TPI Teams & Committees

Trans Pride Initiative is organized as a collective comprised of teams and committees, with the collective being where organizational decisions are made, and committees being where most of our work is done. The following table provides the general structure and satus of the organization.

TPI does not have adequate involvement to implement this sturcture at this time, so implementation is a goal rather than current status. We welcome applications to activate committees with project proposals that meet our mission and goals, and we can provide funding to support committee work. Please contact us if you would like to submit a proposal.

Team	Committee	Status	Description
Board		Active	Conducts administrative oversight of TPI operations.
			If interested in serving on our board, please see our bylaws for information about the essential board positions. We currently need officers serving as secretary and treasurer, which would be board members as well. Other board members would be sought once those positions are filled. TPI Bylaws Board and officer position descriptions
Action Team
	Prison Support Committee	Active	Provides support for incarcerated persons through letter writing and advocacy. Most of TPI's efforts currently are in prison support. Our active work includes exchanging letters with primarily trans and queer prisoners, and data collection realted to violence identified in correspondence. If you would like more information or to get involved in our prison letter writing work, please send an email to let us know and we will provide more information We must continue to build capacity for letter responses, but additional work we would like to pursue incudes analysis of our data and report development, support programs for incarcerated indigent persons, public information act requests to collect additional information from government agencies contributing to violence against Texas prisoners, development of trans affirming self-help resources sexual abuse survivors in prisons, and similar efforts.
	Healthcare Committee	Not Active	Healthcare advocacy and services such as appointment accompaniment and management of the Trans Health Empowerment web site. Harm reduction supplies and support.
	Housing Committee	Not Active	Management of the Trans Shared Housing Program and other shelter services, as well as work with shelter providers to improve access to trans affirming shelter.
	Anti-Violence Committee	Not Active	Survivor support, safety education, NCAVP reporting, reducing the negative impacts of policing and the &lquot;justice system&rquot; on trans individuuals and communities.
	Employment Committee	Not Active	Advocacy for full access to employment opportunities for trans persons.
	Education Committee	Not Active	Supports full access to education opportunities for trans persons.
	Direct Action Committee	Not Active	Organizes protests, demonstrations, and media events in support of all Action Team projects, as needed.
Fundraising Team		Active	Seeks grants and develop fundraising opportunities, as well as provide donor support.
			If interested in learning about and doing fundraising, when we have time we can work with persons who would like to learn more about fundraising do so using TPI fundraising efforts as examples and practice. If you would like to help TPI with our fundraising efforts, contact us by email and let us know how you would like to help and we can see if our needs are compatible.
Justice Education Team
	External Education Committee	Not Active	Provides training for outside organizations.
	Internal Empowerment Committee	Not Active	Provides TPI member training in social justice advocacy, theory, and praxis.
Movement Building Team
	Movement Coordination Committee	Not Active	Coordinate with other organizations through TPI member participation.
	Recruitment Committee	Not Active	Responsible for recruiting volunteers and members.

TPI Board

The Trans Pride Board is a required legal governance body. Its two main functions are: 1) to approve administrative decisions, and 2) to develop and maintain a grievance policy and hear grievances.

Action Team: Prison Support Committee

Our prison support work mainly involves writing letters in response to requests from incarcerated persons. The work also involves learning about prison issues and prison abolition, as well as how to successfully advocate for persons in the TDCJ system.

Currently, much our our work is done online, and we invite anyone who wants to help, participate in letter writing or sending birthday cards, or just join us to learn about prison advocacy and abolition to do so! You can join our mailing list and get weekly announcements about our meetings by visiting our email signup page (be sure to check the box for Special Subject: Prison Letters). This will get you the basic information you need to join us and start supporting our trans and queer siblings in prison!

Action Team: Healthcare Committee

The Healthcare Committee is currently inactive due to lack of participation. We have funding but need people to propose and implement and manage programs that meet our mission and goals.

