“It’s Revolutionary To Connect With Love”: Kinship, Extralegality, and Utopia in Trans Liberation Movements

By Amira Lundy-Harris '16

Thesis Advisor: Professor Aneeka Henderson

Abstract: This project explores what models of trans activism are possible within the context of kinship networks in queer and transgender communities of color that challenge injustice in the present but also present a vision for the future. My research focuses on the ways in which kinship networks provide the opportunity for people to create spaces of utopia, using extralegal means. This project seeks to elucidate how queer kinship networks serve as the structures through which young queer and transgender people of color come together to create sites of resistance, which seek justice, protection, love and recognition. In order to explore the ways in which queer kinship, extralegality, and utopia-making relate to each other, I examine two case studies. The first case study is of The Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (also known as STAR), a group of trans and gender non-conforming people formed by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson in 1970 in New York City. The second case study is of Bash Back!, a network of affiliated queer and trans anarchist activist projects across the United States between the years 2007 and 2011. Through the case studies of Bash Back! and STAR, I explore how queer and trans-identified people of color use kinship networks to create extralegal sites of resistance in order to seek justice for the interpersonal and structural violence they experience daily. I examine how STAR and Bash Back!, create ephemeral moments of utopia in the context of the present, through kinship and actions outside the legal structure. Members of Bash Back! and STAR both fought the multiple forms of violence marginalized queer and trans people face daily through tactics ranging from looting to attacking queerbashers. Using these case studies, I analyze the ways in which organizations provide the support and protection its members need to survive the macro- and micro- forms of violence they face daily. This project unmasks the insurrectionary potential of the declaration that those most marginalized by the law are worthy of love, recognition, justice, and protection.