March 2025 Update

Image Description: “March Update” in scrapbook lettering with our logo on an ashy blue background. The bottom says: "freedomoklahoma.org/news".

2stgnc+ Folks will Always be here.

here’s how We aid in a Better Future, Today.

Last year, as our team sat down to plan a Gala to bring community together, center joy, and kick off 10 years of the org that has grown and evolved to everything that Freedom Oklahoma is today, we decided that a rebrand was in order. What had previously been the Unity Gala felt too much like an endorsement of respectability politics, the request that folks be nice to the people actively trying to harm 2STGNC+ people in Oklahoma for the sake of unity. So, we launched the Freedom Futures Gala, with a theme of Freedom Futurism. Because we knew that in a moment where it can be hard to see a way through, we all needed the joy not only of space together, but of a glimpse of a future on our terms, where joy is at the center, and we’re all a part of it.

We know it can be incredibly difficult for so many members of our community to imagine any future at all. And, that we practice hope when we engage in collaborative, strategic futurism that ensures we all have the safety to thrive. And our gala was a celebration of all of that – a future where Two Spirit, trans, and queer folks exist fully as ourselves. Where the fashion isn’t beholden to normative expectations, where there are no limiting gender binaries, and where joy in your body is celebrated in big joyful ways, instead of relying on consumerism to dictate what is in fashion. We did the night with intention, down to the centerpieces which blended zines, 2SLGBTQ+ literature, local art, and many of our staff’s most beloved tchotchkes, leaning into a future with our trinkets and our art, instead of disposable decor that feels removed from the spirit of the event and our work.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the celebration in person, and all who donated community tickets to help make the space more accessible to community members. As we kick off March, we have now wrapped up our 2025 Freedom Futures Gala, our oral history research project in collaboration with RCHP is underway, and our youth pen pal group is flourishing in ways that we never imagined, with folks from not only across Oklahoma, but a growing number of states joining the community. And while the legislative session (unfortunately) continues, we’re working to keep you updated with bill movement in our legislative tracker, and across social platforms (including some live coverage of bill hearings on our new-ish Bluesky), while helping grow your advocacy toolbox at our virtual Friday Lunch and Learns. We’re making space for the future dreaming while also tackling the work of our present, and we’re grateful to have you doing the work along with us every step of the way.

When we talk about trans futures it's not just the hope that they exist in the political aspect, because ultimately we know that Two Spirit, trans, and gender nonconforming+ folks have always and will always exist. We are talking about actively building futures where 2STGNC+ folks get to rest, get to love, get to live life on our terms, get access to all of the resources we need to survive - but more importantly to thrive.

We save ourselves and each other by showing up for one another right now. Because when the anger, rage, resentment, fear, spite, that is mobilizing so many folks to action in this moment runs out, it’s community, and love, and a vision for the world we’re building together that keeps us going. Through mutual aid, through being radically vulnerable, through practices of restorative justice from Indigenous and African cultures that have existed since time immemorial, through expanding our networks of care, through continued masking, through continued learning, and doing that work with one another, we’re practicing hope, and dreaming trans futures into being.

The present we’re in means that Two Spirit, trans, and queer people are under attack, not only when the legislature is in session. And we deserve our flowers, spaces of joy, community safety and investment and celebration, far beyond Trans Day of Visibility or Pride month. And sure, that means monitoring what's going on at the legislature, and figuring out how we can plug in to defend our most vulnerable community members from attacks, while also reimagining ways to care for each other when the state fails to meet basic standards of care required for survival. We’d be fools to think the work starts or ends within political systems. And whenever we’re stuck deep in defensive positions, we’re limiting our collective imagination from the kind of care and policy we actually deserve (because it’s not the status quo). We are in a time where it is all hands on deck, and we cannot let our implicit bias get in the way of liberation work. We can’t burn out when we’ve got not only fights to fight, but futures to dream into being. It’s not work any of us can do alone. You’re a part of the queer future our team at Freedom Oklahoma is working towards. Can we count on you to join us in making that future real?

With hope, vision, and solidarity,

Nicole McAfee (they/she) - Executive Director

Mauree Turner (they/them) - Director of Digital Organizing & Communications