to poke holes and prison abolition by saying what about the rapists do you want them just wondering around but the reality is they are wondering around. Between the unreported cases and the rapes that never go to trial and the trials lost and plead barred and beyond policing environments in which sexual violence is the currency of survival is not making anyone safer. In my closing I would say I don't believe in incarceration. I was in and out of the juvenile system as a youth and what I really needed was a young person and I was thrown into that cycle of kids in the hood especially queer kids in the 90s who was rejected by their family of going in and out of juvenile halls and out of group homes and out of foster care and just basically siphoned off to the street that a lot of kids from Santa Monica Boulevard lived and it did not help me one bit. What did help me in the latter years was therapy was a new way of thinking was resources and I know we live in an eye for an eye culture but we need to shift that thinking as well and we need to get to the bottom of why these people are doing these things because it's happening in overwhelming numbers a lot of it is not reported so we need to get to the bottom what in our culture is producing these type of behaviors. Thank you Evinie I'm already so full and we're on our first question I really feel so grateful that you outlined your perspective on abolition with so many vulnerable stories from your own life and from your friends lives as well and so I just want to take a moment with the audience as we're listening to remember to breathe I know that I'm standing you may be sitting but just see if you can feel your feet on the ground or your butt in the chair if you are sitting just breathe because witnessing is a lot and a lot of us are survivors too I really want to thank you Evinie for lifting up exactly why we do focus on abolition in mirror memoirs as I traveled the country listening to 60 different survivors in our community so many of us have been directly harmed by agents of the state with impunity because that is what agents of the state are empowered to do particularly when it comes to transgender and non-binary youth of color especially those who are in foster care or who have run away from home due to abuse at home so you touched on so much of that Evinie what are the courts and the prisons going to do when it's actually police officers or state hired psychiatric officers or juvenile jail guards who are actually the one sexually assaulting people and that is a question that we are constantly having to grapple with in mirror memoirs because that's where so many of our members have been harmed so thank you so much for bringing your own survivorship and your friend's survivorship into the room in that way Evinie Ducky the same question for you I would love to hear what brings you personally to the thank you Amita and also thank you Santos for sharing yes I it's been a long journey of the ambition and being in prison and finding the best solution but as we touched on as trans folks we are top populated in the prison but I want to get even deeper even more specific as black, indigenous and brown disabled folks within the system how that affects us how it targets the low income and these are the folks that are populated with low income, the black, the brown, the indigenous and disabled folks and I don't see prison as an answer and it never has been for the perpetrate sexual violence sexual abuse amongst the inmates specifically black indigenous trans not by the intersex folks it's not a solution it's no resources for the inmates the perpetrators when they leave jail to get jobs to get the therapy to get the help they need for them and half of them returns back to prison because of the lack of resources because of the lack of somebody who's going to give them that chance because I feel like as a black person as somebody that as well was in the criminal halls as a child I don't have nobody there coming up in the foster group home group home I see how what I needed was not to be locked up I needed somebody to care for me somebody to support me be there for me prison is another way to show for police to show their power to show their privilege to bully us as black, brown trans and non-binary folks and one discussion is out there as an intersex person nobody's discussing how mutilating a child is also a child's sexual assault nobody's seeing doctors getting put in jail because of sexual assault and sex child that's a form of sexual assault why the police not going so it's the layers of privilege and the layers of power how messed up the institution is medically, industrially so I feel like I dream big what do a world look like about prison maybe dream big we all talk about re-traumatizing and how we continue to be true to be re-trauma the perpetrator is also we don't know what the perpetrator has been so there has been no therapy they all been held accountable for the action not saying that this is a way for them to escape that kind of video a place where they're getting the therapy where they're getting the resources where they need to heal I was one of those people that like I don't want my perpetrator to be locked up be gone they have came up with the trauma that is untreated and the prison will continue to further along the trauma to get that resource or help that needs so I feel like dreaming big what is a way to help perpetrators like what's mentioned before prison was made, handmade so just like you handmade them handmade resources handmade rehabilitation for the perpetrators for the survivors where we both heal that's my closing and thank you everyone for sharing your part thank you and we are just getting started folks in the chat now you see why I feel so lucky that we all get to benefit from your collective wisdom tonight truly thank you friends thank you so much thank you for your powerful remarks Ducky you raised the good work of our comrades at the intersex justice project who are absolutely talking as intersex people about the fact that they have survived this form of child sexual abuse in the form of forced non-consensual surgery usually as babies so please check out their work if you're not already familiar with it if you're not already familiar with it if you're not already familiar with it why not prisons, why we believe in abolition and myself as well as a survivor of childhood rape by my father I wasn't always an abolitionist so I just want to say to folks who are listening at home if you're on a journey we just invite you to be with us in the question right and when you allow yourself to grapple with well if not prisons then what else and Santos and Ebony and Ducky already started us down that path but I just want to name that in her talk with journalist Robin Takayama to open this series on One City One Book Chanel Miller spoke about