“If Everyone Gave a Dollar”
Gabriel Foster on funding the trans rights movement.
Gabriel Foster grew up in Federal Way, WA, and fell into activism as a teenager. He is the co-founder of the Trans Justice Funding Project, a radical experiment in grassroots philanthropy. Funded through donations, the group distributes small grants to trans justice organizations run by and for trans people with a budget of $250,000 or less.
As told to Andy Wright:
I came out as queer when I was 15 with a few other folks. We kept asking people in our town, “Where do queer people go? Where do queer people even go to be?” And for some reason everyone kept saying the same place — they said, go to Capitol Hill in Seattle. I used my lunch money to get there. I pretty much dropped out of high school at this point because I just wanted to be around other queer people. We would go sit on the sidewalk and watch people queer by. I think we just needed to see other people like us. Eventually, this other young person named Pussycat sashayed down the street, and said, “You know there’s this place called the Lambert House, right?”
It was an LGBT youth drop-in center. It kind of sits up from the street a little bit. At the time, there were a bunch of Keith Haring wooden cutouts, so it was visibly gay. We knew if we went in we would be crossing a line…like then we’d really be gay, you know? We were entering this house full of other queer teenagers. We did it. And we ended up spending all of our time there.
I liked being around people who affirmed me and even believed in me in a way that I didn’t feel at school or even in my town. So that’s how I got involved.
In 2012 Foster was working at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project when Karen Pittelman approached him at a Trans Day of Action march in New York. Pittelman had dissolved a $3 million trust fund in order to start a foundation for low-income women activists. She expressed frustration to Foster over the funding process — sometimes it seemed like money just wasn’t reaching people on the ground. Foster had experienced the same frustrations, getting caught up in bureaucratic requirements just to hang onto funds and keep programs running. Foster and Pittelman eventually co-founded the Trans Justice Funding Project.
Each year the Trans Justice Funding Project convenes a rotating panel of trans and gender-nonconforming activists from around the country to evaluate applications for grants. Panel members are paid for their time and, after evaluating all the applications, come together for two and a half days to decide on that year’s grantees.
It’s a marathon. That’s a perfect word for it, it is an absolute marathon. I try not to ask just people who are experienced [with the grant-giving process]. We want a mixture of people who are experienced and people who are not, because we want there to be some kind of variety. We want people to be asked to the table who are usually not asked to the table, even as trans leaders. That means making sure people with disabilities are part of that process, people of color, women and people from rural areas and small towns, so it’s not just East Coast, West Coast making those funding decisions.
So [we’re] really looking to have an understanding of what people are experiencing in their areas, and then we give generously, which I think is kind of counterintuitive to charity sometimes or foundations. Some of the best work is not done under 501c3 or under fluorescent lighting in an office. Some of the best work is done out of people’s living rooms or in parks or by people who don’t have degrees.
Over three cycles the organization has given funds to a wide swath of grantees, such as community groups, filmmakers, and theater projects. Past grantees include BreakOUT! in New Orleans, Casa Ruby in Washington, D.C., and the Montana Two Spirit Society. “We don’t want to define what the movement means,” says Foster. “Trans justice can’t and shouldn’t and doesn’t look one way.”
I feel like the trans movement is different than I’ve ever seen it before and becoming more organized. My arm hair is constantly standing up. I feel like there’s something in the air, there’s a lot of energy. I’m not trying to be cheesy, but I do feel like a revolution is on the way in a lot of different ways in this country so this seems like a pretty pivotal moment for trans justice organizing.
This work has continued to baffle me in all of the right ways. More than 10 people have literally given a dollar, and I think there’s something really beautiful about the fact that someone didn’t feel like that was too small to contribute. When we all pool our money together in tithing and community giving circles, that’s not new — but I haven’t seen it on this level before. I can’t wait to see what this year holds if everyone gave a dollar.
Read more personal accounts of the trans activism movement.
Interview by Andy Wright. Parts were omitted for clarity and brevity.
