Government abandonment is not unprecedented—but it can be unexpected. When systems withdraw support, survival depends on intimate community-built frameworks of care. Black queer and trans communities have long relied on intimacy frameworks such as mutual aid as strategies of resistance, harm reduction and collective safety. These practices are necessary in and out of crisis to imagine new worlds removed from what is dictated by the state. Our Black queer and trans ancestors have modeled a type of mad love rooted in a refusal to accept the world as it exists and instead demand the worlds we need.

Marsha P. Johnson, known for her role in the Stonewall Riots, illustrates this in the co-founding of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) House which provided shelter, safety, and community for houseless queer and trans youth, many of color. Understanding how queer and trans bodies are brutalized and harassed by police, Johnson and Sylvia used what they earned as sex workers to fund different living spaces (including a mobile truck!), while the youth were tasked with securing food. STAR’s mutual aid framework, between and amongst generations, operated in dialogue with Black Power movement programs—such as the Black Panther free breakfast programs, health clinics, and political education initiatives. Like many Black Power icons, Marsha P. Johnson was targeted and taken from us, in a time when government systems refused to prioritize the needs of our communities. Today, many continue to practice mutual aid, building on the intimate frameworks of our Black queer and trans ancestors. Oftentimes, critics refer to Marsha as mad, due to the non-linearity in her Stonewall recounts; however, Marsha would likely remark, “just because I’m crazy doesn’t mean I’m wrong!” There is much to learn from Marsha’s madness and mad love particularly, her refusal, compassion and insistence on community survival. 

This workshop will be offered at the 2026 Queer and Trans History Conference.