the reality that victims of sexual violence often mistakenly absorb our perpetrator's shame as our own and Chanel spoke about healing right and we know it's not a finish line it is a process particularly for our communities where the trauma of the state and the trauma of civilian hate violence are ongoing but that healing as a process as an alchemy as I have come to think of it is really about reclaiming our wholeness as human beings and so you all started to touch upon like okay not prisons and not police and so instead I am reclaiming my wholeness and finding my healing through these different practices I'm wondering if you would be so generous as to share with us what healing has looked like in your journey as a child sexual abuse survivor and as a black or indigenous person who is a two-spirit transgender non-binary and or intersex and so Santos will begin with you if you would be so kind to tell us a little bit about your healing journey long definitely I have a lifetime of generational curses to break so for me that's looked like a decade of therapy and somatic work and like actually learning to trust my physical self with other people not in this very explosive way that I like would act out on like deep deep in my trauma you know my healing has looked a lot like countless hours of introspection being alone and also being with others being with my loved ones who love and support me through so many different transitions ha ha in my life like through shitty partners and awful breakups messy abuse situations for years it's hard but I don't think it's impossible for any of us as a survivor I've learned to lead how my own healing looks like and name what resources I need when I seek it and I choose not to be around or associated with my harm doer and I have been empowered to actually plant my foot in the ground and hold that line and that's something that's so important to me and something that my loved ones have given me that I'm so thankful for thank you Santos I really that resonates with me so much that it's so important for all the survivors who are tuning in tonight I feel the same way I have not spoken to my father since I was 16 I'm 42 now and I think too often we're told that forgiveness is the only way forward and I really appreciate you lifting up that boundaries like very firm boundaries can also be a way forward an absolutely legitimate way forward other people are often our source of healing when other people are really shitty to us I too have had to figure out just stumbling through abusive relationship after abusive relationship and it has been my friends who have lifted me up too so I'm really feeling that mirroring thank you really for your generosity and your honesty Santos thank you so much for coming from in your life on your journey as a survivor that's such a big question because it's Santos talked about transitioning and it's just like transitioning and it's just like the question like when did you transition and transition is an ongoing thing and I'm also in my 40s and I noticed as I've aged that my healing comes from being incredibly vulnerable which people would say be against but you know healing looks different from for other people because in my childhood I had to be crying up in Watts and Inglewood and Hollywood and I have to have this rough exterior well later in my life I was able to shed the rough exterior and be vulnerable and really work on the things that childhood not only sexual abuse but physical abuse mental abuse neglect all those things that I was protecting as a young kid and a young adult I was able to heal by telling my story and being vulnerable with people and letting them know that they're not the only one and I don't know if I would say I made it but there is no making it to me we're all doing the best we can some days are good, some days are bad while I do have some titles and I do have some respect of some people I am just a human that crawled out of the gutter a couple of years ago and that is still working with a lot of damage and that I had no control over and I do acknowledge that I do have control over certain situations and sometimes I still don't have control I was just at the store getting me an energy drink and a guy is stopping in his car and beckoning me over to his car and sometimes people see me as being trans and think that I'm some type of I want sex from them immediately especially cis men or that I'm available for sex or that they could easily get me with some money and that's all triggering because to me that is saying that and so from day to day I don't know what my healing journey may look like but I do know with me encouraging others kind of like you Amitha and how mirror memoirs was birth you know with me encouraging others with me sharing my story with me hearing other survivors story with me constantly putting positive messages out there and knowing that if I can just touch one person with this take your medication today drink some water today those things help me to heal I say giving of myself and serving not everybody has the capacity to do that and we are like ants some of us are worker ants some of us are the queen ant some of us have capacity some of us are givers and we get by giving and I think I'm one of those people and I think sharing my story and being open about my situation has healed me incredibly and say when I'm having a bad day behind some facade and some perfection thing that Western culture has did to the world where we have to look perfect my perfection is in my imperfection and the days where I don't feel like going on and I get on Facebook and I talk about it some people say I don't feel all your business on Facebook and I think I'm the queen ant Facebook can be a tool for trans folks because a lot of us are isolated even us that are visible we're isolated and it serves as a therapy tool for some folks I don't advise that for everyone to each their own I appreciate the way you share if folks don't follow ebony it's true you are very vulnerable and generous and uplifting and I often feel held by your messages truly ebony is also a cancer not surprisingly so I see that maternal energy the way you care for your community thank you for all the ways you give if you would be so kind as to tell us since we know you are an abolitionist where has true healing come in your journey I feel like a little depressed it's been a journey that's the way it was it's coming from a band in neglectful childhood being raised in a false home and being sexual and the system and conditioning the way that I'm supposed to just continue to walk and just push it aside and not cry about it and not deal with it and condition as a boy or as a male of not crying, toughen up it was hard and throughout my childhood knowing that I'm the oldest in my family I always felt like I need to stay strong to be that person to not short film and