Welcome to a new chapter, and a new opportunity to build something radical from which future generations can benefit.

Our last essay for The Funambulist on copaganda and the coercing of Black and brown youth into police interactions, which first appeared online in August, will be republished in print for the magazine’s 39th issue The Ocean…From the Black Atlantic to the Sea of Islands. Today is the last day to preorder, so get your copy here!

Over the past six months we’ve been part of an advisory committee for the Transgender Law Center’s upcoming campaign #HateCrimeLawsArentTheAnswer. The project represents an effort to educate TGNC communities on why hate crime legislation harms the very populations it claims to protect, and to encourage abolitionist solutions to anti-trans violence—putting resources back in the hands of TGNC people, not police and prisons. While the campaign’s materials won’t drop for a few more weeks, this month we will record an accompanying conversation with other members of the advisory committee, introducing the project, breaking down why criminalization detracts from trans safety, and imagining the investments we truly deserve. We’ll update you here once all those materials are live.

The official release of Ricky Tucker’s And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community will occur on January 28th. The book from Beacon Press features a conversation between ourselves and legend Pony Zion on pedagogy, ballroom scene history, and our roads to and through vogue. We’re excited to get our copy, and hope you consider supporting Tucker’s work as well.

Many of our new year plans are on hold due to the increase in COVID cases. Get vaccinated, get your booster shot, and social distance as much as your life allows. We’ll check back in next month, hopefully in better spirits.

BH