Foreign. Hello and welcome to Live like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today, Inman Erwin, and today we are talking with some really rad people that work with a really rad organization that is saving trans people's lives, and I am really excited to talk to them. It's the KO Initiative, which we've shouted out so many times at the end of this podcast and so I'm just so thrilled to have them on. But before we get to that, we're a proud member of Channel Zero Network of Anarchist Podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network.
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Sam.
We have a new fancy zine out at Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness Together or Not at all by Bex Berry Hill. This is a guide about owning land collectively, focusing on the part at the beginning where you have to parse through existing legal structures and figure out how, on paper, this is all going to work. It's a guide meant to shine a beam of light into the daunting cavern of real estate law, to clear some ground, to plant a permanent garden where long term collective power can grow and thrive. There are no delusions of utopian grandeur here. In fact, there is a foundational tension underpinning this work. Owning land with other people is one of the most robust ways to ensure long term housing security, build collective power, and nourish deep relationships with a place at the same time. The idea of property is complicated at best and land ownership is fundamentally a non liberatory practice. Private property is a bad system and it's also the context we currently live in and have to navigate. But we don't have to do it alone. Together or Not at all is available as a fancy zine or to read for free@tangledwilderness.org.
And we're back. Thanks so much for coming on y'. All. Could y' all introduce yourselves with your name pronouns and I guess like a little bit about yourselves or like your roles with the KO initiative?
Yeah, sure, I'll start. My name is Violet. I am one of the co founders of koi. Most of my work right now is focused on like upper level outreach and resource generation, so hosting volunteer drive events, doing fundraisers, interfacing with other organizations to try and generate infrastructure, things like that.
And I'm Kat. My pronouns are she her. I have been with the organization pretty early on. I think I might be the first like qualified volunteer. I was one of the first or I was the first host and most of the work that I do is sort of day to day stuff with the actual evacuees. So I do a lot of care coordination and ensuring that they have housing, helping people like everything from, you know, like how do I talk to my host about this concern that I have about our kind of roommate situation up to like going to the ER with somebody and sitting with them overnight. And in my day job I am a researcher which is an interesting job to have when you care a lot about statistics and then also do this kind of work.
So yeah, thing and I guess like kind of to start out with like what is the CAIO initiative and like what is kind of I guess like the, the scope or breadth of, of the work they all do.
The Kawaguchi O' Connor Initiative is a Washington State 501C3 right now, which is thanks to our wonderful team who did all the work to make that happen. But the. We help trans people across the nation flee legislatively hostile areas mostly come to Washington and we guarantee up to six months of housing. We help provide transportation and other things to actually get here. We do things like help people integrate with SNAP and Medicaid and other state resources to help them land here. We help them find employment, we help them go to medical appointments, we provide groceries, things like that. We offer fairly comprehensive care to make sure people can land here with the best shot of success. I think Kat could probably speak more on this.
Yeah. You know, I would say that one of the things that's fundamental to understand about the kind of work that we're doing and the kind of work that's required not just for this community, but for a lot of the communities that are being targeted by this administration is that they're already marginalized, they're already stigmatized, they're already facing a lot of barriers. And when additionally the government is coming after you, you're not going to be the most well resourced person. So there's a lot of additional stuff that needs to happen. Some of our folks come up and you know, they've never really had good mental health care. They have never had an opportunity to be out in public in gender firming clothes. So they need everything from, you know, bras and underwear all the way up through work shoes, they need glasses. You know, they haven't had opportunities. And one of the parts I think that's toughest is the adjustment from being in a community that isn't safe for you, but where you do know some folks you've known for a long time and you feel comfortable with a couple individual people into a community where you're relatively safe. And not saying that anywhere is perfectly safe, but it is more safe, but you don't really know people. And so there's a lot of just one on one support that goes with that as well.
Yeah, I imagine it being like a pretty. Like, it's a very. It's a very like, destabilizing thing to do. Even if it's like. Even if you're like going to a place of like, rel that is relatively safer, like, it's. It's still like a huge, huge thing to do.
Oh, I mean, just the act of being displaced as a person is traumatic. Like, my mother was a Vietnam War refugee and she had a lot of problems when I was growing up. A lot of them related to trauma she experienced having to flee Vietnam. And a lot of the trauma I saw in my mother is something that I'm starting to see in a lot of people who have had to flee. Just. And it's because the act of having to flea fascism, the act of having to leave everything you've ever known behind and then settle somewhere that you have no experience with. You don't know the culture, you don't know the people. That's an inherently traumatic experience. Like, can you imagine just uprooting everything you have ling with the clothes on your back across the country to a city you've never been to? That's the. That's the bare minimum experience. In addition to, like, the trauma from the pervasive child abuse in the trans community that a lot of our evacuees experience harassment they face in the streets. Like, unfortunately, we're A lot of our caseload, through no fault of their own, have been saddled with horrifying levels of abuse and trauma that make it very difficult for them to land here. And yeah, Cat, would you like to expand on that?
I would just say that in the trans community, specifically some people in marginalized groups, you can't physically see it on them, but often with trans folks, people can. And so it's very hard to avoid that discrimination everywhere you go. It's just part of the air you're breathing as a person in some of these places. And that change over the last, you know, 10 years has just made that increasingly worse for everyone. So often the folks who are coming up are people who needed this kind of Help weren't able to move themselves because they have experienced this to the point that they are not able to do these things for themselves in terms of moving themselves, finding a job here before they come, things like that. So it is definitely much, much, much harder. And then because it's harder to access health care care in a lot of these states, not just for trans people, but for everyone. A lot of these red states are very much trying to get rid of people who need help entirely, which obviously doesn't work as a system, but that seems to be their goal. So you know that. That in and of itself causes problems. And so people just arrive in, even like public transit is something they've never seen before. Right. They. They may not have lived in a place that had sidewalks in the suburbs, et cetera. And so there's just so many things that are against them. Even when they arrive in a place that feels safe, they are not safe yet. And so there's a lot of work to make sure that that transition is a successful one.
Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe. I can't answer this, but I'd be curious if there are notable states that people are coming from.
Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, Kansas, after what happened especially. Unfortunately, it's kind of. There's so much anti trans legislation going on right now that the situation of, like, what state is safe for trans people to go through can just change dramatically overnight. So, like, here's something. If you go to the bathroom at an airport in a red state and that airport's on federal property, you can just be trespassed for that as a trans person. Same reason you can get trespassed for going into government buildings. So, like, if you're used, a lot of the people we're moving have had to use trains. Most trans people I know these days don't really feel comfortable using airports anymore. So it's just hard to move around the country in general.
Yeah. I'll also say it's. It's kind of all the states you would expect. And then also I think a lot of it is folks are coming from. The more common thing is that they're coming from unsupportive families and unsupportive communities within a state that doesn't provide that backup support. Because I think if, you know, for example, if you live in California, which is a very progressive state, there are not progressive areas of California. But if you don't live in a place that is supportive within your community and your family, you can move somewhere else. And there are, you know, there are supports there for you, the problem a lot of the folks that we're working with have is that they live in a family, in a community that's not supportive in addition to the state. So there's nowhere easy for them to go to kind of address that. And even, you know, the cost of, of moving, I think in the, in ye olde days now everybody would move to San Francisco, right, Because it was so safer there marginally, or New York, but that isn't because those places have more or less completely priced out everyone. It's not really feasible for people to move to those kind of areas by themselves any longer. So it isn't just about, you know, what are the actual laws in your state, but so much on an individual level, it's like, is there anyone in your family who would support you? Is there a workplace you can go to that's not going to discriminate against you? Can you be out in public? Like, those questions matter in a lot of ways even more to the individual than what are the state laws here?
Totally. Because it's like if people have access to community where they are, then it's like, I don't know if that makes a lot more bearable or survivable for someone if they have supportive friends, if they have supportive family, whether it's chosen or birth families. So a lot. So I guess, like, a lot of the people that you're that are relocating through the KAO initiative are like, more likely going to be people who like, don't necessarily have access to like, supportive families or supportive communities. Or do you see, like entire families move who like, are moving for their, for their relatives?
The vast majority of the folks that we work with are between, so we only work with adults because of the legal issues. We do also sometimes work with families that the adults have to all be in agreement, unfortunately, which is a section of work that really needs to be addressed. But it's a much larger issue. Most of our folks are, you know, 18 to 30 in our hypothesis is that what's happening is that they didn't get a chance to get their feet under them. They're the people who don't have that support, just like you're saying. But they also haven't had the opportunity to figure it out yet. A lot of, you know, queer and trans folks, it takes a long time to get fully settled and to have the things that you need to be able to have a life and care for yourself and build that community. Right. And they just haven't had that opportunity. But widely, it's Everyone, everyone's having to move. It's just a matter of, you know, how, how able are you to do that? What is your particular setup? You know, a lot of folks, almost everyone that we've worked with and almost everyone that we're aware of who's moved has had some form of disability etc. And so that you're talking about, you know, people of color, other groups that are really marginalized who don't have the resources to do this all by themselves. And that's, that's what we see. Predominantly violet. It looked like you had something to say too.
Oh, just. And of the, like, the relocation orgs, we try to move people safely, make sure they have resources here before that we can move them. But as legislation in these states gets worse, a lot of people are just playing here with their clothes on their back with no plan. We kind of started seeing this, the beginning of this over a year ago with some people who came here last winter with quite literally nothing but the clothes on their back. And one of these people, Kat and I had, we had to get them a hotel room because they were just gonna sleep in the middle of the park with out the required clothing to like stay alive at the temperature we were at.
Yeah.
And the thing is, is that the people who are fleeing right now are the people who had some kind of connection to a relocation org that allowed the. To learn about us through word of mouth or the people who had the resources to flee. At some level already as things start to get worse, the people who are going to show up are going to be the people who have progressively less resources and they're fleeing because they don't have a choice. So.
Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe to get a little bit into the, like I want to. There's some stuff in the, in what you just said that I want to come back to, but I guess like what, what are the kind of tensions or dangers that people are, that are having people make the decision to relocate, Whether those are legal, legislative, cultural. I guess we kind of just tugged on a lot of the kind of. I guess demographic is the right word, but kind of demographic reasons for that.
But yeah, I think Kat can probably speak a lot to the experiences of our evacuees directly, but broadly in community, like the reasons people fling tend to be I'm facing some kind of physical or like verbal harassment in my day to day life. Whether that's coming from family who's been emboldened by the administration or just like random people on the street. That's a, that's a big cause for people wanting to flee. Lack of. Or a fear that their access to HRT is going to be restricted is another major reason that I've heard a lot of people fleeing. And the courts just, the courts just allowed for states to do a blanket gak ban. So that's a, that's an evolving situation that we need to think about.
Could you explain what that is?
Yeah, the courts in West Virginia, there's some I'd have to go into like the legal. But so the gist of it is Westford, the courts in West Virginia have okayed states to implement a gak ban to help trans people, quote, unquote, appreciate their gender. And that was okay. I did hear about this passed by an all, all Republican panel judges.
