Rating: Transsupportive, Them, August 29, 2023 (PDF archive) (HTML archive) (Video archive) (Take Action)
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Content Summary
In a State Hostile to LGBTQ+ People, Arkansas’ First Transgender Center Is a Lifeline
One of the most impactful of these meetings took place last year, when Intransitive hosted lawyers from the ACLU in town to litigate the state’s ban on gender-affirming care. On the night the ACLU rested their case, “we went to the Intransitive space, had pizza and gave remarks,” says Chase Strangio, the director for transgender justice with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project, who was the lead attorney on the case.
“It was so beautiful and so important,” Strangio recalls. “When you’re fighting back against this type of government repression and the stakes are so high, you really do need a community to lift you up, you need to have that infrastructure of collective care, and that has always been present through Intransitive and their partner organizations.”
As Strangio points out, the Transgender Community Center is one star in a constellation of contemporary and historic trans-led spaces that have developed to care for trans and queer people in response to government abuse and neglect. He points to STAR House, a 4-bedroom apartment in the East Village of New York City, formed by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson to house trans youth. Like Intransitive, Rivera and Johnson repaired the apartment themselves, fixing up ceilings and painting walls. In recent years, spaces such as G.L.I.T.S. House in New York City and House of GG in Little Rock have taken on this historical mantle, providing sanctuary for trans youth and adults alike.
In Arkansas, this approach — creating your own spaces while simultaneously challenging government violence — has been successful. Earlier this year, after Intransitive rallied dozens of people to testify against a bill that would have criminalized trans adults for using the bathroom that aligned with their gender identity, the legislation was rewritten.
As for the state’s gender-affirming care ban, a judge ruled in favor of the ACLU in June and determined that the law was unconstitutional. The ruling has galvanized activists, who hope the case will set a precedent around the country and lead to the downfall of other bans on gender-affirming care, which have passed in over a dozen states.
Despite these wins, Yambú says the past three years have come at a cost. “I feel like something was taken from me, but we can’t keep losing people to burnout. Joy is our protective gear,” they note. That commitment to joy is perhaps the greatest lesson the Transgender Community Center can offer young activists fighting to protect queer and trans people in the face of escalating government violence.
On a spring day earlier this year, the necessity of joy was on full display. Intransitive was celebrating its six-year anniversary, which meant a large, rainbow-colored cake topped with the letter “six” and two bounce houses where children and adults alike felt their knees wobble with laughter. “People kept coming up to us and saying that they had never experienced something like it before,” says Yambú.
It was a rare moment in a state and country where such moments are increasingly rare. “I don’t want anyone to lose sight of how incredible it is to reject and move beyond the set of limitations that systems of power have imposed upon you,” says Strangio, “to demand something better, greater, and more expansive than what other people can imagine.”
Part of that imagination requires us to remember that no matter what the present moment yields, our greatest resource is always one another. Whether resisting in a bouncy house or the courtroom, our lives are not dictated by external structures. As the Transgender Community Center represents, we must remember to paint, hammer, build, and exist within our own.
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