The Guardian: 'We are resilient': the activist sheltering trans people in Trump's America
When the pandemic hit New Orleans, Mariah Moore knew that vulnerable members of her community couldn’t wait for stimulus checks.
The 32-year-old organizer and other trans activists launched an emergency Covid crisis fund, raising more than $20,000 for transgender and gender-nonconforming Louisianans at risk – sex workers, the newly unemployed, undocumented residents, unhoused people and others on the margins.
The success of the mutual aid project inspired her to think bigger: Moore is now in the process of launching House of Tulip, the state’s first residential refuge for trans and non-binary residents.
“I realized that if we could raise and redistribute $20,000 in a month, then we could build something that will last a lifetime,” she said.