Golly. So yeah, I know that they. There's this bill in Idaho that's. I think I forget what phase it's in. It's not, it's not like a law yet, but it's like about. What is the phrase they used? Social, social transitioning. It would like require teachers or counselors to like inform on people that they're seeing who they may suspect might be transitioning. They've put it in the realm of this air quotes. Social transitioning of just dressing differently, changes in appearance, changes in name, observing different pronoun usages. And it would make them, I think, sort of mandatory reporters and they'd face fines over it. It's like a terrifyingly draconian bill that I'm like, how do people see that this can affect all of the freedoms that they enjoy if it doesn't apply to them? I don't know.
Well, yeah, Idaho's also passing a bathroom bill with felony consequences for repeat offenders. So things hurt. Idaho's Idaho has been a basically a no go zone for trans people for quite a while and that hasn't changed. As a matter of fact, where I'm suspecting there will be a pretty large spike in people fleeing from Idaho fairly soon because of this legislation. And I've talked to other organizers in the area and they, they're expecting the same too.
The bill you're talking about in Idaho I believe is in particular targeting children. And the, it's their third iteration of the bill, so they're really trying to get this through. It's speaking of what causes people to leave. I think it is in some ways the legal stuff can be a background noise. Right. If you are in a situation where you're not working, you're on disability, you're working from home, like you've transitioned for a long time and everyone in your life is aware of this. It isn't something you're running into. Maybe those things don't impact too in the same way you just don't go, you don't go to court, you don't have to go to the bathroom in a public place, etc. So there's, it really depends on the individual person situation. But it is a background level of danger that I think everybody is monitoring consciously or unconsciously as we go forward. But these in particular, the uptick from Kansas and some of these other states where they are, Texas is another good example where they're starting to impact your id. So you will not be able to have an ID at all potentially. Right. They're, they're taking away your rights in a way that does impact everyone because you need your ID for so many things. That's where I think it's starting to really hit folks in a way that's like this is going to impact me in particular from the social side. We have been seeing the impact of this for so long. There's a lot of statistics out there that show that this administration, both rounds of this have increased hate crimes hugely. This environment, legislatively, the things that are being said socially, etc. Allows people to be their worst possible selves. And it really, really hits people at home because the place you're going to see this the most is behind closed doors.
Yeah.
And then you're going to see it in public. Right. So the folks who are coming up through, through the KAO initiative are in particular people who've been experiencing this at home lately their entire lives and then in the last few years much more aggressively. Right. Kids are getting kicked out. It used to be, you know that for a lot of the folks that we work with in their 20s. Right. So in their teens their parents just didn't under that it's miserable, it's not good for you long term, it's really bad. But in the immediate moment you can tolerate that. When they start to say things like I'm going to, I'm glad they're denying your health care or I don't have to take care of you anymore, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And people feel emboldened, parents for example, feel emboldened to do this, then suddenly it's not safe anymore and people know they have to leave because things will start to get physically violent. The like Violet was saying earlier, the risk of abuse within a household for someone who is gender non conforming in Kind of any way at all is much, much higher. And when the social situation is such that people feel like they can, they can do that without the community being like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, treat your child like a child, like your child, people will continue to do this. And it gets worse and worse. And so the legislative stuff is something we absolutely have to keep an eye on and it is getting to a tipping point where it is dangerous for everyone every day, all the time. We were, we're going to I think talk at some point about this new ruling from the Trump administration that is making it feasible for ICE to specifically seek out trans people and harass them, which is a whole thing. But you know, stuff like that is going to immediately impact everyone. But this has been impacting people for a long time and I think it comes through a lot of these back channels of what someone is experiencing in their home.
Yeah, is seems like maybe like although legislation in like the like looking at like a bigger picture of things is like scary that it's when legislation starts really affecting people's day to day lives or just the daily experience of living and surviving that that's when it maybe starts to factor more into people's decisions.
I think yes, in the sense that everyone is making a calculus about when it tips. And for folks where they've got the situation figured out in a survivable way, where they're at when that tips, that's when they have to move. But you know, I think we haven't seen as many folks who, we've seen a lot of folks who are disabled, but not a lot of folks who are on disability. And I think the difference is that if you have gotten on disability in your state and things are sort of figured out, you have a system for caring for yourself and making changes to that system are next to impossible. Wait times are awful. Like you're, you're looking at potentially not having income for, you know, months at a time if you change stuff with your disability or lose it. But as they start to mess with those systems and get rid of SNAP benefits and health care and da da, da, da, da, like people are not going to have what they need to survive. And then we will start to see even more people who had it figured out in whatever loopholes and twisting themselves however they had to to make it work. And then we'll also be seeing those people having to move because they don't have a choice any longer.
Yeah, because there will come a point in legislation where a state just becomes completely unlivable to a trans person inherently. And people just have to leave. Like a gak man in the state is an existential problem for a trans person, especially a trans person who doesn't have the community to source HRT through other means. If a gak ban is passed in like in West Virginia is trying right now, like, that's the whole reason that it's possible in all these other states because of a legal push by West Virginia. If that happens, we could see thousands of people fleeing their homes within weeks. That's not a. Like, if Florida or Texas or one of the bigger red states passes a comprehensive gender affirming care ban or a legislation of equal hostility, that is basically thousands of people who will have to just leave with the clothes on their backs to wherever they can find community. And this is a humanitarian crisis that I don't think this country has like commented on or you don't see it talked about in the media. But per Aaron Reed, 400,000 trans Americans fled in 2025. There are over 3 million trans Americans in America. The possibility, like, there's no state, there's no city that's really equipped to absorb tens of thousands of new people. There's no state resources. Like even here in Washington, where we have a decent social safety net, the local shelters, the local social resources are not equipped to absorb thousands of new people. It's just not possible unless infrastructure is being built to support these people now. But no one's talking about this crisis. It's an invisible crisis. And it's kind of crazy for something that has this much scale to just not be talked about.
