This past week, I had the good fortune of going to a talk by Shannon Clay, one of the coeditors of the must-read anthology “We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action” (@pmpress). There was only a small number of us, but that made it all that much better, as Shannon let the thoughtful and provocative questions steer the evening. And that meant that the talk and conversation, because of who showed up, revolved heavily around looking back at this antifascist history through today’s lens of queer, trans, and feminist anarchism as well as how Anti-Racist Action’s (ARA) tactics did or didn’t carry forward to the past or make sense for where Christo-fascism is at in 2023/5784.

So many points have stuck with me theoretically—the sign of a good, generative event—but one in particular already came to life in practice. Shannon had noted how most of the ARA chapters weren’t in big cities; they were basically four people in a small town, yet like ARA in general, they succeeded in kicking fascists out of their communities.

Little did I know that two nights later, I’d being going to a small, lifeless suburb. Yet a precocious, absurdly well-read and well-spoken, upbeat queer+trans young anarchist—just barely past being a preteen—invited me to their trans youth distro there, precisely to “go where they go”—in this case, a TERF, who’d been asserting their presence via stickering.

Our numbers mostly hovered around four or five—but between us all, there were hundreds of colorful, binary-smashing, bodily autonomy affirming, genderqueer-anarchic stickers, posters, patches, and even a tiny pink-and-black flag. I’ve no idea if we scared away the TERF, nor had any sort of pro-trans impact on this sleepy little town. What I do know is: the two middle schoolers who were there, both newish to anarchism and their queer+transness relative to the rest of us, got to share their hopes, enthusiasm, and dreams, and offer me hope in return, and as one said, got to feel at home and fully seen with their chosen family: us, other queer+trans anarchists.

#BeGayDoDistros
#MakeMediaMakeGenderTrouble
#KidsAreAllRight
#QueerYouthLiberation

(photos: some of the distro goodies)