For nearly a decade, Borealis Philanthropy’s Fund for Trans Generations (FTG) has grounded our existence in a core belief: BIPOC trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) organizers are the architects of our collective liberation.

In this season of resistance and remembrance, we are honoring the bold and manifold ways in which FTG grantee partners are dismantling broken systems and cultivating spaces for healing and joy, pressing forward as threats to trans sovereignty  and lives intensify.Ciora Thomas of SisTers PGH and FTG Flower Crown Project member recently issued us a powerful reminder:  “We have to give our leaders their roses while they are here.”

Below, we are honored to share just a glimpse of the innovative work our frontline partners are leading to move us towards a more equitable, just, and loving world for all.

Ariana’s Center: Revolutionizing Healthcare Access in the South

Operating in regions where access to gender-affirming care is increasingly restricted, Ariana’s Center has become a lifeline for communities in South Florida and Puerto Rico. In Fall 2023, they launched a 24/7 healthcare service—one of the first of its kind in the region and, a few months later, expanded into new facilities in Puerto Rico, increasing their ability to offer care to more people. Their comprehensive programs include general healthcare services, gender affirming care, emergency housing, supplemental financial support, HIV testing, and more. By offering this full spectrum of support services under one roof, Ariana’s Center is dismantling long-held systemic barriers, ensuring that trans folks—and especially BIPOC trans folks—receive compassionate, competent care, and support they have long been denied, and deeply deserve.

Comfrey Films: Amplifying Black Trans Stories

Inspired by Janet Mock’s quote: “We are who we’ve always said we are. We are worthy, we are real, we are here,” Comfrey Films, a film training program for Black trans and queer storytellers, recently hosted the inaugural Black Trans Short Film Festival. The festival showcased 22 films that brought to life Black trans narratives of love and community, time travel and lineage, healing and remembrance—amplifying not only the richness of being Black and trans, but also inviting viewers to dream and envision a future a world where we are all seen, celebrated, free.

Intransitive: Building Pathways to Stability and Belonging

Intransitive, one of the only trans and migrant-led organizations in Arkansas, is delivering expansive and life–affirming resources to trans and queers folks across the state. This year, the organization hosted free health and wellness events, ensuring vital access to care; provided youth with school supplies, easing financial burdens;and partnered with a local food rescue program to deliver fresh groceries—including produce grown in their own garden—to trans and queer households, combating food insecurity. They also provided steadfast support to trans asylum seekers and survivors of violence—successfully securing protection for a trans couple and their 5-year old child. Through far reaching and deeply intentional work, Intransitive  continues to build pathways to stability, safety, and belonging for queer, trans, and migrant folks

Mirror Memoirs: Healing Through Storytelling

This year, Mirror Memoirs’ Storyteller Summit brought together a group of BIPOC survivors of sexual violence for a transformative gathering rooted in connection, healing and reclamation. With community support, Mirror Memoirs funded travel for survivors to gather and participate in the workshops on somatic healing practices, self defense, and the praxis of disability justice, abolition, collective care and accountability. Together, they also developed peer support groups and crisis care plans to offer survivors tools to hold each other in care through the forthcoming release of Mirror Memoir’s 2025 audio archive—a collection of stories from BIPOC trans and queer survivors honoring their pain, resilience, and brilliance.

Our Spot KC: Pioneering Sustainable Housing Solutions

Our Spot KC has revolutionized supportive housing for LGBTQ+ folks. Their community space The Lion House Cottages, which began construction this year, is an innovative, green, rapid re-housing housing development designed specifically for queer and trans folks facing housing insecurity. This new initiative integrates sustainable building practices and offers on-site support services, providing not just shelter but sanctuary— a place where residents can access critical, life-affirming resources and community. The Lion House Cottages are set to open next year to the public, and will exist as a blueprint for holistic housing.

Rock Steady Farm: Food Sovereignty and Economic Justice

Rock Steady, a groundbreaking 12-acre farm led by BIPOC, queer and trans folks in upstate New York, is weaving sustainable agriculture with social transformation to advance food sovereignty and economic justice. Founded in 2015, the farm challenges traditional farming practices by directing 70% of its sustainably grown produce to communities facing food insecurity, serving nearly 2,0000 people weekly in 2024 through solidarity shares, food pantries, and mutual aid networks across the Hudson Valley and New York City. Beyond food production, the farm also serves as an incubator for the next generation of agricultural leaders. Their training programs have supported over 200 queer, trans, and BIPOC farmers this year alone, nurturing a new generation of leaders at the intersection of sustainable farming and social justice practice.

SisTers PGH: Creating Comprehensive Community Care

Founded by Ciora Thomas, a member of FTG’s Flower Crown Project, SisTers PGH provides holistic support to trans communities, combining housing services with innovative transportation solutions, recognizing access to reliable transportation as crucial for reaching employment, medical appointments, and other essential support. 

Trans formative Schools: Investing in Trans Youth

Trans formative Schools (TfS) is reimagining education to embody trans liberation. Through their free after school program, the organization centers the needs and dreams of trans, queer, and gender expansive middle school students, offering classes in painting and poetry, engineering, creative writing, computer coding while also building community and advocacy skills. By investing in trans educators and students, TsF is cultivating an empowering educational environment where trans youth are affirmed, uplifted, and equipped to lead.

The Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois: Facilitating Legal Identity Recognition

In January 2024, The Transformative Justice Law Project (TJLP) of Illinois celebrated the implementation of HB2542—a bill that removed Illinois draconian restrictions on legal name changes for folks with criminal records. This legislative victory was due to years of advocacy by the organization and its partner organizations, including a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of these restrictions. When the bill went into effect earlier this year, TJLP mobilized to offer free name change services, as well as legal support to help folks navigate the bureaucratic process, recognizing legal identity as a foundation for trans safety, autonomy and visibility. 

Reimagining Philanthropy: How Can Funders Resource Trans Futures? 

The success of these organizations demonstrates what’s possible with sustained, flexible funding, and trust in trans and gender-nonconforming leaders. To scale this impact and create lasting change for trans communities, philanthropy must adapt, and fund in ways that not only support these leaders to defend against attacks, but also to safeguard and build towards the survival, joy, and flourishing of trans folks, and—by extension—us all. 

The stakes have never been higher, with our incoming political regime  committed to dismantling our bodily autonomy, safety, and sheer existence. These intersecting crises demand urgent, abundant action today to create a free world for generations to come:

• Provide multi-year, flexible, and unrestricted funding. Trust that trans-led organizations know best how to serve themselves and their communities.
  
• Embrace trans joy as a framework. Move beyond emergency-only funding to invest in trans joy and abundance. Resource art, therapy, community, rest, creativity and wholeness. Support the joy and self-defined liberation of trans people, knowing that joy is essential to sustaining the movements they lead.

• Center trans leadership and guidance. Elevate BIPOC TGNC voices. Pursue a participatory grantmaking process to ensure that funding decisions are held with care by trans communities. And ensure that your staff is representative of queer and trans communities, too.  

• Create dedicated funds to support the holistic well-being of trans organizers—but also fund trans-led organizing across all of your issue areas. Recognize that only by funding the brilliance and solutions of BIPOC, queer, trans, and disabled folks  will we make progress toward a liberated future for all.  

• Support work in areas and geographies that have been historically under-resourced, such as the global South and rural areas.

And finally, consider partnering with Borealis’ Fund for Trans Generations to resource a national network of grassroots organizers for justice. Together, we can reimagine philanthropy as a force that powers the joy, healing and flourishing of our communities—until, one free day, our work is no longer necessary.