Story Type: News and Media

Our 2019 Healing Justice Funder Convening

On May 16, 2019 in New York, Astraea held a Healing Justice Funder Convening. We brought together 60 funders from 30 philanthropic institutions, alongside 15 organizers and healing practitioners, to strategize how we can bolster our movements by funding healing justice work.

On May 16, 2019 in New York, Astraea held a Healing Justice Funder Convening. We brought together 60 funders from 30 philanthropic institutions, alongside 15 organizers and healing practitioners, to strategize how we can bolster our movements by funding healing justice work. At a time when our communities are facing an onslaught of violence and oppression, including targeted attacks on people of color, immigrants, women and trans people, the convening was a critical opportunity for funders to discuss how healing justice can promote collective safety and build the power and resilience of movements. The convening followed the launch of Astraea’s new report, Healing Justice: Building Power, Transforming Movements.

As a public foundation, one of Astraea’s roles is to align philanthropic resources with the visions, needs, and priorities of movements. The convening honored the legacy and roots of healing justice work in the U.S. by centering the voices of organizers and practitioners from across the country. Throughout the convening, funders listened to organizers share how they can be most supportive of their struggles.

Organizers emphasized how locally-grounded and culturally-specific healing justice work is and must be. They shared how healing justice work helps build their capacities to live and thrive, as well as the power that enables them to win. They asked funders to listen, to give them space to experiment, and to trust. The convening aimed to embody healing justice throughout the day, with facilitation by healer Adaku Utah and massage, Reiki, acupressure and herbs from an amazing team of community-based practitioners.

It was a reflective, generative, and (unusually-for-philanthropy) honest space in which funders and activists exchanged ideas and worked towards a collective vision for healing justice. We’re excited to share some of the learning from the day with you:

  • If you’d like to learn more about the day’s conversations, our summary report shares the highlights.
  • Spot yourself in photos from the day here!
  • To get a feel for the convening and hear some brilliance from the speakers, watch our video above and panel recordings!

Our deepest gratitude to all the participants. We are honored to have brought together so many funders to deepen support for healing justice. We look forward to continuing to build, strategize, and vision together.

Farewell to J. Bob Alotta!

As we bid farewell to Bob, we wanted to take this moment to reflect on her immense legacy and celebrate her profound impact.

As we bid farewell to Bob, we wanted to take this moment to reflect on her immense legacy and celebrate her profound impact. Bob’s passionate, visionary, and bold leadership grew Astraea in ways we could not have imagined. Bob steadily charted a course for gender, racial and economic justice that positions Astraea at the leading edge of intersectional LGBTQI philanthropy, while staying true to our lesbian feminist roots. Our founding mothers would be proud. 

Bob always saw Astraea’s role as shifting power and resources from where they intentionally were to where they intentionally weren’t, yet needed to be—grassroots LGBTQI movements around the world. Bob accomplished this by expanding Astraea’s capacity to deliver resources to the most bold and brilliant LGBTQI groups in the U.S. and globally, as well as deepening our philanthropic presence and leadership, bringing an intersectional queer feminist lens to fields as diverse as internet freedom, communications, gender equality and racial justice. She started in 2011 as Astraea’s second Executive Director, with an organizational budget of $3 million and stewarded that to the sizable $13 million budget it is today. 

A leader in queerying philanthropy, through Astraea, Bob imagined new and transformative ways of working together—to name just one example, she was the visionary behind CommsLabs, an innovative participatory movement-building initiative that networks LGBTQI activists and technologists. At regional and country-level convenings, grassroots activists connect with trainers, technologists, and healers who support them to effectively address threats and seize the opportunities available in the digital age. These convenings, co-designed by activists and centering wellness and holistic security while also building skills and capacity, exemplify Bob’s ability to break down silos and respond to the ways our movements are changing.  

Under Bob’s leadership Astraea also expanded global LGBTQI philanthropy through strategic decisions to partner with bilateral governments like the innovative LGBTI Global Development Partnership. Through this initiative, we expanded grantmaking in 12 countries and shifted over $15.5M to grassroots LGBTQI movement-building, laying the foundation for future bilateral relationships and partnerships which have positioned us excellently for the next phase of our work. 

