Zines
Starfruit Issue 01: Divine Harvest
GAPIMNY Trans Justice Committee, 2019
Our vision for the future is rooted in what we already have inside of us: the compassion, imagination, kindness, connection, love, and resilience that builds whole worlds. In these endless possible futures, we see trans and gender nonconforming people everywhere. Transness is no longer about a clinical orientation. Trans people do not feel required to use medical transition or rigid gender expression to bargain for resources and safety. Instead, we see ourselves and each other as expansive creations of nature, unbound by scientific and cultural values created by colonizers.
Imagine this: we leave our homes for a potluck cookout for Trans Day of Resilience, the largest trans celebration in the world. When we find our loved ones, we greet all of them with kisses and hugs. Our mouths water with the aroma of foods representing some of the rich history and lineage around us: curry, bánh xèo, roti, oxtail, plantains, kalua pig, and more. The Girls are singing with a blend of tones and timbres, deep and high voices laden with the joy of sisterhood. A group of cis men pass by and the only comment they have is that we are slightly off-key. We kindly remind them that we have perfect pitch.
This world we’ve built together gives all people the resources to be free. We have built healing practices into even the simple ways we interact with one another on a day to day basis. Our community is based on collective growth and reflection. We tap into our ancestral roots and remember that we are nature itself. Our healers are modern-day bakla, hijra, māhū, fa’afafine, nádleehi, akava’ine, muxe, sekrata, quariwarmi, and more. We are governed by investment in ourselves and our community. Our neighborhoods are vast, including the ocean, mountains, and sky itself. Home is an endless feeling. Our lifeways nourish the earth and all living creatures.
All we must do now is feast and thrive in our surplus harvest, beautifully reaping what we sow.
We ask you:
In an imagined future, one free of all of the oppressions you can think of, what do you see? What do you hear? What are you eating in this world? How do people relate to each other? How do we greet one another? Who is keeping us safe? How do we hold each other accountable? Where do we go when we’re in pain? What is home? Do we work? Where do we work? How do we work? What do we call ourselves?