I think it's also really important to note that, like, even in the best possible states, the existing systems are cruel and they are meant to make it really hard for people to get their needs met. It is inherently a problem. I think communities that have been marginalized forever, including trans people, have found ways to make it work in various places. But this is just making it harder and harder and harder to do that. And so like Violet saying, when, when people are moving from an area where they are actively in danger to an area where they're kind of passively in danger, that passively in danger area is not prepared for this. Right. It's the number of communities that are being targeted. The fact that our economy is in shambles and things are being done to folks who aren't part of any of these marginalized communities is making it next to impossible to respond to this in a humane way. So all of the places that are, you know, considered safe havens for any given community are going to be unbelievably overwhelmed just because there was. There was not enough for the people who were there already. And there simply will not be enough for everyone who's coming in without a lot of intense changes that I think the. The, you know, oppressor, privileged, whatever we're going to call them, sections of society who have been at most liberal about this are not prepared to have those conversations to make those changes, to really do the things that are necessary to make this safe for people.
Yeah, could y' all talk a little bit more about, I guess, what the new ICE ruling. And I also want to hear a little bit more about, like, explicitly, explicitly about, like, what just happened in Kansas. And this is. I'm sure a lot of people who are listening to this have heard about a lot of these things, but. And I know y' all are not, like, legislative experts, but there's just so much misinformation on the Internet, like, all the time that. Yeah, would. I would love. I would love to hear y'.
All.
Y' all talk about it.
I guess I can start with the Kansas thing. So the Kansas. The most insane thing about the Kansas thing, beyond the just, like, sheer audacity of confiscating our IDs, is the fact that they did it with no grace, period. The moment that legislation passed, the moment that the paper was signed, you could be actively driving at that moment, and you would be doing a crime. And it's patently obvious why they're doing this. It's too crim. It's to one make us very scared to just even go outside in public, because who knows what law they've passed that's criminalized, like a basic aspect of living in our society for us. And on the flip side, it's to throw us into jail. Something that's happening in federal prisons right now is they're currently experimenting on trans prisoners. They're currently forcibly dean transition detransitioning trans prisoners as a pilot for conversion therapy. Their model, the model they're using was kind of pioneered in Florida, but Florida had some way for people to get out of this and get access to their hrt that's just not in existence at the federal level right now. So them trying to throw us in jail and then them experimenting on us in a way that is a literal Nuremberg Code violation. It's. It's pretty obvious where all this legislation's heading towards. Like, there's only one. If you don't like trans people, if you Hate us. Why are you interfering with our ability to leave the country? Why is that what you want to do? If you don't like someone and you're trying to prevent them from leaving the country, you can only have a certain set of plans for that people.
Yeah, absolutely.
The, the new ruling from the Trump administration is one of these things that, like, doesn't say directly what it's doing. So it. They finalize the rule, it doesn't go into effect, I think, until mid April. So a couple more weeks, things could change. But functionally, what it's doing is it requires that applicants to, for visas state their, quote, biological sex at birth, unquote, during all stages of the application process, even if that differs from the gender listed on their foreign passport or other identifying information. So they're making it a crime to have updated your gender markers as an immigrant. Right. Which is step one here. So that is already a horrendous problem for anyone who's trying to come here or is here. And then if you have obtained a visa with this, having not put your, quote, biological sex unquote, on there, your visa can be revoked and you can face deportation. So this immediately endangers everyone who's here, who's trans from anywhere else. And that is then also a problem for folks who were born here or who are naturalized, because it gives ICE the leeway to then stop people that they think could be immigrants. So we're, we've seen this for months at this point for folks who don't look white, that they will stop people, and they are arresting and deporting folks who have every right to be here legally. But I looked at them with their eyeballs and made a determination about what they're seeing and what they felt. And so they're now opening the trans community to this as well. So what we will begin to see very soon, and this has happened already, so it's not like this is a brand new thing, but this is now more legalized, more ensconced. That ICE can look at someone, decide that they are trans, decide that maybe they're an immigrant, and take them in for questioning without any reasonable other assumption than these things. So this is again, going to immediately threaten everyone who, quote, looks trans, which includes boatloads of people, is all kinds of scrutiny. How on earth do you define that? It is literally just the stigma and bigotry of the individual ICE agent who's making that decision in the moment with no oversight whatsoever. And that is why this is extremely
concerning, because a lot of trans people Protest ice, for example. And this is a way to essentially say if you're trans and you attend an anti ICE protest, they're just going to grab you and pull you across the protest line and detain you at the facility. They may just throw you out in a few days, but it gives them the blanket excuse to just keep doing it for as much as they want. Something I've already advised people is that like, if you're trans, you should just get into the habit of telling someone where you're going and when you expect to be home. Like, you just need to do that because you can just be picked up on the street. It's. It can happen at any time. Like, keep a whistle on you. Keep, keep in contact with local ICE reporting networks in your area because it's for your own safety too. Stockpile at least a month's worth of food if you can. So if you have to shelter in place, you can get what documents you can and get copies of them. Things like that, like, make up something I've started telling people is you should probably have a bug out bag for if things suddenly get worse and you need to flee. You need to have a plan for where you're gonna go. You need to have some. You need to have copies of all your documents. And like, again, the biggest part here is just, you need to have a plan.
Yeah, I, this is a great transition into this because, like, I wanted to start talking a little bit more about like, how, how people can prepare, like on. More so on an individual level, just with this. Because you're describing seeing people show up with the clothes on their back and like, so it's like, yeah, what, what can people do to prepare before relocating? Um, so that they are less likely to be in a situation where they have to flee with the clothes on their back and that's it.