not process emotions so I held it all in all through a teenager adulthood and it's been hard and then going through different groups I knew I was in a situation but I was never healed or dealt with by previous supremacists or sexual or physical I was scared to leave a current that I was living there it wasn't until 2012 when I met the LGBT center and found out that I was in a person's situation I gave the courage to leave out a person's situation and I've been to therapy but none of it was taken therapy that did not care for me whether perpetrated or not they focused more on my disorder eating than my trying to heal from sexual assault therapy so my healing did really start after I had a conversation with my mom and found out that I was into sex and how I was matured as a child okay, this shit is real I need to start dealing with this and that same year 4 years ago it was 2016 I was happy to bump into Amita at the justice in LA so it connected us and that way when I shared my story that year December of 2016 was my first time ever opening up speaking about my experiences as a child of sexual assault I think that's what began my healing I was able to share my story and that's just further straight through my story helping promote the healing and I was able to start my healing I was able to find ways to stay and stay and move through that confidence in Sacramento in 2017 I was able to find my voice including people that were positive and negative in my life that would promote my healing promote my growth and giving that space to be vulnerable as much as my sign is Leo I want to be, I'm a casting so I have an emotional am I got three places in the cast so I'm very emotional internally it's a fight, it's a tunnel fight but I surround my people that they are all survivors that understands me able to do work facilitating training to find survivors believing survivors of sexual assault and having loved ones that hear me now that will sit there and listen to me no matter how long or how triggering the topic may be or how hard it may take on the capacity to sit there and say hey that's the seat and knowing that you're able to go to the doctor because it's triggering not just as a trans person or not by the person but by the medical institution but as an intersex person knowing that my experience with the medical institution and how I have to not only claim my advocate for my gender how I have to advocate for my being intersex and how that plays to be traumatizing and have to continue to relive being a sexual assaultor as a child so it has been a process where I use my platform poetry, like you heard earlier I like poetry, that's my form of belief form of getting out there dancing I love to dance I like to get out there dancing, writing poetry and finding the love for nature has been great healing in I have come to a place where healing is not one stop shop going everyday being and I support somebody else I'm healing, every time I support somebody else that's dealing with sexual assault or any type of trauma that's my healing because I know I'm able to help the next person with my voice, my platform with me being vulnerable and open that space for others to be vulnerable as well Thank you, I so appreciate you I was just putting in the chat, Ducky how folks can get connected with mirror memoirs and so appreciate that you lifted up so many of the spaces that we have co-created when I first met many of you in 2016 or 2017 I literally thought I was just doing an audio archive project and then it was in conversations with each of you that I was like we need to be together in a room and that's what led to the first healing circle that you're talking about Ducky in 2017 five years now and we're a full-fledged organization and I just want to let folks who are tuning in know that every piece of this organization has been co-dreamed up like it wasn't just me sitting in a room by myself being like I don't know I literally just thought I was doing an audio archive and then folks were like what if we had healing circles what if we started to train other folks in our methodology and in our analysis what if we actually created a network of mutual aid a member support fund that's actually helping people get their needs met during the pandemic now we have monthly membership meetings so I really appreciate you naming this work together that we have all literally woven together Ducky as part of your healing so I'm going to put for folks who are in the chat they're like how do I join mirror memoirs folks you can fill out the short survey that's now in the chat we put on our email list in that way I think that when we are experiencing so much prolonged and repeated trauma in our childhoods it is a very particular kind of journey and then for those of us who I obviously have a very different gender identity I think we all do from each other on this call but being someone who's female assigned at birth is just assumed mostly because I like to wear lipstick sometimes when I do talks I was a very visibly non-binary child and that was a big part of the way that I was harmed and I have come to realize that a lot of it was about my dad's own self-loathing in his own gender journey and that's a whole different conversation but I think a lot about what just only what do I need as an adult what do I really need as a kid and I just want to name that there aren't enough spaces I think for child sexual abuse survivors given that it's roughly 20% of Americans are child sexual abuse survivors and then it's disproportionately higher for anyone who's gender non-conforming which is disproportionately a number of LGBTQIA plus people and how few of our movement organizations are naming childhood rape and naming child sexual abuse and then how few even anti-sexual violence broader movements talk about the very particular experience and the kinds of lifelong support and mutual aid that are needed to really make healing real so I want to bring this back to this particular event that we're gathered in tonight because in her talk to kick off the series Chanel Miller spoke about her childhood and it sounded so beautiful being if I'm honest a little bit envious she talked about growing up in a home in which she was unconditionally loved by her parents particularly she talked about her Chinese American mother who's an artist and a teacher encouraging her to paint on the walls with coffee and paint and the kids were like allowed to draw on the walls and to explore the fullness of their humanity and I was like God that is so tragically far from what my own experience was as a child but I do have children in my life I'm not a full-time parent but you know I have a 14 year old brother and he's my whole entire heart and a lot of my friends are becoming parents now because I'm in my 40s and you know I think a lot about the advocacy work that Mayor Memoirs is