Panelists for the event included Nsambu Za Suekama and Zy’aire, and was moderated by Ky Peterson.
The event was named after “To The Ones Who Can Fly: A Message from the Whirlwind”, a reader’s manual and suggestions by Nsambu Za Suekama for organizing study groups around this pamphlet in your circles, community, and across prison walls.
About the panelists: Nsambu Za Suekama (“a blessing in disguise,” or “Bl3ssing,” for short) is a Black transfeminine metagorl who loves jazz, hip hop, the Blues, poetry, and laughter. She has been involved with theatre and environmentalism since high school, based off a lifelong interest in the arts and sciences. Bl3ssing was politically activated by the Black nationalist and abolitionist elements of BLM (black lives matter). They try to harness their creative and ecological background in radical spaces, to help combat bioessentialist views of gender, race, disability, etc.” You can read “To The Ones Who Can Fly” here: https://trueleappress.com/2021/03/01/…
Zy’aire is a nurturing, caring and loving young man from Inglewood. He spent his adult life held hostage by the prison industrial complex at Central California Women’s Facility, Valley State Prison, and California Institution for Women. He is TGI Justice Project’s re-entry legal assistant and is doing an amazing job continuing the work he was doing from the inside.
Ky Peterson, grew up in a small South Georgia farming town. He has a loving nature that comes from the love of his Grandma Molly and the support of his Mom. Ky loves to stay busy. Even as a child, Ky worked hard to help his family and in his free time, he volunteered at a local assisted living home. When Ky turned 17, hard times hit the family, and he was forced to drop out of school, getting a job to help support his 3 younger siblings. His life was forever changed in 2011 when he was held hostage by the prison industrial complex in Georgia, Pulaski state prison for 8 years and 9 months.
This event was apart of TGI Justice and Black Women Radicals collaboration for Transgender Week of Awareness and Transgender Day of Remembrance. About TGI Justice x BWR Transgender Week of Awareness & TDOR Collaboration Annually between November 13-19th, countless around the world participate in Transgender Week of Awareness to help raise awareness and visibility about transgender people and to address issues members of the community face. Annually on November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), which is an observance and commemoration that honors the memories and legacies of transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of transphobic violence. This year, TGI Justice Project and Black Women Radicals are teaming up to honor and celebrate Black trans women, girls, gender expansive people who have, are, and will always be at the forefront of radical movement building. Moreover, this collaboration commemorates Black transgender and gender expansive people whose lives have been lost due to transphobia, anti-Blackness, economic and socio-political injustices, and oppressions. This collaboration seeks to celebrate and commemorate Black trans lives today and everyday.