Well, and before we say that, I just. It is very important to acknowledge that it is a privilege to become prepared. Yeah. It is a privilege to be able to do any of the things that we're about to say. And if you are a person who's listening to this and is overwhelmed because it's not something that's accessible to you, that is okay. That is not your fault. There is nothing wrong. It is still okay to do what you can and figure it out. Like, the support is there for you as much as anybody can possibly give it to you. And you and your life and your experiences matter whether or not that is accessible to you. Because I think it is really, really hard to hear These type of things and be a person who can't do it. Right. It feels awful. So I just want to start with that as the framing for how we talk about this.
Totally. And for listeners who like, who this stuff maybe does not affect you in the same way that it affects other people. If I feel like something a lot of people can do is to set up little like, I don't know, get like preparedness clinic is like really not the right word, but like events or like workshops or like, like making this more of a community activity and like which it's like I know not everyone is going to see those things. Not everyone is like embedded in like radical community, but like that. But I think that is something that a lot of people can do to make preparedness more accessible for people is to host little workshops and like raise funds for putting on workshops and like helping people like get a lot of this stuff together. But yeah, what, what, what other kinds of things can people do to prepare?
I, I think the number one thing is get copies of whatever documents you are able to access and make sure that you have like, because it's. You're going to need them anyways. And when you get here it, it saves on a lot of time and effort. If you just have what you need need document wise already, then we just need to flip your ID over to this date and it's easy. Otherwise it's like, oh, if you didn't bring any of your documents, then we have to play the puzzle of how do we get your birth certificate and all of this if we don't have any way to prove identity. And it's a nightmare. I'm sure Kat can talk about that.
Yeah, that's definitely a good place to start. Even if you need to. Some, some folks like their parents have that and they can't get access to. And if you ask for it, it would become a big, big to do. So you can order your own birth certificate online and have it delivered to you. You can have it delivered to a friend, you can have it delivered to literally anyone, anywhere. And I think that's a great place to start. Birth certificate, Social Security number, whatever IDs you have. Medical records, if you're able to do that, are also really helpful. And a lot of medical records are now available online. But knowing how to access them, it's worth taking the time to try to figure that out. I think as well. You know, it's kind of the same things that you.
Copies of any prescription.
Yeah. Extra prescription if you can. So if you're able to ask your doctor to give you three or six months prescription ahead of time and then fill it if you're able to. That's also really helpful because there is a transition period where you're in a new state and you're setting everything up and it takes some time. So making sure that especially anything that would really impact you if you didn't have it, that would be super useful to have. It's a lot of the same stuff that we suggest for people who are leaving an abusive situation. You know, have fuel for your car if you're taking a car, get your suitcases packed, you know, have emergency cash, like have a list of phone numbers that you need, find all the cords for the, you know, your laptop and your phone and whatever it is that you want to do. It is also, I think it's a process that's filled with grief to leave a space you have been for a long time. And planning to start as early as possible with that is a really good call. So I think even if you're not planning to do this in the next six months even, it's good to start thinking about these things, right? As if you have pets, you need to figure out what's going to happen with them if you can. And I have pets. I have had lots of pets. It makes me want to cry even saying this, but finding someone who can care for them while you get yourself settled in a new space is going to make it infinitely easier for you to do that. Because bringing up pets to a new space, a lot of, like, shelters, it's really hard to find shelters that take pets. It's really hard to find programs like ours that are able to host pets along with people. So having somebody who can care for your animal while you're gone and then, you know, getting them moved up is a. Is a better choice, unfortunately for a lot of folks. And then I would say also researching the area that you're planning to move to, figuring out, you know, what are the. How do I get on to benefits there, what are the things that I need to know, all of that kind of stuff, researching that ahead of time. And so having a plan for when you arrive is also super helpful. And then I think as well, you know, talking to friends who may also need to leave. Do you all want to go together? Do you want to have one person go up and people can support them from the old state and then kind of move people up as it goes along? When I worked in food service, that was how a lot of people from Mexico who were coming up undocumented, were doing it as they would send someone up. Lots of immigrant communities do this. Send somebody up, everybody supports them, and then you sort of start moving people across. That can be really helpful if you have community where you are. If you don't, you know, trying to make some friends online so you at least have somebody to communicate with as well. And then I think the other piece that has been, it's a lot of kind of silly things. Like in your week, think about everything that you touched. What do you actually need? Right. Toothbrush, Toothpaste. Yes. But also you might need glasses. Right. And so having a prescription, knowing where your last prescription was filled and who has that and how long it's good for, those kind of things are really useful too. So the more lead time you have, the more things you can prepare to make it a smooth transition.
I tad onto that. I'd say something that if you can do it, I would probably pack a bag with some shelf stable food before you leave for the specific reason of. Unless you have a car. Even if you have a car like you're gonna be. If you're fleeing from across the country, you're gonna have to stop occasionally. And no matter how well you plan the route, the situation in the country is like everywhere. And there are a lot of states that you may have to just stop in because that's how the highway system works. And you just want us check into your hotel and not go to a market and not. Or not go to a diner because it's dangerous. As a, as a not white person, this was already kind of the case in a lot of the country beforehand where like I, I just knew to not step stop at a diner in like the small town Midwest because the moment I would walk in, everyone would like briefly look at the. Everyone would stop what they were doing for a split second and briefly look at me because I was the only brown person. That's happened to me in several parts of the country. But it's also because I'm trans. That is something that could easily turn into a really bad situation in a lot of these states. That was already the case. But Tripoli more now, like, who's to say one of these people won't call ice on you that that can just happen.
