In this Locust Radio “Special Report” — a preview of a segment from forthcoming episode twenty-one — we discuss organizing mutual aid and solidarity with trans and queer persons being forced to flee the increasingly draconian laws and regulations being put forward (and often passed) across the country. According to some studies, as many as 130,000 to 260,000 queer and trans people have already been displaced, with hundreds of thousands more considering relocation. We are releasing this segment early because of the urgency of the crisis and in the hope of building solidarity.

The Carbondale Assembly on Radical Equity (or CARE) was formed in early 2023 in Carbondale, Illinois as a multi-tendency coalition of the different activists, organizers, and leftists in town. One of the things CARE has focused on is gender refugees relocating to Carbondale. Carbondale is, to borrow from mainstream terms, the bluest town at the southernmost tip of a blue state, jutting into increasingly hostile territory — a fact that has also led to the relocation from “red states” of gender affirming and reproductive care clinics to the city. 

On Sunday, July 2nd, Tish and Adam interviewed two CARE organizers to discuss what led to the forming of the assembly, the mutual aid it facilitates, how folks can start projects similar to CARE in other relatively safe areas, how folks can reach out to CARE, and how to support the work CARE is doing. We also touch base on the overall fight against the fascist onslaught against trans and queer persons. 

Our guests are Cassandra, “a forty-year-old transfeminine nonbinary anarcho-communist redneck from Kentucky who has spent the past several years involved in queer liberation action and grassroots organization for causes that promote equity, emancipation, and challenge unjust authority. Her pronouns are she/her and they/them”; and Mattie Stearns, “a nonbinary libertarian socialist j20 defendant, organizing in Carbondale for about ten years, and life-long resident of Carbondale. They are going to school to become a venture socialist. They are a general trouble-maker.” 

You can reach out to CARE at [email protected] or by messaging the CARE Facebook page. You can donate to CARE by making a donation on the Carbondale Rainbow Cafe website and writing “CARE” in the memo box. Or you can send a check by mail to Rainbow Cafe, 118 N. Illinois Avenue, Carbondale, IL 62901, and write “CARE” in the memo line. 

The closing music for this special report is “I Hate Illinois Nazis” by Pet Mosquito. 

Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura-Fair Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet. The opening theme is by Omnia Sol, with sound editing by Drew Franzblau. Locust Radio is a project of the Locust Arts and Letters Collective, which also publishes Locust Review and Imago. To support Locust Radio become a Locust patron.