With Bob, Astraea launched the first Intersex Human Rights Fund in the world in 2015, leveraging more than $2 million for the intersex movement globally, and we grew our U.S. work to combat the criminalization of communities of color, particularly Black folks and migrants. Bob oversaw the Global Arts Fund, building on our long legacy of supporting artistic and cultural change work, our Healing Justice: Building Power, Transforming Movements report, and our recent Feminist Funding Principles. 

We are grateful to Bob for laying the foundation for Astraea’s next phase, setting us up so well to support the next generation of our leadership and the vision and talents of our incredible staff. We are excited to announce that we have identified an Interim Executive Director who will start in the coming weeks, and who will lead Astraea through a transition period for the next nine to twelve months. During the transition period, the Interim Executive Director will work with the Board and staff on laying the groundwork for the next permanent Executive Director. We look forward to introducing her to you soon!

It’s clear that Astraea’s role is more critical than ever in this time of escalating violence and oppression against LGBTQI communities, and the Board is committed to working closely with the Interim Executive Director and staff to continue to provide critical grantmaking and capacity building for LGBTQI grassroots leaders around the world. We will share next steps as they unfold and look forward to introducing you to the new Interim soon. Please join us as we enter this next phase of Astraea, share your support, questions and dollars—together we are building a more just and joyous world. 

In solidarity,

Iimay Ho and Eboné Bishop, Co-Chairs 
On behalf of the Board of Directors

Astraea’s newest U.S. Fund grantees!

Our U.S. Fund is Astraea’s longest-standing fund, and we’re excited to introduce you to our latest batch of grantee partners!

We’re excited to share our latest round of U.S Fund grants! These incredible organizations are working to end mass criminalization and incarceration, disrupt systems of oppression, and resist all forms of state violence and white supremacy.

In the last year, Astraea has awarded over $1.5 million in grants to 58 grantee partners in 19 states and Puerto Rico (while Puerto Rico grantee partners have been included in this statistic, we recognize the self-determination and autonomy of the Puerto Rican independence movement). Over 99% of this funding went to LGBTQI People of Color-led organizations working for racial, economic, gender, migrant and reproductive justice. We also launched our first set of Healing Justice grants awarding $60,000 to 14 organizations to support community-based resiliency and survival practices integral to our collective liberation.

Many of our U.S. grantee partners work across movements and are connected by common values and goals—a vision for intersectional, liberatory social justice. Our grantee partners are:

  • Building the local and regional power of Black, Brown, queer, trans, migrant, poor, and working class communities in the South, such as Southerners on New Ground (SONG)’s ‘Free from Fear’ campaign strategy which worked to politicize and engage LGBTQ people to lead migrant justice and anti-criminalization campaigns. Building on the success of that, SONG launched its #EndMoneyBail campaign, which ignited local organizing to focus on eliminating money bail and pretrial detention across the South. It demands that municipalities divest from cages, courts, and police, and invest in community-based solutions, such as needs assessment programs.
  • Pushing for digital rights and privacy for all, such as grantee partner MediaJustice, who joined 34 civil rights, consumer, and privacy organizations in launching public interest principles for robust and comprehensive federal legislation. These guidelines would ensure fairness, prevent discrimination, advance equal opportunity, protect free expression, and hold companies that collect personal data accountable for privacy violations.
  • Empowering, resourcing, and building the leadership of trans People of Color, like Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable and Empowering (TAKE)who work to increase access for and meet the needs of trans Women of Color (TWOC) in Alabama. TAKE advocates for trans friendly policies, organizes to end discrimination, engages in leadership development, and provide peer support groups. In 2017, they opened the TAKE Resource Center, the first space dedicated to providing a safe, nurturing space for TWOC in Birmingham. It is the only center in Birmingham that is Trans focused, Trans led, and fully staffed by TWOC.