Yeah.
So people should be trying to minimize their exposure as they're trying to go through these states. They should pack what food they can and try to stay in their hotel rooms. Or even if you're taking the Amtrak and you have access to the like food car on the Amtrak. It's just really expensive.
Yeah.
If. If you can get some shelf stable stuff, it'll stretch. Because you should be trying to stretch your money as much as possible. You shouldn't. You should try to minimize expenses if you're trying to flee, because the more money you have stockpiled, the more likely you are to be successful when you get here. And that's obviously a luxury not a lot of us have, but for the people who do have that luxury, you should be trying to save that money. And route planning in and of itself is an entirely other thing. For, like, being prepared. You should do research into states that you're going through. Like, what's the. How much gas is this going to take for me to get from Kentucky to Washington? Like, what cities can I stop in? Like, should I try to stick to the big cities when I stop? Or, like, what do I do? Because some people would feel more comfortable parking their car in a big city because it's a more likely to be liberal area. They're less likely to be harassed. And some people I've heard, heard and talked to prefer to park in, like, a. The middle of nowhere in, like, a truck stop that has, like, three people at it, because there. There's no one who's going to harass them, because there's no one there. Just, like, think about your comfort level. Think about the risks as you go along your journey to get here and design a path that's within your own personal comfort level if you have the chance to do so.
Yeah. Yeah. Does the KAO initiative, like, I don't. This is maybe beyond the scope of what y' all are doing, but, like, are there kind of like, I guess, like, rideshare transportation networks that are, like, set up at all, or is that a cool thing someone else could do or work on?
I would definitely. So what I will say very generally is that there are definitely those kinds of things in motion in a lot of different spaces, and we still need more. Right. So people who have real IDs and feel comfortable traveling on them can fly. There are other ways to fly. There are other resources for that that don't require going through an airport. You know, Violet's talking about Amtrak. That's also an option so far. That one's okay. Take a bus. You can drive yourself. You can. You know, there are these networks, like, you're talking about. I think that if that is something that a person was interested in becoming involved in, it is useful both to just start doing it and also Connect with other organizations that are doing that because, you know, individual little cells are great in the sense that they can't take us all out at once. On the flip side, having people who are connected to each other makes a much larger network. And so I think the combination of people who are willing to drive someone a certain distance, people are willing to house someone for a night while they're on the way, like, you know, underground railroad stuff, it is definitely. It exists out there. And it also is something that we desperately need more of. So if you are interested, please, please do it. Please talk to people, Please reach out and figure it out. But also be cautious about who you talk to about these things.
Totally.
I will actually add on to that and say, like, if you're a CIS ally, and in times like this, allyship isn't just, oh, I saying, oh, I support trans rights. No, to be an ally when we are facing a genocide is to step up and do something like, yeah, if you are an ally, then you, if you have the capability of doing so, you need to be opening up your home, you need to be using your car to transport people, you need to be protesting, you need to be doing whatever you can to actually support trans rights. Because just performatively signaling your alignment by saying, I'm a trans ally, that is not allyship. Especially when we are facing an act of genocide because we're a marginalized community. As a non marginalized person, you should be seeking to elevate us to the status of unempowered people. We, as marginalized as we are, that requires active participation in our liberation. That requires you to physically or mentally step up and do your part. And I suppose a lot of people are starting to want to do this. And I think something that we need to get better at is telling people that there are easy ways for them to plug in and support the trans community. Like, you could be someone in Louisiana who just has a car and maybe you're available sometime, but that's something someone could genuinely need at some point. Like driving someone to an air local airport or driving someone to the train station. That, that is one, that's a form of direct action. You were directly supporting someone fleeing a fascist dictatorship. And two, it's the basis for what we're doing. Just like that. Those small actions that allow any of this to work, those are things that you can very easily do. Those are the things that CIS people especially are equipped to do, because driving around the country as a trans person is kind of dangerous. If we can have some CIS people who are driving trans people around the nation. It's a lot less dangerous.
Yeah. I want to maybe vocalize this strange thing that was going on in my head as we were talking about transportation where I was like a question that I suddenly had was, I was like, what is the risk? I was like, what is the legal risk for like kind of transporting people like that? And then I had this moment where I was like, that is not illegal, but it's like within the landscape of what we're talking about, which is a genocide, which is a humanitarian crisis, which is like a effectively like a refugee crisis. Is that it? Like, and that there are these obvious paths to like criminalizing the existence of trans people, that it's like, oh, it totally makes sense that my brain had this knee jerk reaction to think that because that's how we are being conditioned to think about this. And that's absolutely terrifying to me.
I mean that's kind of the point. It's kind of shifting the Overton window to the point where they can say, oh, you're transporting trans people across state lines, you're committing human trafficking, which is pro the attack vector. I think a lot of the communities expecting the admin to use against us is human trafficking. And the funny thing is that we're largely what's preventing a lot of the human trafficking. The relocation orgs that exist right now are prevent because people. The impetus to flee exists regardless of us existing or not. And people who are people we've helped, people I've just met in community, I've known several people who have slept their way to a safe state. That's just something that happens. And I mean the trans community has for various reasons, notably due to our economic disadvantage, been forced into prostitution. And people in that environment who are having to do these things to reach safety are in a massive position of vulnerability. They're in a massive position to be exploited. Every stop along the way in which they have to do this is another point at which they could just be picked up and put into some kind of human trafficking network. And this is why it's so important for us to scale. Because just to speak to my own family's life experiences, I'm. I'm a bit of a. A mutt. My family is from everywhere but my Japanese American family. Obviously World War II happened, Pearl harbor happened. We trusted a white family to hold on to our property and stuff while we sorted out that whole concentration camp. That thing that white family just sold all our. That's just. That can easily happen to a trans person. Oh, you're worried about state legislation and stuff and you're going to flee to Seattle. Here, let me, let me hold on to your belongings for you. And then they're just going to sell it. We same thing's happening for immigrants who are fleeing ICE and other like without our networks, without the networks like this is that exist, human trafficking scams, things like that are just going to be pervasive and they're already going to be pervasive. And that's why we need to offer people an option that isn't bad.
