Mirror Memoirs

PROTECT TRANS YOUTH! ????? This month, Montana lawmakers voted down an anti-trans bill (HB 754) that would’ve characterized gender-affirming care for trans youth as child abuse. These lawmakers are not the first to try to deploy the family police to punish trans youth and their parents. Let’s be clear: this is NOT about child protection. Blocking gender-affirming care puts our children’s lives in danger, undermines their bodily autonomy, and blatantly defies medical standards. And this is NOT just an attack on trans youth. Anti-trans laws like these lay the foundation for MORE laws to further surveil, criminalize, and separate BIPOC, disabled, and queer and trans families. The fight for trans youth is a vital point of resistance in the movement to end family policing. ?? Uplift & support orgs fighting for trans liberation: Black & Pink National: blackandpink.org Mirror Memoirs: mirrormemoirs.org Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP): srlp.org ? Looking for funds for gender-affirming care? Check out Point of Pride's Thrive Fund: https://lnkd.in/eqr2nmeg

In the wake of the federal regime’s executive orders, we have been dismayed to witness *so many* well funded, well established anti-sexual violence organizations erase the existence of transgender survivors from their websites “to comply.” What does “compliance” mean for those of us whose organizations are almost entirely led by transgender and non-binary Black and brown survivors?? At what point does privileged people’s “compliance” become complicity in genocide? We are heartbroken and we are furious, but we will never be silent. Join us next month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, for a panel featuring a few of our current and past leadership team members who also hold leadership roles in survivor-serving organizations around the country. We’ll hear from Mirror Memoirs Co-Director Jaden Cervantes-Fields, Seattle-area survivor services manager Luna Rivera, Jane Doe Inc. Executive Director Hema Sarang-Sieminski, and IMPACT Boston Executive Director Meg Stone - all of whom will grapple with the question of how survivor advocates can navigate the current funding and political climate without abandoning transgender, undocumented, disabled, Black, Indigenous, and otherwise targeted survivors. This panel will be moderated by our Founding Co-Director Amita, and is free and open to the public as a Zoom webinar. Join us April 17 (4:00-5:30pm PST / 7:00-8:30pm EST) by registering at: https://lnkd.in/gqS-_Qk3 Spread the word! #SAAM #SAAM2025 #SexualAssaultAwarenessMonth

The start of the year has been wild, collectively and for our team members specifically, in so many ways. But we are still here!! And grateful to have spent the past weekend on our annual strategic planning, evaluation, and team building retreat (for our staff, board, and advisory board members). We are behind in a few things (our email newsletter, getting our end of year auction prizes out), and thank you for your grace as our team was navigating fires, flooding, life threatening illnesses, and of course all that the new federal regime has brought into being. The Spring Equinox is the true beginning of the year in so many of our own ancestral cultures, so we are choosing to see this as a fresh start to our year, too. If we owe you something, you’ll be hearing from us in the next two weeks. Much gratitude to all who donated to make this retreat happen, and especially to the Loch Leven Christian Camp Conference Center team for taking such good care of us all weekend (including through a snowy, icy storm!). We hope all of you, our community of Core Members and Accomplice Members, have been well supported since 2025 began, and hope the Equinox can be a reset for you if you need one, too. ????

Deadline is extended to March 10th - calling all care workers, health practitioners, therapists, health care researchers, medical ethicists, people who are enraged at the absurdity of demonizing "DEI" which means dismissing the importance of people with lived experience being available to support patients, clients, struggling ones with similiar experiences. #healthcare #MIC #healing #DEI #justice #carework #therapist #socialwork #nurses #health

We are a community of belonging for ANYONE who wants to end rape culture without leaving any survivors behind AND without enacting harmful state systems. ALL of our Core Members and Accomplice Members are welcome at our Abolition Book Club. We hope this space can be an entry point for our accomplices to become active in our local membership hubs and our online support network. Ending child sexual abuse of course requires an end to borders and to the systems that criminalize migrants and migration. Join us on Zoom this Sunday, March 9 to discuss “Unbuild Walls” by Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network. Silky will join us live for a book talk and group discussion/Q&A. RSVP: tinyurl.com/MMBOOKCLUB2025 (Please note, free copies of the book are no longer available, but we will send the zoom link and discussion questions to all who RSVP before 5pm PST tomorrow. The link and discussion questions have already been sent to everyone who registered far in advance.)