starting to step into that is largely being led by our comrades Chase Strangio and Raquel Miller and the ACLU and Transgender Law Center where I know you work Santos but we're actually having this talk in the middle of Transgender Week of Visibility and Action and I have put in the chat for everyone the call to action to fight against some of the really awful bills that are being proposed and argued at the state legislature level throughout the country we're going into a day of action specifically focusing on Alabama where there are I believe two bills being considered one of which would actually make it a felony to provide gender affirming care or referrals to any transgender child or young person even under the age of 19 even if they have supportive doctors and supportive parents which we know to begin with not enough trans kids do and there's also a bill being debated right now in Alabama that if passed would ban transgender women and girls from playing sports and would actually police the bodies of all athletes in women's sports to be sexually examined by doctors and genitally so it's a form of sexual violence that's actually being sanctioned if this bill passes and I'm naming these two things together right because I hope for all children to have supportive childhoods and then I'm also so cognizant that for anyone who is transgender or gender nonconforming as a child and particularly those who are male assigned at birth that's so far from the reality of what so many of us are growing up with and so when I ask you to dream the biggest holding your own tender inner child self close to your heart and like really thinking not just in terms of what you need today in this moment to heal but when you think about what it would have looked like for you to grow up in a world in which all two-spirit transgender non-binary and intersex children can enjoy the level of love that Chanel Miller was describing right what would it what would that world look like what would be that world versus the world that we're currently living in a world in which you could have thrived as a child in the fullness of who you truly are and Santos I'll ask you to kick us off with that answer thank you thank you for naming those two things that are working in tandem together all around us and their own kids every single day I just had like had a moment where I closed my eyes and I imagined what a baby ebony and ducky and Amita would have looked like and how adorable y'all are must have been and still are I know I was adorable I was a pageant kid so do the math um um you know I know it's very very hard being a woman you know all the time right like in any situation at any given moment it's especially hard for women mothers who have effeminate sons or effeminate children or young transgender girls who maybe haven't expressed the fullness of their entirety yet or whatever and there's so much pressure on like that mom especially if she's a single mom that like she is messed up in raising this like young male assigned child but there's like like something went wrong right like either she like coddled the baby too much or there is an absent father or whatever so this as well as the fathers and those who occupy that social role are really empowered to make men out of these young effeminate boys so that opens up the window for a lot of abuse neglect rape and sexual assault and a lot of the times the other parent is encouraged to kind of turn a blind eye to these things because either they don't realize the entirety of the situation or they're afraid of being ostracized by the community that they're in because their child doesn't have a father or a father figure in their life and that's just something that women are just assumed to not be able to handle or perform and hearing you talk about Chanel Miller's childhood of like all this like I imagine like just like light and pretty lace curtains and color everywhere and that sounds really lovely and fabulous and I think of the summers that I spent at my grandparents house when I was young and my mom would send me to my grandparents house to get me out of the house for the summer away from my stepdad and my brother and I had a great time there all the time it was always just me there and I would hang out with my grandma and we would cook and garden and watch old movies together the whole thing and she was kind of a Scarlet O'Hara type she like walked in a room she really walked into the room like left a hole in the wall when she walked into the room and she had a house that was full of angels like everywhere like paintings chachkies figurines like of all different kinds of angels like ones that looked like people others that looked abstract in shapes she had little baby angels she had old lady angels she had black angels she had like choir angels she had just everything you can think of everywhere you looked you just your eye couldn't help it settle on an angel and I just remember feeling so safe there and wrapped up and warm and held in that space and really wish that every non-conforming gender non-conforming child can experience what it's like to have at least just one family member that really embraces them and lifts them up um yeah so anyways be nice to your feminine sons thank you thank you Santos yes to that vision and that prayer may all gender non-conforming children have at least one person who loves them and makes them feel safe the way your grandma did for you I'm glad you had her Ebony what about you what's your vision for what it would be like to live in a world in which all two-spirit transgender non-binary and intersex children can enjoy unconditional love Santos just touched on so much of my childhood of having a single black mom parent from Jamaica that's deeply religious in fact she's a pastor um and having a feminine son a son who wanted to play with dolls a son that dressed up in her church and was walking around in her shoes and a son that identified at five years old and was like I'm a girl um I'm gay which was the only language that I had at the time to describe what I was experiencing mentally and being shamed from the gate and I didn't have the safe space as a child I didn't have anything nowhere safe and like many black trans women coming from where I come from or coming from anywhere in the world um we have no safe space and sometimes we spend our lifetime without one safe space and I think back of all the beatings that I got were one of the most behavioral issues as a kid because I was reflective of my environment but they thought just like a lot of people of color you know you beat it and you fix it you know and I think that's handed down from slavery but they just beat me more and more and I became more and more unruly more and more and they just gave me to my brother who was really violent towards me he was 250 pounds I was like 60 pounds and he would beat