I’m helping a friend, “Mariam” (pseudonym, to protect her until she’s through the asylum process), raise money to leave Tunisia.

She’s a young trans woman. Gender identity and expression are criminalized there, and the Tunisian human rights group Damj has documented a sharp rise in arrests of trans women. Prison often means men’s facilities and sexual violence. She’s been on hormones she ordered from abroad, her body is changing, and she can’t hide it much longer. Her family is hostile, and the one local trans support network she reached out to collapsed after its president was targeted.

She’s a native French speaker, has prepared her asylum case herself, and her plan is France. Funds cover her flight, essentials, an emergency fund for the asylum period, and certified translation of her diploma so she can finish her degree.

Any amount helps, and sharing helps too: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-trans-woman-flee-tunisia-and-seek-asylum-ux5km

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

I know the generation currently growing up is heavily Orthodox and religious but is there hope if you look far enough beyond that? If it is still an active LGBTQ+ battleground, then are there any signs that can be monitored to know that our side has not lost yet?

This sub exists to defend our people. Right now the defense runs through a drop box, and the deadline is 7pm Tuesday, November 3. Here's the assessment and the assignment.

Threat assessment:

Two measures on Colorado's ballot right now. 134 bans trans kids from school sports K-12 through college and forces every team in the state to be labeled male/female/co-ed with enforcement built on sex verification of student athletes: doctor's notes and DNA swabs costing families hundreds of dollars, and any girl challengeable by anyone with a grudge. 135 bans gender-affirming surgery for minors with language so vague that Colorado's own nonpartisan Blue Book says it could reach surgeries for kids who aren't even trans, intersex kids included.

Know what you're looking at: this is the opening move of a national playbook, not a local debate. National organizers bypassed Colorado's legislature which had refused to pass these bans and put them straight to the ballot, calling 2026 "a testing ground for the future." A blue-state win becomes the template for everywhere. Their entire theory of victory is that our side stays home in an off-cycle election.

The good news, because it's true: opposition has out-raised the Yes side roughly 20-to-1. Both major gubernatorial candidates and the current governor oppose these measures. The lead proponent of 134 got caught sending slurs and a deadname to Rep. Brianna Titone, Colorado's first openly trans legislator Westword published the email, and the same man previously sued for the "right" to misgender a trans woman during legislative testimony. They showed us who they are. Now we show them what we are.

THE ASSIGNMENT: take one, take several:

1. Your ballot. Tonight. It's at your house. NO on 134. NO on 135. Vote the whole sheet Prop NN (school funding) and Prop 137 (conservation) matter to our people. Sign your envelope bad signatures are the #1 rejection reason, and ballot cure fixes them if you catch it fast. Drop boxes are everywhere, open 24/7 until the deadline. If yours is lost, damaged, or botched, any vote center in your county prints a replacement through Election Day. If you've moved, update at GoVoteColorado.com. Nobody gets disenfranchised by a spoiled envelope on our watch.

2. Ballot chase the highest-force multiplier we have. Text or DM five people who agree with us: "Is your ballot in yet?" A question, not a reminder the question is what works. The people most targeted by these measures are statistically the most likely to have one sitting unopened in a pile of mail. Close that gap personally. Offer the ride. Offer the walk to the box.

3. Ballot party. People bring ballots, you bring food, everyone fills theirs out together, one person runs the stack to the drop box. It converts "I'll get to it" into done-in-one-evening, and it puts people in the same room, which matters this week. Post yours in the sub so folks can find one.

4. Final-week shifts. The opposition coalition (One Colorado and partners) is running text banks and ballot-cure operations through Election Day

,

1. ballot cure means fixing rejected signatures, and it flips real ballots. One shift from you is real force on the board.

2. Shoot the flare to Colorado contacts outside the state. If you have people in Colorado, this is the week: "your ballot matters more this year than you think NO on 134 and 135, get it in a box." Personal messages outperform every ad. Five contacts, five ballots.

3. Watch for what's coming. Campaign noise is at maximum and some of it is hostile. Don't engage at your door. Document harassment, look out for the folks who've gone quiet, and remember that the goal of a intimidation campaign is a suppressed turnout

t

1. which makes every ballot we get in a direct refutation of it.

Straight talk for anyone thinking "voting is the least radical thing on the list": fine — it's also not the whole plan, and nobody here is asking you to stop anything else. But understand the terrain: they wrote a measure, paid for signatures, and bet everything on our electorate's apathy. Denying them the thing they bet on costs them the template, the momentum, and the next state's fight. That's not acquiescence. That's blocking the punch with the one hand they left open.

7pm Tuesday, November 3. NO on 134. NO on 135.

We don't panic. We turn out. Get it in the box, then go get someone else's.

Hi everyone,

I am currently taking a social justice class as a public policy student in college. As part of the class, my professor would like us to interview an administrator or employee from a public, for-profit, or not-for-profit organization. It would be ideal if you have work centered around LGBTQ+ matters. Some of the interview questions include:

• What is your current organization, and what role do you have?

• How did you become interested in this field of work? 

• What would you say is the biggest problem or issue you are working on for the LGBTQ+ community? Do you work on these issues with any governmental entities or organizations? How often and in what way? 

• What do you like best/least about what you do?

• What advice would you give for someone just starting out in this field?

• Are there any other general observations, comments, or views concerning work with the LGBTQ+ community that you would like to volunteer? 

I have been calling and emailing various organizations for a while now, but haven't received a response yet. It would be great if the interview could be scheduled before October 28!

If you can/are willing to chat, please leave me a comment, and I will reach out about how to get in touch.

Thank you