Friday, February 28, is the LAST DAY to apply for Black FLIGHT. Please continue to apply and share with your networks! ??

We are grateful to be a new grantee of New Profit, and looking forward to learning and growing with the other members of the Mental Health Equity cohort.

?? Supporting the storytelling, healing, and leadership of trans women of color is part of the work of collective liberation and freedom from rape culture. It is everyone’s work - it means bearing witness, engaging in mutual aid, care work, protection work, solidarity work, and above all, authentic relationship and community building. ?? In that spirit, we are delighted to announce we will be hosting a full-scale live production of our theater project, “Transmutation: A Ceremony” on October 10 & 11, 2025 at Judson Memorial Church in New York City (Manhattan). ?? Created in 2021, this performance includes four Black and Afro-Latinx transgender women (Samantha Jo-Dato, Ebony Harper, Alexandra Magallon, and Sydney Rogers, MSW) sharing their (and their ancestors’) stories of surviving child sexual abuse and other forms of intimate violence, finding healing through autonomy and community as adolescents and young adults, their vision for the world we all need and deserve, and their practices of survival and resistance. ?? We have an anchor grant for this production (and accompanying community healing circles and discussion spaces) thanks to the Ford Foundation, but are still in need of funders or event sponsors to cover the total cost. We especially invite NYC-based community organizations to contact us if you are interested in buying a block of tickets for your members, and/or if you are interested in co-hosting a pre- or post-show healing circle. ??? We are also seeking event sponsors and community partners to help cover the cost of local movie theater-based film screenings for the pre-recorded 2021 performance. We hope to host screenings in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco, Oakland, Washington DC, and/or Philadelphia, between April and July 2025. Please contact us if you are interested in collaborating to make these events happen. ?? ?? We host alcohol-free and COVID-safer events, including distributing rapid COVID tests and N95 masks, and serving non-alcoholic beverages and light refreshments. We welcome in-kind donations of any of these items, via our in-kind donation form: tinyurl.com/MMinkind

Thanks to everyone who has applied to our upcoming Black FLIGHT cohort or shared news about the program in your networks! Given the multiple emergencies so many of our staff and members have been navigating as 2025 begins, we have extended the application deadline to FEBRUARY 28. Please note: video applications are welcomed if that’s more accessible than a written application! Learn more and apply at: tinyurl.com/MMBLACKFLIGHT ?????????????? ?? What is Black F.L.I.G.H.T.? Black F.L.I.G.H.T. (Forging Liberation, Imagining Generative Healing and Transformation) is a 9-month healing and political education cohort, organized and held by Mirror Memoirs. Black F.L.I.G.H.T. is for and by Black queer and trans abolitionists who are survivors of childhood rape and sexual assault (CSA). Our goal is to build a community of practice that will radiate healing forward and backward in time and contribute to the healing justice work of addressing how the trauma of CSA shows up in our communities. ?? Who is Black F.L.I.G.H.T. for? Black F.L.I.G.H.T. is for people who are interested in building a space of communion, connection and practice with other Black queer, trans, intersex abolitionists: organizers, artists, writers, cultural workers, and healing practitioners who are CSA survivors. Black F.L.I.G.H.T. is for people who are looking to deepen healing around CSA and are interested in bringing healing strategies to end CSA into their life and work. ?? Who is Organizing Black F.L.I.G.H.T.? The Black F.L.I.G.H.T. cohort is being convened by Mirror Memoirs and co-directed by Jaden Fields and Dr. Treva Ellison. Mirror Memoirs is a national storytelling and organizing project intervening in rape culture by uplifting the narratives, healing, and leadership of Black, Indigenous, and of color Two Spirit, transgender, non-binary, intersex, and queer survivors of childhood rape and sexual assault. ?? APPLY BY FEB 28 AT: https://lnkd.in/gp22swCy Please spread the word!

Our Co-Director Amita Swadhin, MPA will be a keynote speaker at the 40th Annual San Diego International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment, tomorrow from 10:00-11:30am! This keynote will not be live-streamed, but we hope to be able to share a recording with all of you soon. This annual conference, hosted by CHADWICK CENTER FMS-RCHSD at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, is attended by over 1,400 professionals in the child advocacy center ecosystem, including dozens of child welfare advocates from around the world, and hundreds from across the United States. For more information on the conference, visit: https://lnkd.in/ga8j7MVQ