About Us

Introduction

As with most innovative ideas for mutual aid, TCP started on Tinder. We consistently encountered people, usually trans people, who had just arrived in town and immediately gotten on dating sites to try to make connections. We began to adhoc trade contacts depending on what the person was looking for. Gaming? Here is Pigeon’s number. Music scene? Talk to Keira. Roller derby? This is Sarah’s Insta etc. This worked well for what it was, small and unorganized. We saw the promise and necessity of a peer orientation network, thus we began to organize contacts through a google form (as well as continued word of mouth efforts) and became the switchboard operator between new arrivals and established locals looking to help.

However, in this role it became clear what we weren’t doing enough. We didn’t have the reach outside of my community and lacked the time to expand my efforts. More pressingly, we constantly heard from new arrivals the terrifying ordeal that was trying to move. Due to hostile legislation and deteriorating culture, these peers had to get out of Texas, Florida, Utah etc in a hurry. This hasty migration led to people buying one-way tickets to DIA with no plan past that, driving to Colorado and sleeping in their car and raising money through go fund me, mutual aid requests on Instagram, and sex work. These traumatic experiences, as well as the rapidly worsening climate of the country, has prompted the transition of TCP from a grassroots, DIY effort to a legitimized nonprofit entity while maintaining the network of mutual aid.

This structure allows us to maintain the flexibility and community building multimillion dollar Nonprofits are not capable or not willing to do. Our human centric (vs corporation centric) approach allows us to better address the complexities of a cross country move with limited bureaucracy.

Why this is important

There is a clear threat to the LGBTQ community in most of the United States, especially for trans/gender nonconforming individuals. For example:

It is apparent there is and will continue to be an LGBTQ migration in this country. However, the average interstate move costs $2,000-8,000, while the average American’s savings account is $5,400. This makes a cross-country move an incredibly heavy financial burden for most.

But the problems won’t end once they move. 1 in 4 American adults report being lonely. This endemic loneliness, coupled with the marginalization and stigma surrounding the LGBTQ illustrate the struggle for new arrivals to find community without support structures in place. These people are coming, it’s only a question of if and how we will help them.

What we are doing

The majority of our work is community building. We are bringing together out of state organizations, national diy networks, local business partners, LGBT organizations, and our queer community to welcome recent transplants. Current initiatives include: