Dear Friends,

I hope the beginning of 2022 has been a healthy, safe, and generative period for you and your communities. At Astraea, we began the year with a renewed focus on our transformative work. As we continue to navigate through challenging and uncertain times, Astraea is reinforcing our commitment to collective care and continuing our everyday work to build power and resilience with LGBTQI movements around the world.

I write to you as we reach the end of Black History Month – an annual month for reflection and appreciation to collectively pay tribute to Black communities across the U.S. and around the world, and to recognize their contributions and sacrifices in shaping our nation, and our world. 

We condemn the systemic racism that overtly and covertly perpetuates injustice in institutions and communities across the United States. The field of philanthropy itself is not immune to structural racism; we are acutely aware that we have much work to do to better practice our values of equity and justice within our own organization. This moment is an opportunity to elevate the fight for racial justice and honor the Black-led organizations and leaders who have given so much in the name of liberation and justice.

But our commitment extends far beyond the month of February. Astraea was founded on the principles of supporting lesbians and women of color and has a long-standing commitment to uplifting Black leaders and movements in the United States. LGBTQI People of Color battle historic and contemporary structural inequalities, as they live and work at the intersections of racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and classism. Astraea strengthens organizations and movements that acknowledge and fight these multiple barriers to self-determination. We stand on the shoulders of the Black, Indigenous, People of Color, trans, and queer movements that have come before us and are committed to supporting and resourcing sustainable movements. 

Last year, 97% of our U.S. funding supported queer and trans BIPOC-led groups, including grantees such as Law for Black Lives, BYP100, MediaJustice, Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, just to name a few. On top of that, 100% of our trans and gender nonconforming U.S. funding was for groups led by and for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. As our former staff member Sandy Nathan noted in her poignant blog post last year, “I am Black everyday: A reflection on Black History Month”, “these are our foundations, the legacy on which we build to ensure Black liberation, and indeed the liberation of all peoples and the healing of our planet.”

To celebrate the month this year and advocate for Black liberation, we launched the #BlackLGBTQIFutures campaign across our social media platforms, including Instagram and Twitter. We invite you to join us in sharing these stories and the stories of other Black heroes who have carried the torch for justice. We continue to work through our own internal challenges with racism and have begun the deep work to hold ourselves accountable for past mistakes and ask the tough questions, to help cultivate an inclusive, anti-racist, thoughtful and productive workplace culture and a community that authentically reflects our values. I’m humbled by your support and camaraderie in my first few months as Executive Director. I’m excited to work with each and every one of you to identify and resource radical movement leaders who are pushing for true equality. Let us lead with empathy as we fight for those who have been overlooked, underrepresented, silenced and disempowered. 

In Solidarity,
Joy Chia

Image credit: Intersex Community of Zimbabwe (ICoz)