Through grassroots organizing and advocacy efforts, our grantee partners are drawing attention to how marginalized LGBTQI people are impacted by enforcement and criminalization; increasing the visibility of healing justice strategies; working to dismantle the criminal justice system; leading campaigns to divest from prison systems; and broadening the racial justice dialogue to include reproductive justice, anti-criminalization and migrant justice strategies.

Please join us in celebrating the work of these resilient and radical grantee partners, and read more about their work in the links below.

U.S. Fund Grantee Partners*

*Note: We do not publicize a number of our courageous grantee partners because of security threats they face in their local contexts, so organizations may be missing from this list.

API Equality – Northern California
California

Audre Lorde Project
New York

Black Alliance for Just Immigration
New York

Black and Brown Workers Cooperative
Pennsylvania

Black and Pink
National

Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project
National

Black Trans Media
New York

Blackbird
National

BreakOUT!
Louisiana

BreakOUT New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice
Louisiana

Circuito de Innovación y Resiliencia Queer
Puerto Rico

Communities United for Police Reform
New York

Community United Against Violence, Inc.
California

Dignity and Power Now
California

El/La Para Translatinas
California

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
California

Freedom Inc.
Wisconsin

Freedom to Thrive
New York

Garden of Peace Project
Pennsylvania

Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network Southeast
Southeast

Girls for Gender Equity
New York

Immigrant Youth Coalition
California

Invisible to Invincible (“i2i”): API Pride of Chicago
Illinois

Law for Black Lives
National

Mariposas Sin Fronteras
Arizona

MediaJustice
California

Mijente
National

Montana Two Spirit Society
Montana

New Voices for Reproductive Justice
Pennsylvania

Out in the Open
Vermont

Peacock Rebellion
California

Power Inside
Maryland

Project South and members of the Southern Movement Assembly
Georgia

Providence Youth Student Movement
Rhode Island

Queer & Trans People of Color Birthwerq Project
Washington

Queer the Land
Washington

Racial Justice Action Center, (SNaP Co and Women on the Rise)
Georgia

SisterReach
Tennessee

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
Georgia

Somos Familia
California

Southern Vision Alliance
North Carolina

Southerners on New Ground & Mijente
Southeast

SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW
Georgia

Stonewall Youth
Washington

Survivors Organizing for Liberation
Colorado

The Knights and Orchids Society
Alabama

Trans Queer Pueblo
Arizona

Trans(forming)
Georgia

Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable and Empowering
Alabama

Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project
California

Women With a Vision
Louisiana

Young Women United
New Mexico

By supporting Astraea, you are creating ecosystems of resistance that are smart, effective, and unique. Join us!

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African Intersex Movement – Africa’s regional intersex network – established

Between the 17th and 19th of June 2019, 21 Intersex activists representing several African countries got together for a regional Intersex activist meeting in Kenya. While there, they founded African Intersex Movement, a new network led by African Intersex activists with the aim of sharing information, skills and resources.

Between the 17th and 19th of June 2019, 21 Intersex activists representing several African countries got together for a regional Intersex activist meeting in Kenya.

In recalling the 2017 statement as our guide, We the African Intersex activists wish to announce that we have collectively launched African Intersex Movement, a network led by African Intersex activists with the aim of sharing information, skills and resources.

We exist to amplify the voices of African Intersex people at the regional level.

We offer ourselves as the African Intersex reference of intelligence for stakeholders and allies who are interested in strengthening the ongoing  liberation work for intersex peoples rights and autonomy.

We affirm that intersex people are real, and we exist in all countries of Africa. As intersex people in Africa, we live in a society that perpetuates violence and killings of intersex people by cultural, religious, traditional and medical beliefs and practices.

