• Long before the term mutual aid came to mean crowdfunded self-preservation or charity, the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin systematically explored its meaning to work together for a common good and a fundamental aspect of anarcho-socialist organization and evolution.
  • My request for solidarity, not charity.
  • I’ve been systematically blocked in seeking support for my Eco-Village project:
    • Despite reaching out to every SF Bay Area organization claiming to support economic justice and LGBTQ+ community projects, I’ve consistently faced cis women representatives who, after admitting they hadn’t even read my mission statement, dismissed my work as not serving a ‘public benefit’ while trying to provoke me.
    • My attempts to secure land trust support with Northern California Land Trust and other land trust cooperatives (primarily led by cis BIPOC women and nonbinary people AFAB) were met with outright rejection based on my trans identity, with representatives stating I “could not be trusted” and was “not a woman,” refusing to engage with my work. The BIPOC project of the Foundation for Intentional Community likewise dismissed me.
    • Compounding these institutional barriers is a pervasive cynicism within the trans women community I’ve encountered in the West over the last decade, where Social Darwinism, transactional relationships, and capitalist competition seem to be the prevailing worldview, hindering grassroots solidarity.
  • Therefore, I am seeking your collective aid to find an attorney. I need a lawyer willing to assist in researching and co-piloting the drafting of my letters of incorporation for an atypical 501(c)(3) Public Benefit Nonprofit for the Advancement of Scientific Discovery.
  • To pre-empt suggestions, I’ve already explored fiscal sponsorship; while it might offer limited avenues, it doesn’t remove the fundamental need for pro forma incorporation.