me until you know he would sweat and I mean just the thickest bill I can remember and just beating on top of beating on top of beating he's the first person I can remember actually hating having hate in my heart towards this person and I had a smile in his face and really having some hate in my heart because I didn't get any love from the people who were supposed to protect me and so um what would it take for the little ebony and I just want to clarify that not all trans people identify themselves as little boys when they were younger some still identify as little girls but for me in Santos we can say that where I say I was a little effeminate boy you know and you know I liked all things feminine and I was shamed I was laughed at you know it was a joke until I got into my preteens then there was an issue and I needed to be paraded in front of church to get the gay demon out of me um and go to therapy and there was something psychologically wrong because I came out as gay or trans as a kid and there's something wrong with me or I was exhibiting behavioral issues because of sexual violence because of abuse at home and because of neglect I had a single black mom and she wasn't ever home she was out trying to hustle to feed the kids and then like Santos touched on there was embarrassment when it came to me as a kid and I was embarrassed I was trying to pray this thing away why can't I be like my brother playing football and all these I attracted to those things I'm attracted to the feminine things um what I would have needed is unconditional love uh no matter where I was in my experience um just to love me and let me develop as a child and love each phase that I went through um we may go through many phases throughout our childhood and throughout our lifetime and we should be a love and appreciated for each phase we go through protection I needed to be protected I needed to feel protected you know I had none of that as a kid I had no protection I had very rarely felt love as a child um but I was one of probably the most loving kids you could ever need you know I was picking flowers and bringing them home to my mom and I had no protection because my mom was heartened because she she didn't get a lot of love in the world you know and so the young me would have been loved the young me would have been given flowers back would have been provided in a safe space to just explore who they are um and um because we have to make sure that our future generation don't have the things that we have to go through and sometimes when we spot that type of parenting we can be that one savior like Santos's grandparents you know we can be a safe space you know if you're close enough to the family where that kid could have oh Amitha always greeted me with a smile and made me feel safe about who I was and um that's important thank you and so much love to everyone's little child I love that you said that Santos because I feel like that I can see that in all of you as well as you're talking and so I said flowers and angels for all the babies including baby all of you Ducky what's your vision for a world where your children can be loved and can be safe thank you Amitha thank you Santos I see thank you for that vision Santos baby Ducky Amitha um you had to echo what always been said um as someone that was raised in a foster home group really a specific parent or um who take care of them maybe for the first 12 years but after that was not which is bouncing group on with the group home um it was hard to find acceptance like as child you are our boys are male as we condition to be we foster plays male colors is linked to a gender colors is linked to a gender how different activities is linked to a gender um how different things school plays dancing is linked to a link to a gender or games every game for games games that you play outside is linked to a gender um and seeing a world where kids is either is highly of committed suicide whether with homelessness use homelessness because of not being stepped at all and not being loved for their gender whether it be trans not by any sex they did not perform in um one of the highest rate um in the state of the country of youth trans not by any folk of homelessness um that we just want to be loved be seen and not deal with sexual abuse because of the gender or who they are or abt will be pushed away or um they're isolated from a world that they want to be loved they want to be part of they want to be a child and be loved unconditionally um it's hard but if I could imagine a baby duck I know if some of you may that's watching or on the panel may know I was um um um um uh uh um um um um um uh um the short shorts were a basketball and tennis shoes. And to see if that was in the symbolism of a baby, I wanted that to be a baby because I felt like a child like they're on that stage. Somebody that could go to a prom with a dress but with a tux top or go to a prom masculine, quote unquote masculine but with makeup. Cause I was a child that did not identify with a boy or girl. I was like, didn't know which one. My first mom tried to be the best. She accepted my sexuality, but I knew that she would not get my gender or accept my gender. So I was able to feel love, feel like a ducky. Go pick, wear a toy or clothes you want. Then I get mad at, she got mad at me a lot of times cause I would not play with the toy team. She bought a car. I was not feeling me or play with the dog. Cause she tried, she tried to guess my gender. So I was like, if I had a choice to pick the choose my own gender, decide for myself and be that duck. Like I won't be the in-between person. I want to put your high heels, but I want to put your beanie on too. I want to put your makeup, but just on my eyes and not my lips or vice versa. I won't be that proud queen, not king or queen, but queen as somebody like break the crown in half but just pay warranty and everything. Just be that little duckling that has come to the bottom three doors and ask the gender that they are, the gender variant, the non-binary and ageing person I am, just walk to that door like, hey, I'm here. I'm here in my makeup one day. I'm here, just my dress and lipstick. Oh, I want to feel like the brat this day. That's the vision of a world baby of how a duck will live. And that's why, as Ebony said, I try to use my place if I bump into a kid and get in a trans, nobody in a kid or any youth that experienced non-acceptance at home. I try to give that space. I make sure they're with me around me. I give that space of comfort where they can be themselves when they get alive and not, so they can have that break before they go back home or talk to their parents or talk to their family. Want to go to Ducky? I can be myself, yay, and enjoy because that's what every child dream of, that's what every kid live for. And I think that would make a better place for a transgender