We aim:

  • To put an end to infanticide and killings of intersex people led by traditional and religious beliefs.
  • To put an end to mutilating and ‘normalising’ practices such as genital surgeries, psychological and other medical treatments through legislative and other means (such as education, policy and treatment protocol change). Intersex people must be empowered to make their own decisions affecting their own bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination.
  • To include intersex education in antenatal counselling and support.
  • To put an end to non-consensual sterilisation of intersex people.
  • To depathologise variations in sex characteristics in medical practices, guidelines, protocols and classifications, such as the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases.
  • To ensure that sex or gender classifications are amendable through a simple administrative procedure at the request of the individuals concerned. All adults and capable minors should be able to choose between female (F), male (M), intersex or multiple options. In the future, sex or gender should not be a category on birth certificates or identification documents for anybody.
  • To raise awareness around intersex issues and the rights of intersex people in communities and society at large.
  • To create and facilitate supportive, safe and celebratory environments for intersex people, their families and surroundings.
  • To ensure that intersex people have the right to full information and access to their own medical records and history.
  • To ensure that all professionals and healthcare providers that have a specific role to play in intersex people’s well-being are adequately trained to provide quality services.
  • To acknowledge the suffering and injustice caused to intersex people
  • To build intersex anti-discrimination legislation in addition to other grounds, and to ensure protection against intersectional discrimination.
  • To ensure the provision of all human rights and citizenship rights to intersex people, including the right to marry and form a family.
  • To ensure that intersex people are able to participate in competitive sport, at all levels, in accordance with their legal sex. Intersex athletes who have been humiliated or stripped of their titles should receive reparation and reinstatement.
  • To recognise that medicalization and stigmatisation of intersex people result in significant trauma and mental health concerns.
  • In view of ensuring the bodily integrity and well-being of intersex people, autonomous non-pathologising psycho-social and peer support be available to intersex people throughout their life (as self-required), as well as to parents and/or care providers.

We call to action :

  • Community leaders to engage in intersex education to dispel misconceptions and stigma around intersex people.
  • Human rights organisations to contribute to build bridges with intersex organisations and build a basis for mutual support and meaningful engagement. This should be done in a spirit of collaboration and no-one should instrumentalise intersex issues as a means for other ends.
  • Funders to engage with intersex organisations and support them in the struggle for visibility, increase their capacity, the building of knowledge and the affirmation of their human rights.

For further information and inquiries, please contact us at intersexafrica@gmail.com

The Right-Wing Is Weaponizing Gender Panic by J. Bob Alotta

Around the globe, conservative forces are using the “gender ideology” movement to score all kinds of victories.

By J. Bob Alotta, Astraea Executive Director, published in The Advocate

The Trump Administration’s leaked gender memo, the recent transgender military ban, and the expansion of the global gag rule aren’t coincidences. They are part of a well-coordinated, funded global movement designed to control our communities by restricting the rights and bodily autonomy of women, LGBTQI communities, and people of color — eerily reminiscent of Reagan era oppressive tactics.

For LGBTQI communities, this kind of backlash is not new. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, the Reagan administration demonized our communities, as did right-wing forces around the world, spreading the false notion of the “gay plague” and blaming men who have sex with men for the transmission of the HIV virus. LGBT people were denied equal access to healthcare, faced intense violence, were stigmatized, stripped of basic rights, and often forced into the shadows. But we fought back.

Today, we know the far-right are sewing those same seeds of paranoia, creating gender panic with the use of an intentionally ambiguous organizing framework termed “gender ideology”by some and “anti-gender ideology” by others. Originating in the 1990s, gender ideology is a construct that depicts efforts to expand rights for women, LGBTQI people, and people of color, as radical, dangerous, and elitist, arguing that we are a threat to traditional family values.

What we have been less aware of is that this gender ideology movement is extremely well-funded, and well-organized across sectors and regions. While we don’t have a comprehensive map of the funding of these movements, we know the size and scope is significant…

Read the full article via The Advocate.

Support local fights for LGBTQI fights around the globe:

Pride 2019: Astraea T-Shirts

To celebrate the radical roots of Pride and our commitment to the sustainability of grassroots movements for justice, Astraea has worked with the artist Amir Khadar to design three new t-shirts. All proceeds will support Astraea’s mission to resource LGBTQI grassroots activism in the U.S. and around the world.

