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At TSC, we know that trans people are the most important experts on trans communities.
We know what challenges our communities are facing. We know what to do about them.
But we need resources in order to do that.
At TSC, the community leaders we work with every day are experts on their communities and on the work of their organizations.
TSC's main work is capacity-building: Providing trans community leaders, mainly BIPOC trans leaders, with expert coaches who can provide mentorship and support on projects to supercharge their organization's work. Organizations have received help on everything from budgeting to grantwriting, from board development to web design, from curriculum design to HR policies. Wherever a community leader needs expert help developing an area of their organization, we have a coach who can help.
Crucially, all of TSC's coaches are trans and/or nonbinary, and the majority of TSC's coaches are BIPOC. This is because expertise isn't just about skills, but also about understanding the context in which an organization is working, and making sure that everything about our approach is tailored to the needs of small community-based BIPOC trans-led organizations.
For example, expertise in corporate accounting may not mean expertise in helping a volunteer-led organization create a budget in line with its values. At TSC, expertise means lived experience, not just training.
TSC's expert coaches are experts not just on subject matter, but on how to apply that subject matter in the context of our organizations and movements.
Since 2017, TSC has worked with over 100 trans and nonbinary led organizations, the majority of which are BIPOC led and located in the US south.
In addition to our work leveraging various resources for these organizations, including funding and capacity-building, TSC is working to generate and share expertise about the most impactful strategies to grow small grassroots trans-led organizations from the ground up.
We know that some of the strategies and best practices that work for larger organizations or organizations working in other subject areas may not work for our organizations.
The question we need to answer is: What works best for grassroots BIPOC trans-led organizations that want to build up their work for long-term changemaking?
TSC is embarking on a major project to analyze data generated from our capacity building programs over the past 6 years to provide resources and tools to best answer this question and help our community organizations thrive.
Our culture devalues the expertise and knowledge of trans people in many different ways. Our deepest knowing about who we are is under attack.
Too often, our communities are spoken for instead of lifted up to speak for ourselves.
At TSC, we affirm that trans people are experts on the needs of trans communities. We also affirm that trans people are subject matter experts on the topic of trans communities and what trans communities need.
We welcome allies and support of all kinds, but the needs and expertise of BIPOC trans people are at the center of everything we do.
TSC's expert coaches bring a wealth of knowledge on everything from bookkeeping to conflict resolution, database design to arts for liberation, grant writing to videography. Their subject matter expertise blends with their understanding of community organizing to ensure that their methods and projects are tailored to the needs of each organization's work.
Trans communities have the answers.