non-binary and sex folks. So any parameters and families out there that listen to this, please accept the child, love your child affectionately and educate yourself. Don't leave all your child or the community to educate yourself how to be there for your child. Thank you so much, Ducky. I put prom cream in the chat because I just love that so much. There's a mirror memoirs member who also shared her story in the audio archive who is a cisgender woman who just became a parent during this pandemic. And she and her partner are raising the child with gender-neutral pronouns. And as someone who's in her intimate friend circle and has gotten to witness that process, to me, I'm like, it shouldn't be radical. I wish for a world in which we don't cause violence to beings when they're in utero by assigning them a gender or a sex. Like what would it look like to actually have space in every chosen kindred community for when a child arrives into this world? They just get space to be human. It's like, yay, we're all celebrating. A new human is here. How precious. And we're gonna just love them unconditionally and have curiosity and observation about who they are. And we're gonna let them tell us and let them show us who they are. And as Ebony said so beautifully, like a lot of us evolve how we understand ourselves. So it's not a fixed journey, you know? So thank you all so much for naming some of those visions. I feel like there's a lot of rich material here tonight about the many things that particularly cisgender women who are survivors and who generally have the dominant imagination about who a survivor is can start to do differently and think differently about how to truly be in solidarity with all survivors. Thinking of little Ducky and little Santos and little Ebony and the beautiful adults that you are as well. I also wanna name that we have a lot of cancer energy on tonight's panel. I know Santos, you're also a cancer and Ducky, you have a cancer moon and I'm also a cancer and in fact I have my cancer necklace on. So all the like maternal or paternal or parental beautiful nurturing energy that we're putting out, I just really, I have been so sad thinking about all of the trans children. Two of my friends are mothers of black trans girls and one of them in Arkansas. And I have been just thinking about all that their families are going through with this wave of state violence with these terrible bills. And so truly one of the things everyone tonight can do is to learn about the bills that are being proposed. Call those governors in Alabama, in Arkansas, in South Dakota and beyond. Tennessee just proposed bills as well. I mean, there's so many of them. So follow Chase Strangio at the ACLU, read about the bills and pick up the phone and get on your email because truly like the very children that we all were are suffering right now because of the misconceptions and the violence of rape culture and the way that that's not only about the act of rape but also about the stripping away of body autonomy of telling children what they can do with their bodies, what kind of medical care they can and can't get, what kind of sports they can and can't play. There are just so many ways that we are all taught to be violent and transphobic towards children that are layered upon the violence that also allows for child sexual abuse to happen. So I'm calling tonight upon all of our accomplices to grow wings and be those angels that Santos was calling in for your child self. Anisa, I want to check in with you about time and about questions. If we have any questions that have been offered by the audience, I've got some other things that I wanna ask our folks if we do have more time but I know that it's already 8.19. So just doing a check. We always have time. Okay, wonderful. Well, I did put one more thing in the chat box about this concept, a phrase that has gotten a lot of play this year, but let's just be honest, it is how our peoples, and I'm using that term broadly as the child of immigrants. I know it is how my own immigrant community survived. It is how all oppressed people have survived. But this phrase of mutual aid is having a moment in pop culture during this pandemic. And I do wanna name that in our own relational network in Mirror Memoirs, we did start a new member support fund during the COVID pandemic and we did our first round of fundraising in December. We were able to raise and redistribute $50,000. That's $50,000 to 95 different transgender, non-binary, intersex and two-spirit BIPOC child sexual abuse survivors. We gave 95 different people $500 grants. And that was awesome. But we wanna do it at least two more times this year because we know that folks are struggling for all of the reasons that you all have a name, right? Yes, COVID and also everything that was before COVID and will probably be still being dismantled after COVID. We still need those relational networks of support. So I did put our mutual aid fund in the chat box. I wanna name that Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera modeled mutual aid specifically for our communities with street transvestite action revolutionaries. And that Sylvia Rivera specifically spoke out about being a child sexual abuse survivor and leaving home at the age of 14 to leave that violence and to find community on the Christopher Street Pier in New York City. And that she and Marsha P. Johnson pooled their money as survival sex workers to be able to rent an entire house in Manhattan and they let transgender youth stay there for free so that they could be cared for and be potentially spared from having to do the labor of survival sex work. So that is a mutual aid practice, trans women of color. Y'all have been teaching us for a long ass time. Let's not pretend that mutual aid is new but my closing question for all of you is what is your ask of particularly cisgender women who are survivors of sexual violence during this time and or what is a mutual aid practice that you have seen be discussed more broadly during this pandemic that you hope will continue. So it could be about a practice of solidarity that you are asking for or a practice of solidarity you have seen emerge that you want more of. And Santos, I'm going to start with you. Thanks, Amita. To think about the various things that cisgender women can do to be allies to trans women and male assigned people at birth who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I would say that they don't have to look very far to know what to do. They have to look at their own lingo of believe survivors and that includes survivors that don't look like you and who you also maybe don't think of looks like a survivor to you. I would say to interrupt moments of violence when you see them, challenge the speech actions and opinions of those who would paint assigned male people as monsters and believe that trans