To celebrate the radical roots of Pride and our commitment to the sustainability of grassroots movements for justice, Astraea has worked with the artist Amir Khadar to design three new t-shirts. To order shirts of your own, follow the links below! All proceeds will support Astraea’s mission to resource LGBTQI grassroots activism in the U.S. and around the world.

Healing Is Justice

Healing Justice is a framework for prioritizing and uplifting the sustainability practices of communities that are marginalized, objectified, and policed by the state and institutions to address the impact of violence and trauma. At the Astraea Foundation, we believe that healing IS justice, an integral part of activist work for communities facing systems of oppression. Buy your Healing Is Justice t-shirt here!

Queer Liberation

In Pride Month and beyond, it’s important to uplift and honor the roots the communities without whom Pride would not exist–queer and trans People of Color, sex workers, and more. Our new Queer Liberation t-shirt honors those roots with important symbols of queer and trans resistance–a red umbrella for sex workers’ rights, a brick for the Stonewall Riots, and roses for Trans Day of Remembrance. Buy your Queer Liberation t-shirt here!

#QueerLiberationNotRainbowCapitalism

In Pride Month and beyond, Astraea is committed to engaging around the problematic politics of corporate pride, rather than being complicit or silent around these issues. We say yes to queer liberation and not to rainbow capitalism. Help us redirect money and energy from rainbow capitalism to people-of-color-led organizations striving for justice with a #QueerLiberationNotRainbowCapitalism t-shirt. Buy your #QueerLiberationNotRainbowCapitalism shirt here!

Astraea Envisions Queer Liberation: Pride Month 2019

We want a Pride Month that is truly inclusive and leans into the LGBTQI grassroots visions for where our movements are headed. We’re holding both the accomplishments we are proud of, as well as shining a spotlight on the many political, social, and cultural battles still ongoing around the world.

What we say NO to!

  • NO policing of LGBTQI bodies
  • NO rainbow capitalism
  • NO normalizing of white gay cis identity at the expense of Black and Brown LBQTI folks
  • NO depoliticization of our causes
  • NO homogenization of our identities and struggles
  • NO exclusion of bi/pan, asexual, intersex, trans, and others

From the time of Stonewall, LGBTQ patrons of the Stonewall Inn—fed up with being harassed and targeted, who were predominantly People of Color—fought back against the police. Today, we know that Pride activities and marches in many parts of the United States and around the world are still spaces of resistance. Oftentimes, these spaces and the LGBTQI people who participate in them are criminalized, discriminated against and/or face violence and backlash.

Pride marches often include a heavy police presence, which can be triggering and unsafe, particularly for QTPOC. Police and law enforcement have a history of violence against LGBTQI communities, which continues into the present in many contexts, making Pride marches violent and dangerous for some members of the LGBTQ community.

Putting Pride in the context of remembering Stonewall 50 years on, we acknowledge this is a year where in the U.S anti-LGBTQI violence is escalating, particularly the anti-trans actions introduced—from trying to ban trans people from the military, to rescinding Obama-era memos that protected trans workers and students from discrimination. Just as of June 15, 2019, four trans women have been reported murdered during this Pride Month, and at least 10 have been reported murdered overall in 2019.

What we say YES to!

  • We want a Pride that is truly inclusive and leans into the LGBTQI grassroots visions for where our movements are headed. We’re holding both the accomplishments we are proud of, as well as shining a spotlight on the many political, social, and cultural battles still ongoing around the world.
  • We commit to engaging around the problematic politics of corporate Pride rather than being complicit or silent around these issues. We say yes to queer liberation and not rainbow capitalism.
  • We take care of and are joyous in our communities, while we keep fighting for justice. LGBTQI grassroots activism has always combined struggle with celebration. Pride can and should be both celebratory and healing, and heavy and political.
  • We call for a Pride that is centered around highlighting and protecting self-determination, bodily autonomy, gender justice, diverse gender identities and sexualities, and rejecting violence, discrimination, and gender-based oppression. We see our role as uplifting the tremendous work of our grantee partners, and the work that we are proud of having done.
  • We acknowledge that as a philanthropic institution with power and resources, we have a particular responsibility to amplify those communities who are not always heard during Pride month or at all, as well as to call out efforts to corporatize and homonormalize Pride.
  • We uplift Pride actions around the world that are truly radical, political and liberatory. Some examples include: Annual NYC Dyke March // Trans Day of Action // Queer Liberation March // Soweto Pride

