We are a small but mighty team deeply committed to the Richmond Queer and Trans Community.

We believe our queer community has boundless diversity, joy, complexity, power, and deep wells of care and support for each other.

We believe our community already has the tools, strengths, questions and connections it needs to take care of each other. We seek to build together, and prioritize the needs of our community in all that we do.

We believe we deserve a space dedicated to this type of community building. Our goal is a physical space rooted in cross-movement building, radical relationships, mutual aid, queer joy, and genuine community building.

We seek to rethink the divide between “those in need” and “those who provide”. We rely on one another, we all help one another, we all have expertise and value to share, and we encourage reciprocal relationships, shared power, and trust amongst all of our members.

In doing this work, we strongly believe in: 

• Those who experience oppression are best suited to lead the way towards liberation. We center those most marginalized, and believe that each person has expertise and value to offer. 

• Surviving and thriving are not mutually exclusive. We seek to create spaces that honor the importance of joy, pleasure, and connection as well as ensuring all of our needs are met.

• Adaptation is strength. We recognize the critical need to stay in constant conversation with our surrounding community. We honor that our community will have differing, sometimes competing needs, and we don’t shy away from those conversations. 

• Interdependence is key. We all have different positionalities of power. We value honesty and invite accountability about this. Our work is more successful when we support each other’s growth. We stand in solidarity with other movements towards collective liberation, and believe all our work is stronger when we move together. 

• Transparency means honesty, sharing our mistakes, taking accountability for harm, open conversations, and prioritizing relationships over power. 

• To create a space where all can find healing, joy, and community we must be vigilant against all forms of oppression. This includes, but is not limited to, racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism (regarding both physical and mental abilities), mental health discrimination, white supremacy, and classism.

• We won’t always have the best answers right away. Even when we endeavor to create equity, share collective power and show up authentically, we sometimes fumble towards solutions. We invite everyone into this process collectively.

• These values ground us and inspire us. This organization is made up as humans, and we will embody them imperfectly. We commit to constantly returning to this foundation and welcome accountability.