people are who they say they are. Question the fear and the obsession that transphobic people possess. Transgender people have always existed throughout time without country throughout the world and transphobia as we know it is a product of misogyny, global colonization, Christian supremacy and white supremacy. The reasons why I'm bringing all this up is because cis women are in a particular position to influence their peers. And the transphobic people, they're not gonna listen to other trans people or other people not in their groups. It's gonna have to come from people within their own social groups, their own class, their own race for them to actually hear it. And that's an unfortunate reality. And I wanna believe that that's a reality that we can break free of one day. Let's see your second question. I think that, and you touched this on a little bit Amita, people of color and LGBTQ people, we are more than equipped to take care of our own during times of trouble. We've done it before, we're doing it right now and we're gonna do it again. Privilege communities need to dig deep in their pockets and give back. If you own a small business with employees, pay them double minimum wage. If you're a landlord, cancel rent for your tenants. If you consider yourself a girl boss, step down and consider a collective model. Donate your money for your next year's vacation for once this is all over, to mutual aids for black and indigenous people that are struggling to keep a roof over their head, food in their bellies and medicine in their bodies. I would ask them to please not be afraid to lose money. There will always be more money, new possessions and new upgrades. For the next year, I would challenge the cisgender or cisgender adjacent people in the audience to say no to money. Say no to the newest and shiniest upgrades. Say no to keeping up with the Joneses. Encourage others to do the same and lead by example. And I promise you that fulfillment, lightness and calm will befall you and everybody in your intimate circle just by seeing and witnessing your generosity and the way that you stand up for other people. And that is my gift to everybody watching tonight. Truly a gift. I'm like one thing everyone can do is share this recording with all of your community because thank you Santos. I, yes, just thank you. Eboni, what is your ask of people during this time, particularly those who have more gender privilege in terms of practices of solidarity and or mutual aid? How do you come after Santos? I don't know if that was wise for me to be. I didn't mean to be positioned after. Santos touches on everything and I'm appreciative and thank you. But I'll start with cisgendered women. Santos kind of read it fulfilled and Santos touched on everything that needed to be touched on. Start seeing us as victims too and support our journeys, put our stories out there and get to know us, start reading our stories, familiarize yourself with our journey and the more you know about our community, the more love and empathy you'll have for our community. And so get involved and amplify our stories because there is a lot of abuse and violence in our community and it would be amazing if we can walk hand in hand with shared stories and create spaces where we were able to both be vulnerable and you're not seeing me as some big old man you see me as who I am because those things happen. And then I would say with the solidarity piece I would say that COVID has I want to say that a lot of our community both cisgendered women and trans women and our gender non-conforming family and our intersex family a lot of us have PTSD. A lot of us have some days we can't even think straight and what the COVID has done is allowed us to work from home, has allowed us to try various ways to get our work done and I want to encourage that people in power continue to support people with disabilities because disabilities aren't always visible. And you know if you've suffered childhood trauma if you've been in the military if you have lived in this society for any amount of time you have some PTSD and those things show up in different ways and I like that we're able to work from home. Amita is familiar with my fight and a place that I worked because I wanted to work from home because going to work was unsafe for me actually. I would get harassed on the train, I would get harassed in the office, laughed at, teased. That's a lot for someone in the community and I just felt that I can handle my work better at home. So sometimes solidarity is kind of looking at the total situation and not seeing us as pieces of meat that is only here to produce and see us as whole human beings and people that have had experiences and we don't have to share our experience with you but holding empathy is an incredible solidarity tool and that means that you have to move beyond your thinking and sometimes putting yourself in another person's situation. If you can't imagine the situation just acknowledge what they're going through and try to create a space for them. Once you answer the person's needs that's on the margin of the margins you actually answer the needs of everybody else when you bring coming in. So the needs of the person on the margins of the margins once you answer people with disabilities and maybe working from home you also answer some trans folks needs you also answer some folks that have been victims of sexual violence needs those things have a domino effect and so put a little love in your heart that's been my message and it will continue to be my message and just like the philosopher Stevie Wonder said for over 40 years ago the world is in need of love today and we're still in need and we need to love on each other as much as we can. Thank you, Ebony. Ducky, same question to close us out please what are your asks of people with more gender privilege than yourself particularly cisgender women who are survivors and then what are some of the practices of solidarity that you would like to see continue or that you think still need to be brought to the forefront at this time? There will be two tasks follow up to sound source and close out but as Leo I'm up for the challenge yeah they they ready to fulfill short just get over yourself stop fucking creating gender with sex assault they've got a gender on it so where a survivor comes to you where they trans, non-binary, intersex they're not conforming and they say they have been assaulted believe them and they say they have been essentially interwoked interwoked, be that voice and use your previous exchange say oh wait a minute I'm not the one that experienced this that trans woman over there I know experienced sexual assault that not by name but by the experience of sexual assault that trans man over there It's not, so what, since women got, or since gender folks in general got mixed up is where sex, the gender is one