Ecological justice is a key focus of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Lavender Phoenix (LavNix), which builds trans, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islander (QTAPI) empowerment. Through organizing in the Bay Area, the organization inspires and trains grassroots leaders, transforms values from scarcity to abundance, and strengthens and upholds vibrant movements.
Ecological justice is one of five areas of interest within LavNix, which began in 2004 as a response to a 6,000-person rally to attack marriage equality held by Chinese Christian leaders in San Francisco. Initially named the Asian Pacific American Coalition for Equality (APACE), then API Equality, and then APIENC, LavNix evolved to become an emergent national coalition of QTAPI people and allies focused on storytelling, organizing, and advocacy. The other four areas of focus for the organization are: leadership development, community safety, healing & care, and movement building.
Lavender Phoenix Ecological Justice League
The goal of LavNix’s Ecological Justice League is to bring together and inspire QTAPI people in the San Francisco Bay Area to engage and take action to stop climate, environmental, and ecological injustices, particularly as they affect Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC)in the Bay Area and worldwide.
In the summer of 2018, LavNix members began to critically discuss the place of QTAPI identity and experience within environmental and climate justice movements. The Ecological Justice League (EJL) formed shortly after as a means for QTAPIs to show up collectively during this intense period of climate catastrophe. Some of EJL’s first actions in September 2018 centered on supporting frontline communities and grassroots activists most impacted by climate disaster as they mobilized to disrupt closed-door meetings between politicians and business leaders.
Following these initial mobilizations, the group began gathering monthly and decided to prioritize shared political education and internal learning around the underpinnings of climate catastrophe. Inspired by organizations such as Movement Generation and Sunrise Movement, the group focused on local BIPOC-led organizing, rooted in a commitment to real solutions and relationship-building.
Although the league began under the name “Think and Take Action Cohort,” living through the devastating pandemic and early fire season of 2020 emboldened members to rename the group to the Ecological Justice League. This was more than a name change; it was an intentional choice to pay homage to the visionary, political framework of ecological justice, where all people are committed to the shared stewardship and health of all our ecosystems.
The following are five specific goals of the LavNix Ecological Justice League:
1. Educate ourselves and our communities, as QTAPIs, on the impacts of ecological injustices particularly on BIPOC living in the SF Bay Area and worldwide, in a way that is accessible, hopeful, and fun, and builds community.
2. Build and support the leadership of QTAPI community members to take on and support real, rather than false, solutions for climate change and to act collectively as a unique voice in larger movements for climate, environmental, and ecological justice.
3. Provide support as allies and coalition partners to other SF Bay Area BIPOC who are working to end climate and environmental injustices.
4. Engage with grassroots community leaders and members of local regenerative economies to promote climate justice. Challenge and work to dismantle the destructive businesses and state policies that are harming our communities and ecosystems.
5. Build capacity in larger climate, environmental, and ecological justice movements to address and dismantle the systems of ableism, racism, classism, and misogyny that disproportionately impact queer and trans people.
To learn more about LavNix and the Ecological Justice League, we reached out to the organization’s Director, Yuan Wang (she/they).
San Francisco Bay Times: How did you first get involved with LavNix?
Yuan Wang: I joined the organization in 2018 as part of the Summer Organizer Program—LavNix’s annual fellowship to develop young transgender and queer Asian and Pacific Islander leaders. When I joined the organization, so many people across generations in our community mentored me: from Sammie Ablaza Wills (our then-Director), to Vince Crisostomo (a pioneer in the queer and trans API community), to the other fellows in the program with me. These folks and others continue to guide and teach me. When I joined the organization, I expected to learn concrete skills that help our community build safety and power, from how to structure a campaign to how to lead a training and more. I did! But beyond that, I also learned how to show up in social change work and in this world as a full person, with no identities left at the door. That summer, LavNix members trained me in skills I’d never considered before: how to identify my needs and ask for help, how to welcome someone fully into a community, how to use history as a tool to help us win a brighter future. I stayed in the organization as our Trans Justice Community Organizer, then became the Director in 2021.
San Francisco Bay Times: What is the connection between LavNix and the powerful civil rights organization Chinese for Affirmative Action (https://caasf.org/)?
Yuan Wang: Chinese for Affirmative Action is our fiscal sponsor and supports our backend work.
San Francisco Bay Times: Tell us more about LavNix’s major areas of work.
Yuan Wang: When it comes to the major areas of our work, some of our current goals include: launching the first-ever Transgender & Non-Binary API Peer Counseling Program (with over 37 counselors signed up!); training transgender and queer APIs on crisis and violence-intervention skills to disrupt interpersonal harm; launching the Dragon Fruit Museum, an online digital sanctuary of more than 100 oral histories from transgender and queer APIs in the Bay Area; leading the 14th year of our Summer Organizer Program to develop new, young transgender and queer API leaders; and so much more.
San Francisco Bay Times: Please also share more about the LavNix Ecological Justice League.
Yuan Wang: Ecological justice is central to the way LavNix works. We believe our ultimate responsibility as organizers is to help humans come into right relationship with each other and with the Earth—to move away from economies and cultures that are extractive, destructive, and driven by scarcity, and towards communities that are regenerative, healing, and rooted in abundance.
San Francisco Bay Times: Your bio mentions, in part, that you were “born on Ohlone land in Fremont.” The bios of some of your other team members refer to Native American lands as well. It is powerful to consider that all of us live on former long-established Native American lands, with those tribes being part of the extended AAPI community. Why do you think it is important to preserve and honor the Bay Area’s (and other regions’) Native American histories, and how might those help to inform our present response to environmental challenges?
Yuan Wang: The Bay Area is indigenous land. Our office in San Francisco and our work is situated on the ancestral, unceded land of the Ramaytush Ohlone people. This land continues to be of great importance to the Ohlone people. All of our work and the lives of people in the Bay Area benefit from the use and occupation of this land. We hope to affirm sovereignty and power of Indigenous people here through our work.
For more information: https://lavenderphoenix.org/
Published on April 6, 2023
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