QueerAid-NYC - Community Agreements + Values: 


What: We are building something ancient and futuristic. A queer resource commons, and a living archive of care that transmits across time and space. A Constellation of Care, Held by and For Us. A library of survival. A blueprint for thriving. Rooted in mutual aid, abolition, and community power.

Why: An urgent creative and collective response to Trump’s Amerikkka: to the transphobia, queerphobia, violence, and harm attacking our communities.


1. We act from collective care and shared survival. Our work is grounded in interdependence. When we resource one another, we build a future where surviving and thriving is accessible

2. We center Black, Brown, Indigenous, trans and gender-expansive people, always. This work exists because of our brilliance, resistance, and need. These are resources for Black and system-impacted people. By us, for us.

3. We do not support, collaborate with, or rely on law enforcement or any systems directly perpetuating state violence. We are abolitionists. Our care networks are designed to replace—not reform—systems that cage, harm,  surveil, and discard us.

4. Relationships are our strongest infrastructure. Queer and TGNCI survival has always depended on relationships. We build trust and networks to keep us safe. We are soft on each other and hard on the systems that harm us. In a world that isolates and criminalizes us, we choose connection as a strategy for resilience, safety, and transformation.

5. We name power and move accordingly. We stay alert to oppression and power dynamics, and act with intention and direct communication. We commit to conflict transformation and repair through a restorative lens, and we redistribute not just money, but time, space, labor, visibility, and care. 

6. We engage in radical resourcing as resistance. Mutual aid is how we meet needs now. We don’t wait for permission - we move the resources ourselves.

7. We speak from our own experiences and move in good faith. We don’t speak for communities. We move with them. We center lived experience, practice deep listening, and enter community spaces with intention, accountability, and care. 

8. You are part of an ancestral legacy of collective care. Queer and TGNCI people have always created strategies for survival rooted in mutual aid, kinship, and resistance. We affirm that asking for and offering support is a form of courage, and a continuation of the care that has sustained us across generations.

9. We dream beyond scarcity towards abundance. We redistribute, share, and provide because we dream bigger than scarcity. We are imagining—and resourcing—a world where we all get to thrive. Our mutual aid is strategic, collective, and rooted in the belief that there is enough for all of us.

10. These resources are incomplete. This is a constellation, not a complete list. Resources and community are inherently infinite, and some forms of care are too sacred to name aloud. As Shira Hassan teaches, some resources are above ground - meant to be shared widely - while others live below ground, protected by intention, context, and trust. We are mindful not to expose what could be spoiled by the current climate. These agreements are alive. They respond to harm, shift with need, and evolve through community.

more on the why:

  1. LGBTQ+ New Yorkers experience higher rates of mental health distress.
    We believe resourcing is resistance. Access to care, connection, and creativity helps us not only survive—but thrive.
  2. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Mental Health Outcomes Among LGBTQ+ Adults in New York City (2023)
  3. The Trevor Project, 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health – New York, Reports that in New York state, 58% of LGBTQ youth who sought mental‑health care in the past year were unable to get it; 50%+ of transgender & non‑binary youth considered suicide.
  4. “Black Queer and Trans People are Re‑Configuring Mutual Aid as We Know It” (C Preview, August 2022)