thing, which is not, it's two different things to say. Sex, if you need a little bit of education, sex, is what the team likes, the gender is how you identify. Gender is who I go to bed at, and sex is who I go to bed with, the epitomality. So believe survivors, believe trans, non-binary, intersex survivors. Since people won't listen to us, we don't got the voices off of the silent, use your voice to be the loudest. When it's march into protest about believing survivors or trans, gender, non-binary, you should be in the forefront. You should be out there holding your hands and coming at me, don't leave us behind. Because you could stop, you could stop, you could interrupt. You could stop the progression of sexual assault, trans, non-binary, and sexual, specifically black, indigenous, brown folk of color. So that's my ask of the sister of the women or sister of the folks who are even listening. Please educate yourself, it's not up to us to educate, we should not be here telling you how to actually be an ally to us, you should all know this. And to further educate is Google out there for you to further educate yourself as well. How to be there for others. Everybody to the table, so thank you, disability. As a body that is black, trans, non-binary, and disabled, I couldn't feel. I've been hearing folks do this pandemic, or I know what disabled folks go through now, or chronic ill folks go through being at home, stop that shit, non-disabled folks know you don't, know what we go through on a day-to-day basis. Pandemic may have brought that light to you, may have brought that into your brain that now, oh shit, this is what disabled chronic ill people go through. Yes, you may, did you feel the type of, you are forced to go home by epidemic. This is our day-to-day life, where we deal with visible or invisible disability. This is our day-to-day lives. So, one of us has to work for home, because we can not physically be able to go in and do the job. Where we are, especially as a trans, or non-binary, or type of thing, not financial aid, not being respected in our gender. So what are you going to do? Mutual aid, you can do further than mutual aid. Pay that person's rent. If you know that level score, still charge that person's rent, pay that person's rent. If you see a disabled person struggling, and know that they can't work, hey, here. You need to go to the store. You need to go buy this off of your support and help. Stop making a mockery and joke, how, not how you know how to feel. If you know how to feel, then you should be doing it on a day-to-day basis. Anyway, I didn't go, I feel like pandemic. I feel like it was a pandemic within the pandemic with the uprising. And I see people shift, but I did not want that shift in within the pandemic when the pandemic, quote-unquote, goes back to number. Because this is the everyday life of black folk, the brutality. This is the daily life of black trans folk with the brutality. Black trans families, black trans women, with these murders and brutality. Fund the police, whatever it is. If your abolition is now, don't stop being abolition now after the pandemic, quote-unquote, back to normal. Be there. Go to that black trans person. Go to that brown black person. Go to the indigenous trans person that supports them. Give it, turn your privilege. If you have, if you have a place, you have a vacant apartment in your apartment building and you see a homeless, black trans, not by the indigenous person, offer them, stay for free, shelter them. Give them food, give them supplies where they could take care of themselves, PPEs, toiletries, hygiene products, show your privilege. I don't want this, I have hope that it will continue after the pandemic, but if we just need to continue to reinforce that this, it don't stop now because we had a pandemic before and it stopped. We should continue. This is not, this is happening before this pandemic as it will continue to happen after the pandemic. So my, I'm more invited for, it's not just to feel what the community needs, ask what the community needs. Come to us, ask us, what do we need? What kind of support do we need? Not just act like or pretend or know that you want me to need, because you don't. Because you don't live us, our day-to-day lives. Ask us, support us, listen to us. Don't just hear us, listen to us. See us, hold us, listen to us. And then your shoulder for us to cry on, to be vulnerable with, use your privilege in all forms of family. You gotta be financially, you gotta be physical. You gotta be tangible, you gotta be invisible as long as you're offering that support where you feel like your privilege is needed to continue to support us through this and after this. Thank you so much, Ducky. Thank you to all of you, Santos, Ebony and Ducky for helping us close out our evening with this wisdom. I am loathe to close things up because I don't get to see any of you enough because you all live in the bay and I live in LA. And I'm like, let's just keep talking. But I'm sure you're tired after sharing so vulnerably from such a personal place. So I just wanna deeply thank you, truly for your generosity. I know how much it takes to lead with your story. And so I just wanna honor your rest. I hope you do get to rest after this. I hope that folks in the chat are appreciating. Can we all just give our panelists tonight some love in the chat box? And I wanna name that our co-director of Mirror Memoirs has also been here virtually in the chat, Jayden Fields. And I am so lucky to work with all of you to keep weaving this container of relational support and love and care and healing. So thank you again. Anissa, I know that this is not the last time Mirror Memoirs will be part of this series of events. So I'm gonna pass it back to you to talk about what's next on the horizon. And thank you for inviting us to be part of this series. We're gonna turn our cameras off and leave you to close things out. Anissa, thank you, everyone. Santos, Ducky, Ebony, Amita, thank you all. That was such an amazing discussion. And for sharing your humor and your joy and your stories and your knowledge and educating us and amazing. And yes, this is not the last time we will be partnering with Mirror Memoirs. We mentioned at the beginning there will be a healing circle happening April 20th. I'm gonna pop that in the chat, but to save the chat, everybody click on the three dots to your left, to your right, and you will see a save chat button. And I'll also be sending a follow-up, but that main link that I had put in the chat box has everything from tonight. And yes, share this, watch it again. There's so much information. And that's it, library community, thank you. And we were so fortunate tonight that our panelists shared with this library community. So San Francisco Public Library, we miss you users, we miss you bit dreams. And we'll see you next time.