What we’re PROUD of:

  • Our 40+ year history of resistance through lesbian feminist philanthropy— read our Feminist Funding Principles here
  • Supporting grassroots organizations and leadership around the world that center LGBTQI people
  • Our commitment to centering the leadership of queer, trans, & GNC People of Color in the U.S.—over 99% of our grantee partner organizations in the U.S. are POC-led
  • Healing Justice practices as a response to generational trauma, policing, and surveillance—read our Healing Justice Report here
  • Uplifiting queer digital activism and holistic security for organizers and activists
  • Our overt support of intersex activism and global local organizing—read more about our Intersex Human Rights Fund here

SOME RESOURCES

#AstraeaPride 2019 Videos:

U.S. Fund:

The U.S. Fund is Astraea’s longest-standing fund, working for racial, gender, economic, migrant and reproductive justice and centering the leadership of queer, trans and GNC People of Color in the U.S. For #Pride2019, we’re celebrating the U.S. Fund and all we’ve accomplished through the Fund so far. Read more about it: buff.ly/2Z7E6h8

LGBTQI Digital Activism:

Astraea believes in the power of digital LGBTQI-led activism. For #Pride2019, we’re highlighting some of the ways we’ve recently supported digital activism in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Healing Justice:

Astraea is invested in supporting LGBTQI communities to heal, rebuild, learn, collaborate, and grow through the #HealingJustice work we support. This #Pride2019, we’re uplifting some of the ways we’ve recently worked to collectively build power, resilience, and joy through #HealingJustice. 

Intersex Human Rights Fund:

Astraea is proud to work side-by-side with intersex activists and organizations around the globe who are demanding justice for intersex human rights, contesting the pathologization of intersex bodies, and defending intersex people’s rights to self-determination, bodily autonomy, and physical integrity through our Intersex Fund. For #Pride2019, we’re celebrating the Fund and all it’s accomplished in recent years.

Farewell but not goodbye – A letter from Astraea Executive Director, J. Bob Alotta

“Today, after eight years, I am announcing I will be transitioning out of my role as the Executive Director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. While it is a move I do not make lightly, I do so with the full support of the board and the incredible staff of Astraea.” – J. Bob Alotta

 

Today, after eight years, I am announcing I will be transitioning out of my role as the Executive Director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. While it is a move I do not make lightly, I do so with the full support of the board and the incredible staff of Astraea.

Astraea is and will ever be an entity of enormous transformation and purpose. As only the second Executive Director in an over 40-year herstory, I have had the incredible honor of evoking the anchor of lesbian feminism bestowed on us by our founding mothers, while building a future-forward organization that has now granted over $40 million dollars to LGBTQI grassroots activists and artists in over half the world.

We have realized exponential growth in such a short period of time: nearly six-toupling our budget, doubling our staff—who now span 10 cities, 6 countries, and three continents—with an ever-evolving eye for providing radically transformative grantmaking and capacity building on the ground. We have done so while expanding our philanthropic voice. Astraea has shown up and spoken up for philanthropic action that embodies the best of what we have learned as an institution: fund the long-game, respect the steps, fund without restriction, trust the innovation in our communities, center the voices at the intersections of lived experience, know we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. In short, be bold. And we have.

I am proud to have served a vision so much larger than myself—embodied by every activist/artist/donor who bravely shows up to bring a just and joyous world to fruition. They (you) have allowed me to bring my best self to work every day I was able. Running a foundation is not easy! Working in the movements you’re from is difficult. Building partnership and ally-ship, starting and sustaining conversations, growing while doing, being a singular entity in every room—all without a roadmap because it had never been done before—because I had never done anything like this before—is profoundly challenging, but that is Astraea’s charge. The staff shows up to this calling magnificently. My gratitude to them is immeasurable. It has been my deepest honor to work alongside them and steward us during this time.

