SONG’s vision, members, and the sense of community it can build at its best make it one of the most beloved LGBTQ and Black Feminist organizations in the United States. SONG has been studied, archived, and chronicled in many ways over the decades, but as we have continued to grow, we have often lacked interactive communications in real-time. If you cannot be with SONG in-person, how do you listen in? How do you take part? How do you stay in the SONG conversations and benefit from the wisdom of SONG’s people? If you are new to SONG and interested, where can you start?
One of the hallmarks of active membership in SONG is the gathering of souls, sharing of reads, collective analysis building, and political dialogue. Thousands of activists and organizers have shared long evenings together at SONG’s proverbial table. We have always been known for the containers we create for inter-generational organizing and subsequent dialogues ignited. We are also known for the interesting mix of callings and vocations of our members and the quality of conversations that occur when an organization attracts and unites the curious and dedicated: whether we be farmers, theologians, bartenders, sex workers, cooks, full-time parents, or writers. Among the SONG faithful, there are usually many stories of how a SONG conversation “changed my life”.
For all these reasons and more, we want to introduce to you: The Porch. A dialogue-based, story-centered podcast that brings SONG conversations to life through podcast.
Catch every episode wherever you get your podcasts — including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Amazon Music, and more. Just search for “The Porch SONG” to tune in anywhere you listen to podcasts. Don’t forget to rate and follow us on your favorite platform!
Episode 1: Liberation Begins
with Solidarity
Featuring Miss Major & Shelby Chestnut
In our first episode of The Porch, we sat down with trans elder and lifelong activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Shelby Chestnut, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center. The two discuss the unfolding hellscape in the United States since 48 took office and offer insights into the legal landscape, the fight ahead and how we win. The discussion highlights what we all know: while this moment of rising authoritarianism is different, we’ve been here before as a community and we got us.
Discussion Questions
- What means most to you about our people’s histories? What do you want to learn more about?
- What do you think about what Shelby said about why so many voted for Trump?
- What are your ideas about how our movements can center economic justice more?
- When was the first time you met a trans person? How did you feel? What did it mean to you?
- What are your best ideas for how we can “lean into community” like Shelby describes?
- Miss Major talks about one of her most famous love and organizing practices: the weekly short calls she makes to check on “her girls and guys”. Who do you call every week?
Guest Bios
Miss Major
Miss Major is a Black, transgender activist who has fought for over fifty years for her trans/gender nonconforming community. She is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a survivor of Dannemora Prison and Bellevue Hospital’s “queen tank.” Her global legacy of activism is rooted in her own experiences, and she continues her work to uplift transgender women of color, particularly those who have survived incarceration and police brutality.
Miss Major’s fierce commitment and intersectional approach to justice brought her to care directly for people with HIV/AIDS in New York in the early 1980s, and later to drive San Francisco’s first mobile needle exchange. As director of the TGI Justice Project, she’d return to prisons as a mentor to her ‘gurls’ inside. She now runs House of GG-TILIFI, a retreat center for trans and gender nonconforming leaders from the Southern U.S., in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her recent creative projects include executive producing the series Trans in Trumpland (now streaming everywhere), and Miss Major Speaks, a book on her life’s activism co-authored with Toshio Meronek (host of the podcast Sad Francisco), is out now from Verso Books.
To learn about the House of GGs and donate click here.
Check out Major!, the movie, a documentary about her life here.
Shelby Chestnut
Shelby Chestnut (they/he) is the executive director of Transgender Law Center, the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures. Chestnut has over 20 years of community organizing, policy advocacy, and leadership experience in the LGBTQ and anti-violence movements. They previously served for five years as TLC’s Director of Policy and Programs.
Chestnut has spearheaded leadership development and social change within and for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities throughout their career. While Director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy at the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) Chestnut was a part of steering committees and coalitions working on the passage and implementation of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and landmark New York City police reform legislation, the Right to Know Act (RTKA).They are a graduate of Antioch College and currently the chair of the Board of Trustees.
Chestnut is the first Native trans executive director of TLC and one of the first Native trans leaders to head a national LGBT organization.
To learn more about the Transgender Law Center, click here.
Read the Trans Agenda for Liberation here.
Episode 2:
Igniting The Kindred
Featuring Sam Master & Diamond Stylz
In our second episode of The Porch, we sat down with narrative activists Sam Master and Diamond Stylz to discuss queer and trans liberation in our lifetime. The two talk about their southern roots and the legacy of organizing passed down by women in their families, being a femme as a politic, as well as surviving American racial and gender apartheid. Sam and Diamond also call on marginalized people’s history of resilience as an antidote to this moment of learned helplessness and explore “igniting the kindred” as a recipe for our collective survival.
Discussion Questions
- What moments in your life that you have not chosen come to mind?
- How did you choose to handle those moments?
- What do you think about the idea of leaving no one behind?
- Do you believe we are capable of saving ourselves?
- Who are the unsung heroes in your community or crew?
- They talk about elders who joined and build organizations that changed their material conditions. What material conditions would you be willing to fight to shift for yourself and those you love?
- What do you think about this idea of not using our identities to close us off from each other?
Guest Bios
Sam Master
Sam Master is a Black queer feminist organizer, storyteller and educator from Baltimore, MD by way of PG County, MD.
Sam has organized at the intersections of racial, gender and LGBTQ justice for over 15 years including in the film, The New Black. She is a trainer with Midwest Academy and serves as the communications manager for Organizing Black, a collective of Black 18-35 year old direct action organizers in Baltimore City. She co-founded of #FreeBlackMamasDMV, a bail out project to decarcerate Black mothers and caretakers who cannot afford bail to reunite them with their families and their communities, and was a founding member of BYP100.
When she’s not reading, writing, and freedom-dreaming with her people, you can find her in the kitchen cooking up ways to feed the spirit and soul of her community.
Diamond Stylz
Diamond Stylz is one of the leading Black voices in the transgender community. She is a distinguished national leader serving as a board member of the largest trans led org in the country, Transgender Law Center, and Transgender District of San Francisco. She cut her teeth in activism in a 1999 First Amendment rights case when she was in high school. She was the first openly transgender woman to attend Jackson State University. She is the executive director of Marsha’s Plate Media Group, an advocacy group focused on building strong and effective Black trans leadership and socioeconomic power through communication and the arts. She is the first Black trans woman elected to be a Harris County Commissioner in Houston, TX. As a GLAAD and Scripps Howard award winner, She has appeared on CNN, ABC, BET and The Root, among others, and has written for a myriad of websites, magazines, and universities.
Website: http://www.DiamondStylz.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diamondstylz/
Marsha’s Plate Podcast: https://pod.link/1293033444