The Healthcare Committee is intended to support and advocate for better access to healthcare for trans and gender diverse persons. In the past, we have accompanied trans persons on medical appointments as support, developed one of the nation's first sexual health web sites specifically addressing trans related risks and helped (we could use help updating and further developing and promoting), helped support student research, developed information resources and information sheets on the hazards of silicone injection, provided harm reduction support primarily meant for trans sex workers, and presented at health related conferences.

If you would like to join with us in furthering trans healthcare access, contact us to talk about involvement in the Healthcare Committee.

Action Team: Housing Committee

The Housing Committee is currently inactive due to lack of participation. We have funding but need people to propose and implement and manage programs that meet our mission and goals.

The Housing Committee is intended to support and advocate for better access to housing for trans and gender diverse persons. In the past, we have advocated for acceptance of trans persons based on gender identity at emergency shelters, transitional programs, and partner violence services. Although we do not prioritize policy, we have also worked on policy changes in some circumstances. We hve provided limited financial assistance when we have had access to reasonable affirming housing. We also operated a shared housing program from 2014 through 2017.

If you would like to join with us in furthering trans housing access, contact us to talk about involvement in the Housing Committee.

Action Team: Anti-Violence Committee

The Anti-Violence Committee is currently inactive due to lack of participation. We have funding but need people to propose and implement and manage programs that meet our mission and goals.

The Anti-Violence Committee is intended to both participate in national coordination efforts to document violence against LGBTQ and HIV+ persons, as well as to support and advocate for appropriate treatment of trans and gender diverse persons in anti-violence programs. Work with anti-violence shelters may overlap with Housing Committee work, and the Anti-Violence Committee may wish to work with the Healthcare Committee on some harm reduction efforts. And finally, TPI has pushed to have prison violence included in NCAVP reporting, with some limited success. We would like to increase our work with NCAVP to further that effort.

TPI is a member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP)), although we have not been active due to a lack of capacity since about 2017. NCAVP coordination includes documentation of local violence issues, working with the national office on data submission, attending online meetings, and an annual national conference.

TPI has also tried to foster a peer-run survivor support program; we have not found anyone willing to operate such an effort, but we are always open to suggestions along this line of work.

If you would like to join with us in building a better support system addressing anti-trans violence, contact us to talk about involvement in the Anti-Violence Committee.

Fundraising Team

The Fundraising Team plans community fundraising efforts and projects and seeks other sources of income such as grants. The focus is on self-support and avoiding involvement with large funders who might too restrictively define the work TPI does, yet the effort to identify sources of funding must acknowledge that working with some large grant providers is a necessity. Responsibilities include careful assessment of funder pros and cons and the development of ethical standards for acceptance of funds.

Justice Education Team

The Justice Education Team is currently inactive due to lack of participation. We have funding but need people to propose and implement and manage programs that meet our mission and goals.

The Justice Education Team would ideally be comprised of two committees, the External Education Committee, and the Internal Empowerment Committee.

External education would provide training to organizations and agencies outside TPI. Due to some of our negative experiences where training was used to cover up continuing abuses at other organizations, we now prefer to use training as a component of systemic changes in organizations, where the training comes after the changes have been approved and serve to help implement changes.

Internal education refers to training for TPI staff and volunteers and other community members in prison abolition, critical assessment of current topics and affairs, and other learning and training opportunities that help the community better survive and increase our own power and confidence.

If you would like to join with us in our efforts to improve education both outside and within our organization, please come talk to us about involvement in the Justice Education Team.

Movement Building Team

The Movement Building Team is currently inactive due to lack of participation. We have funding but need people to propose and implement and manage programs that meet our mission and goals.

The Movement Building Team would ideally be comprised of two committees, the Movement Coordination Committee, and the Recruitment Committee.

Movement coordination refers to efforts to have TPI members and volunteers actively go outside the organization to become involved with and support other organizations with missions and goals complementary to TPI's. This serves a two-fold purpose: 1) it gives us an opportunity to learn what other organizations are doing and avoid duplicate efforts, and 2) it improves community relations and fosters organizational exchange.

The Recruitment Committee is in charge of recruiting new volunteers and members to TPI.

If you would like to join with us in our efforts to grow our movement, please let us know and consider getting involved with the Movement Building Team.