Yeah, yeah. I like something that you said earlier, Violet, which is like not maybe something that I would immediately think of as like a piece of preparedness advice of like try to make friends online with, in the place where you're going. Which it's like, like there's obvious, there could be obvious dangers for like bad actors like, like pretending to be people to gain people's trust in those situations. But like, but yeah, I think, I think that's a really cool like option for people to like, like try to make friends at least on the Internet with people or form connections with people on the Internet. And I think of tech and the Internet usually as this terrifying thing that has no good use at all. But sometimes I'm like, oh, that's really cool. And not really necessarily a thing that could happen on that scale before a decade ago or something.
I mean for a lot of trans folks who are isolated in these situations, especially the situations that Kat was talking about where you're just trapped in your home with your abusive family, your own, oftentimes your only community, the only like exposure to the trans community you have is your online friends. Yeah, and that's a. I would say that for a lot of the trans community in general on like. And here's the thing, Koi was founded by an online forum. We were founded by Knockout Chat, which is a leftist gaming lifestyle forum that spun off the Face Punch forums. It's a, it's an 18 year old community. But that's, that's so cool. Online communities and online groups of queer people are largely what's organized a lot of people fleeing these states and like even before this, like this is how people would get out of bad situations is they'd find a bunch of people online, befriend them and in a lot of the trans community they, it's, it's a joke about, you know, you put three trans women in a room and they start dating, they form a molecule or whatever. But historically that's how People would get out of these situations is through community. It's through forming connections online. And that's largely still the case today because a lot of people find out about koi through online online, word of, word of mouth. It's effectively like a lot. There's a. There's a somewhat global national whisper network of queer people that just kind of exists as this vague online space. And that's one of the reasons that they've been trying to tie face ID to social media so much, is because it. It clamps down on whisper networks like this. Like all the face ID to age, verify yourself. That's happening across the country and across the world. A lot of that is completely antithetical to queer community online. And it also exposes a lot of us the possibility of them forming a database about trans people. Because we have to send our face ID and our, potentially our photo ID to some nebulous checking service that may or may not be keeping the data or could just get subpoenaed by the federal government. I actually emailed my legislator about the possibility of there's a bill being passed to this effect or being worked on to this effect in Washington. And I emailed my representative about this and they asking, so what happens if the checking service gets subpoenaed by the federal government? And that legislature just said, oh, I didn't think about that. And that's. That's kind of terrifying, being paid to
think about these things. This is what your job was supposed to. I mean, sorry, fuck, fuck all of them. But like, God, the ignorance on people is ridiculous. It's like people, people will like build Skynet and then go, oh, my God, I had no idea that it would turn on us.
I want to go back just a second to the CIS ally question. So I'm CIS and this is something I feel like it's important for someone like me to talk about. It is, this is the moment to start getting uncomfortable. This is the moment to start pushing too far, right? It is often the case, I find that friends of mine will send me podcasts like this and be like, oh, I heard about this great thing that's going on. And it reduces your fear and your anxiety and your guilt about what's going on in the world, the world. Because somebody's doing something about it, the response needs to be okay, and then what am I doing about it, right? This is the moment. It is starting to tip. People are dying. People will continue to die. And unless those of us who have some form of privilege and it doesn't have to be all the privilege. So whatever privilege you've got, it has to be used to address these problems. And it is very easy to get overwhelmed, trust me. I also have laundry. I have a chronic illness. I'm tired all the time. It is still important for us to do what we can because it is going to require the work of everyone to do this. So it means going to meetings. It means being in community with people that you don't really like. It means being told you're wrong and going home and having whatever feelings you got about that and dealing with it and going back and doing better. It means, you know, just constantly. This is part of what we have to do every day now and sucks. And we also shouldn't have to do taxes, and we also shouldn't have to work. And when you're disabled or you have other things, you also shouldn't have to deal with that. But if you want to be a person who is on the right side of this, it is going to require doing work that doesn't feel fun. And I think that the value of that is the community that we get. It is the lives that we save, and it is being the person that you tell yourself that you are. So I really strongly. Everyone who's listening to this, whatever you're doing now, it's got to go up a notch because they are ratcheting it up. We have to ratchet it up right back.
Yeah.
That can start with something as simple as showing up to city council meetings and just yelling at them to address what's going on in this country. Like, you could. There are thousands upon thousands of ways you can engage in a meaningful way that actually helps people. People and just. Just look things up online. Like, look up what other groups are doing that's been working. And the thing I've learned from doing all of this is that you can just go out there and do something. Nothing's preventing you from going out there and putting some flyers up on some light poles or sitting at your city councilor meeting or grabbing a bullhorn and yelling at some fascists. Like, you can do these things. There's nothing preventing you from doing any of these things other than inertia. And once you start doing these things, it becomes easier to keep doing these things.
Yeah.
In terms.
And I think this will be the last thing that we probably have time for. But, like, what are. What are kind of like, I guess, infrastructure building things that people can think about on more of like a community level. Like, say you are not just an individual who's trying to figure out ways to support trans people. But you are a community and you're trying to put your resources and minds together to be like, how can we, how can we better people's lives? Or like, chances of us escaping.