Paramount to my decision to transition was being able to leave the organization in the best possible position. Two key factors make me confident I am doing so. This past year, we have secured significant multi-year partnerships that will ground the work both programmatically and organizationally for many years to come. These partnerships mark the next wave of “new beginnings” for Astraea. And now. I will work alongside staff and board leadership during a period of transition. You will continue to hear more from us as our next steps unfold. I suspect we will lean into you, our trusted community, as we enter the next stage of Astraea’s evolution. I am writing to you with so much gratitude and so much excitement for Astraea’s future. I urge you, as I surely will, to continue to support Astraea’s growth, purpose, and vision. We need her more than ever.

In deep solidarity, 
(as ever)
– B

 J. Bob Alotta
Executive Director 
Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice

A letter from Astraea’s board:

As Bob announces her transition, we express our deep gratitude for her visionary leadership of the profoundly challenging and liberatory work that is Astraea’s charge. In the constantly shifting political landscape of the past 8 years, Bob has stayed steady, bold, and clear about Astraea’s role in transcending borders and building futures for LGBTQI people pursuing social justice and human rights. 
 
She has expanded the organization and kept us on the cutting edge, positioning Astraea to the level of global influence we have today. As an ambassador for Astraea, Bob has excelled at navigating complex cultural and political spaces, breaking down silos, and centering LGBTQI human rights wherever she goes. Through her vision and work in partnership with Astraea’s incredible staff, we have accomplished many breakthroughs in strengthening the capacity of LGBTQI grassroots leaders.

Bob has led Astraea in a powerful arc of organizational growth and sustainability, and we are well-positioned to pivot to welcome a new leader. We ask our grantee partners to act in bold and transformative ways and so we are transforming ourselves as well by celebrating Bob’s accomplishments and meeting the evolving needs of the movement. In this current political moment of escalating violence against LGBTQI communities, it is clear that there is a heightened need for Astraea’s role. We are deeply committed to working with Bob to steward Astraea through this transition so that we can continue to provide critical grantmaking and capacity building for LGBTQI grassroots leaders around the world.

The Astraea board has begun the process of identifying an interim executive director and working alongside staff to create a roadmap for the steps forward. We thank Bob for her immense dedication to Astraea’s mission and wish her the very best as her next chapter begins.

Signed,

Iimay Ho and Eboné Bishop, Co-Chairs 
On behalf of the board of directors

Astraea’s Feminist Funding Principles

Astraea has developed our ten Feminist Funding Principles to share what we have learned over the last four decades about what it takes to support activists on the frontlines to make enduring social change.

As a feminist fund, Astraea believes the strongest approaches to achieving justice center the needs and visions of people who face multiple oppressions. We believe it is our responsibility to redistribute money as a mechanism toward redistributing power, so movement agendas are controlled by activists, organizations, and communities.

To that end, Astraea has developed our ten Feminist Funding Principles to share what we have learned over the last four decades about what it takes to support activists on the frontlines to make enduring social change.

Read more

Digital Security and Decolonization: Astraea’s CommsLabs in the Dominican Republic

In September 2018, Astraea hosted our 4th CommsLabs in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Read more about it below!

Photo Credit: Carlos Rodríguez

As LGBTQI activists working in extremely challenging environments, we don’t always have the time to sit down and think about our communication strategies, let alone have conversations with other organizations about shared concerns, achievements, struggles, what works, and what doesn’t. CommsLabs has given us the space to keep hope alive and maintain our heads above the water.

– Tasmy Gomez, activist and Digital Communications Strategist with the organization Colectiva Mujer y Salud (CMS) in the Dominican Republic

In September 2018, Astraea hosted our 4th CommsLabs* in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Co-designed and co-facilitated by grantee partners from Latin America and the Caribbean, it was an opportunity for LGBTQI+ activists from all over the region to build capacity, experiment with new tools and technologies, and intentionally connect with each other both within and across movements to break down the structures of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism.

