When some of y’all joined us for our Freedom Futures Gala in February, as we kicked off 10 years of Freedom Oklahoma, we told you about some of the barriers that exist in trying to fundraise as a trans-led, trans-staffed organization. Specifically, we lifted up the research that tells us trans-led organizations are still only getting 4 cents to every $100 that’s coming from philanthropic foundations. 

And as we see more and more corporations pull their funding to any effort that might be seen as related to equity, diversity, or inclusion, in a field where trans-led and trans-centered work was already often excluded from funding access, it’s a tough time to try and fundraise to support long-term work. Particularly in a state where many folks wrote us off, long before Freedom Oklahoma even came to be.

None of us should have to be lucky to get the care we need.

Sugarcoating this moment feels disingenuous and a little impossible. So as we look to 2SLGBTQ+ history month, we’re thinking about the ways that our history can so often inform our present. Whether it’s the reminders we’ve been here before, the knowledge gained from generations before us, or the examples of the way we’ve still found joy through all of the bullshit…knowing 2SLGBTQ+ history, our intersectional movement history, can be life-giving. Its time for our October 2025 Newsletter…enter if you dare…

When I asked the folks at Freedom Oklahoma about what liberation could look like, I heard it looks like “bellies are full of food and laughter, where “we all linger after the party of over to help clean”, it feels like “warmth on your skin from the perfect day”, “having all your community needs met”, “no borders”. When I talked to folks outside of this tiny staff it sounded like a mix of “opportunity and abundance,” “room to breathe, to rest,” “freedom feels like a firefly. It's both so close you can feel the light but never will you catch it,” and “[I] haven’t felt free in a long time at work…”

By centering and serving the most marginalized and excluded members of our community with the least resources, we saw some of the folks with the most resources abandon our work. And long before corporations abandoned pride spaces, they became increasingly hesitant to give at any work like ours. That’s the nature of digging into liberatory work, unapologetically led-by 2STGNC+, disabled folks. And, while it means that it is not easy to fund our work, we've long been grateful for the ways community has stepped up to support us in resourcing a future where all 2SLGBTQ+ folks have the safety to thrive.

I first joined the Freedom Oklahoma team four years ago. It feels both like just yesterday and the longest four years of my life (but maybe the last four years have felt a little like that for everyone). In that time, we’ve ushered in monumental changes to the work…

One of the most difficult parts of being trans, is how inconvenient it can feel to ask the folks in our lives to see us and honor us wholly and in our dignity.

And while I could rant at an extended length about the harms of the policies being pushed at state and national levels under the guise of popular health, I instead want to focus on the long history of mad, disabled resistance leaders in 2SLGBTQ+ spaces, and the way disabled folks have engaged in disruption to win better conditions for all of us, while often ourselves being left out of and/or excluded from spaces that claim to be organizing for our collective liberation. 

On my best days, I can almost believe it when my friends tell me I am a miracle and a joy. But I deserve liberation and life free from the harms of policing and incarceration, even on my worst days. 

As we stand at the threshold of Pride Month, the air is thick with a familiar tension. There’s the glitter, the music, the promise of celebration. But Pride is so much more than a party. Its also a time to educate and be educated, to organize. It's a time to further the fight against institutions that keep us from accessing life beyond this month. Pride is a time that acknowledges the profound disillusionment many of us feel trying to find joy in  the midst of genocide. Pride is so much more than a party…