I, I think what something to look at there is some of the historically attested ways to like, organize a neighborhood. I, I've been on and off reading the Black Panther's guide to neighborhood organization, and their, their start is just like, post a potluck and invite all your friends in the neighborhood. Because it really just starts with getting people in a room, getting them talking about this issue and seeing, like, what ideas people have on what capacity, everything everyone has to do within the community. Like, does Becky down the street have a spare room? Okay, Becky down the street has a spare room. If we were to move a trans person into Becky's spare room, how would we support that person? Well, Jim down the road owns a convenience store, needs a new cashier. They can work there. Things like that, like the basis of getting organized, the basis of getting infrastructure built is getting people in a room talking to each other consistently. And so become the neighborhood barbecue guy. Do a bi weekly cookout, whatever it takes to just get people in a room talking about this issue, talking about how you as a community can step up and do something about it. That is probably the most important first step.
I also think it really depends where you are, right? So if you're in a space, if you're in a red state and ain't nobody talking about these things, then yes, you really need to be a barbecue guy. You got to start from the bottom. You can also reach out to orgs in other areas and ask like, hey, what did you do? What's necessary. I think it's really important, especially if you're coming from outside of a community, to listen to the people who are in the community about what they need. So finding ways to have sources of information to understand what's necessary is super important. If you're in an area where, you know, you see people protesting on the bridge while you're driving down the highway, you know, you saw some graffiti somewhere, you know, that said stuff, and you're like, okay, great, that's great. Try to figure out what those things are and get connected with those people. And often that means googling. Sometimes that means walking to, you know, I see this protest on Tuesday. Let me go over there and talk to someone and these people and figure out who's organizing this. So there's a lot of legwork. In this, which sucks, because nobody enjoys doing that, I don't think. At least I don't. But the. You know, we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. If there are efforts in your area already, go see what they need. There's Indivisible is a really liberal but common group around, and they often are connected to other orgs in the area who are doing more specific work. And so it's a good way to kind of climb through the network. So you're sort of figuring out, okay, who's visible, Let me go to them, and then let's go from there to the less visible people. Let me figure out who in this group is doing other things. You know, you. You go to the meeting, you hear somebody say, I also. I'm hosting someone or I drive for this group or something like that. Go and ask them, okay, hey, I'm interested in this. You know, how. Who do I get a hold of? What. How do I find out about this? And climb your way through to figure out where it is that you're needed. Because starting this stuff from the ground up, it takes a lot of work. If it doesn't exist in your area, you're behind, and that. That's hard. But if it doesn't exist in your area, getting in there and filling in the gaps that they need filled is going to make a tremendous difference.
I will also say that if you are in a state that is considered a sanctuary for trans people, I would consider that a form of privilege. And I would say that if you are in a sanctuary state, you have an obligation to start building infrastructure right now. You have an obligation to build something that can support people who are fleeing. And like, I cannot stress this enough, things are really bad, and we need everyone who can to just step up and do whatever they can to build whatever it takes to house and feed and take care of these people, because they will simply die. Otherwise. There will come a time when these states effectively become unlivable to the trans population, when people will start beating the shit out of us in the streets. We need to. While we have some grace right now, we need to do everything we can collectively to build what is necessary, or else the current atrocity unfolding right now will get so much worse and we will be burying a lot of our siblings.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I. Yes, all of that.
Sorry.
I think that's probably a good place for us to end today. Unless y' all have any other things that you want to say about any of this or anything to plug.
I always Go. I always go back to the Mr. Rogers quote about, look for the helpers. Right? This is overwhelming. This is overwhelming. Every day. You know, there are little moments of joy. Once in a while, you eat something delicious or you have a good conversation with a friend, or, you know, you see a rabbit. I love rabbits. It. It. The. That's a good moment. And we got to hold on to those in this time and looking for the helpers and being one of the helpers is going to be a huge part of changing this. So I think, you know, it's dark, it's real bad, it's liable to get worse. And also, we're not alone. We are part of a community. We're all part of this. And we just need to work together and do what's necessary. It is. It's very, very, very important to keep that in mind so that we can keep going.
I guess my last comment would be, yeah, things are awful and we have to do a lot of work. But remember to breathe. Remember that for you to be effective at any of this, you need to take care of yourself. And that, like, the whole point of this is community. The whole point of this is to help and protect your friends. You can't isolate yourself. You have. You can't not be part of the community and say that you're serving it. You need to remember that you're a person with needs, and some of those needs can be just take care of yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. It is very reaffirming to hear, like, it's like a lot of the things you all have talked about today are things that we talk about on the show, like, all the time in terms of, like, these. I feel like, little mottos or mantras of, like. Like, community is what matters. Like, find. Find people that you can sit down and talk with and plan with. Plan a little bit today, do a little bit today so that it is less overwhelming in the future and so that you just have a plan. It's like all of this is overwhelming. And that is sort of the point of preparedness, is to start building these pieces in small ways into our everyday lives so that when we do reach a moment of crisis and have to act that all the pieces are in place. And if you are listening to this and lacking those resources or don't know how to find them, then look for people who are offering those resources. And if you can offer those resources, then offer them loudly and clearly to. Because the people that most need those things are not going to be the most visible or apparently there. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. I expected this to be a hard and emotional conversation and I'm gonna go maybe cry or something.
Thank you so much for having us on.
Oh, does need money? Can people give you money?
Yeah.
Let me get you our donation link real quick.
Wonderful. And we'll put it. We'll put it in the show notes. That was a crazy thing to end on. I'm so sorry, listeners.
Unfortunately, we live in capitalism.
Great. Well, thanks so much for the work that y' all do and we will talk to you another time.
Have a wonderful day.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening.
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