CommsLabs convenings like the one held in the Dominican Republic link technology training to grassroots organizing supporting participants to strengthen technology skills, skills-share with one another, and connect the physical and digital organizing spheres, ultimately building collective power. Yet, CommsLabs is about more than just connecting activists with the technologies of now and of the future – the convenings are structured in such a way that they create spaces for organizers to rest, rejuvenate, reflect, and recharge.

Over three days, activists attended workshops and trainings on issues ranging from holistic security to strategic communications, and effective campaign-building. These sessions brought together 20 activists from the Dominican Republic, 3 from Puerto Rico, and 2 from Guatemala, to work together to build creative messaging and develop their organizing tactics, as well as discuss the particular challenges they face. The group also included eight feminist and queer Latin American organizers and trainers.

CommsLabs are co-created with grantee partners, who are a part of the process from the initial strategy meetings to the regional tech assessments , as well as designing the tracks, and identifying trainers and facilitators. For Brenda Salas Neves, Program Officer at Astraea, the involvement of grantee partners from the country and the region in the design and strategy stages is critical. “CommsLabs has to be rooted in the community and local priorities in order for it to work. We worked with trainers from the region and local grantee partners to create thoughtful programming that reflected the political and social priorities of grassroots activists within the region. As funders, our role is to center the needs of our grantees, and to provide support and solidarity, acknowledging the power that we hold, by sharing that power and helping to create as participatory an environment as possible.”

Finding ways to keep hope alive is critical for activists whose bodies, identities, and lives are on the line everyday. A unique healing space known as Siesta Negra was set up for activists to reground themselves in the midst of the convening. Siesta Negra was led by facilitator Jeannetee Tineo, who was inspired by an art exhibit held in Madrid under the same name, by queer feminist Afro-Latino-American artist duo niv Acosta and Fannie Sosa. The space included a collectively created altar which had spiritual symbols, names of people the group wanted to commemorate, and a map of the Caribbean. Opening and closing rituals – influenced by Yoruba and other Caribbean practices – took place there everyday.

Siesta Negra provided an opportunity for activists to go beyond digital security to address the threats to their personal safety and well-being by utilizing healing justice frameworks and self-care techniques. “By recovering ancestral technologies and practices, and utilizing them simultaneously with current ones, we can build in a context more accurate to our own geographies. I truly believe that these ancestral practices can also guide our actions toward more successful outcomes. Rather than glorifying stress, over-work, and sacrifice, we can bring back better self-care practices that will then allow us to remain stronger and better connected with each other,” said Tasmy from grantee partner CMS.

In other sessions, activists had the opportunity to have open dialogues on often ‘taboo’ or silenced subjects such as the effects of racial dynamics and anti-blackness across the region, or the specific challenges and threats faced by trans folks, even within the LGBTQI+ community. Facilitators held conversations about race in the Caribbean, creating space for people to share personal experiences around discrimination and rights. The conversation aimed to give participants an opportunity to collaboratively respond to the challenges they face, and envision possible solutions and strategies for fighting back against violence.

Mujeres al Borde from Colombia also facilitated a video sharing session that reflected the lived experiences of queer and gender non-conforming people in the country. Participants were encouraged to exchange personal stories about how they imagined and understood their erotic selves and sexualities. This sparked conversations about the power of storytelling from those often at the margins, and the importance of visibility.

With digital and online campaigns comprising a major component of organizing today, the convening combined these dialogues with workshops where activists shared software, online tips, and expertise – leaving the convening with fresh ideas, skills, and tools.

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* Astraea’s CommsLabs is a radical global movement-building initiative that equips LGBTQI activists with the tools, skills and knowledge they need to securely organize and advocate in online spaces. Through a series of regional or country-based convenings, each Lab connects local LGBTQI activists, trainers, healers and technologists in an effort to address the online and offline threats facing LGBTQI communities, and seize the opportunities technology presents. To date, we have held four convenings: two in Africa, and one each in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, and a forthcoming convening is planned to take place in the United States in 2019.

Learn more about the convening in our video below: