Beyond Bricks & Bars

Each month the Incarcerated Trans and Gender Diverse Fund assists over 50 TGD people currently in prison across so called “Australia” with prison account payments. We send at minimum $100 up to $140 to our community in solitary confinement conditions. To sustain this support, $5000 of donations is needed per month. As a committee of TGD people we undertake this support as volunteers, with the backing of community donations. We navigate the complexities of each state jurisdiction, often requiring permission for every individual to receive payments from the authorities that be at each prison. We do this because we know how critical this support is. We know these payments are the difference between our community inside being able to make a phone call, write a letter, buy a razor, a bra, underwear or simply some bickies for their tea. It may not get someone out of prison right now, but it can be the difference between getting thru another day inside and surviving to make it back out. We have also provided post-release payments, to support TGD people to rebuild their life after prison. However, the ITGD fund is currently too low to continue these payments right now and also maintain assistance to our community still inside. We are calling on community to become monthly donors - no matter how small, to maintain this life-saving support inside and restart support for TGD community returning home. Please share, please donate and lets keep building the world we all need together. Donations to the Incarcerated Trans and Gender Diverse Fund be made directly to our Bank Australia Community Account: Incarcerated TGD Fund BSB: 313-140 Acc Number: 12295586

Thank you for backing BBB this @giveoutday_au 🏳️‍⚧️❤️🔥 At a time when the rights and identities of incarcerated trans and gender diverse people are under attack, community solidarity and care is needed now more than ever.

 As a project founded in abolition we believe all people deserve care and support.
When we centre those most marginalised and targeted by carceral systems, we build the conditions for everyone to thrive. Community care, justice and solidarity are fundamental to all aspects of our work.

The reality is prisons are one of the most rigidly binary systems within our society. This makes them inherently violent for our community. The vast majority of trans people in prison are trans women, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sistergirls and gender diverse people disproportionately imprisoned due to targeted policing, systemic racism, and transmisogyny. Across so-called Australia, trans women are still placed in men’s prisons, a site of violence. Many are survivors of sexual and physical violence as a direct result of placement within the men’s system. For the very few allowed in women’s prisons, solitary confinement remains routine, a practice internationally recognised as torture. We have witnessed this firsthand for far too many trans women. We stand in unwavering solidarity with all criminalised and incarcerated trans and gender diverse people. We reject transphobic attacks like those made by NT Chief Minister Finocchiaro, and all politics that weaponise our lives for power. Trans women are women. Trans identities are not up for debate. We will not allow criminalised and incarcerated people to be dehumanised and used for political point scoring.

 FOLLOW AND SUPPORT: @vital_collective_mparntwe 
@justice.not.jails DONATE TO: INCARCERATED TRANS & GENDER DIVERSE FUND @incarceratedtgdfund BSB: 313 140 ACC NO: 122 955 86

🚨🏳️‍⚧️🚨 BBB recruitment alert 🚨🏳️‍⚧️🚨 We are extremely excited to welcome a new BBB team member! We are looking for a highly motivated, organised and values-aligned trans or gender diverse (TGD) community or social worker to provide direct support and advocacy alongside criminalised and incarcerated trans and gender diverse people. This role requires a skilled, passionate and dedicated worker with experience in support and advocacy that is grounded in gender affirming, decarceral and anti-racist feminist practice frameworks. The role is a 12-month fixed term contract at SCHADS Level 5, 0.8 FTE (4 days p/w) While we value relevant qualifications in social, health and legal services (e.g., social work, community services, counselling, healthcare), we are equally keen to hear from candidates with lived experience of the criminal legal system. You’ll bring a sound understanding of issues like substance use, mental health and trauma-responsive care. You must be confident and experienced in working alongside community who sit within multiple intersects of identity and marginalisation. You will be a strong advocate, ready to provide immediate support alongside criminalised and incarcerated trans and gender diverse community navigating complex systems and issues, from a person-centred, anti-carceral approach. APPLICATION LINK IN BIO ❤️🏳️‍⚧️⛓️‍💥

Omggg our TDOV fundraiser raised $1927 for @beyondbricksbars , a trans led decarceration project directly supporting vulnerable or imprisoned trans & gender diverse folk. Thank you sooo much to all the angels who came, donated, supported and celebrated on the day. This was huge 💓 An especially big gratitude to all these artists who gave their time to make the show possible 🪩 please connect with them, check out upcoming gigs and keep celebrating trans divinity - Nead - @neadnextdoor Six string sorcery - @jomalii Lexi Love - has an upcoming show as Permission Pig, June 12th tix on sale now @lexil0ve_new El Wilken - @el_beaux_ Manu Serje - @manu.serje Adam Doughty - @adam.niccky Tooth gems - @beyondentalsydney James Pearson - @jpearsonink Ocean - next show May 22nd @ocean_musician Malaika Mfalme - @malaikangelking Fio Gede Parma - @fiogedeparma she is magic and gifted so check out their website for offerings: Visibility is one thing, but it’s connection & community that matters most. We’re keen to keep doing that so reach out if you’d like to host the next backyard session or collaborate on projects with us xx

This Trans Day of Visibility, support initiatives that are building supports and safety for all trans and gender diverse people — leaving no one behind. 🩷🩵 The Incarcerated TGD Fund @incarceratedtgdfund provides material aid to TGD people in prison. 🩷🩵 Beyond Bricks and Bars @beyondbricksbars supports TGD people in Victoria to get out and stay out of prison. (See link in bio for the Equal Identities Report)

We are very sorry to announce that the @beyondbricksbars x @vixenworkers fundraiser needs to be postponed again, due to factors beyond our control. We aim to reschedule for later in the year 🙏🏼🏳️‍⚧️❤️ Any tickets purchased will be refunded. We will be sure to keep you updated with deets when we lock it in ⛓️‍💥

The Beyond Bricks & Bars team are a tiny, but mighty all trans and gender diverse multidisciplinary health team. Together they bring a range of specialist knowledge, skills and experience - underpinned by a deep commitment to community, care and anti-carceral principles and practice. Jem Light (they/them - pictured left) is a registered nurse with years of specialised expertise in supporting community using substances, managing addiction and harm reduction practices. Harrie Neilsen (they/them - pictured right) is an occupational therapist with years of specialised expertise working alongside community who are neurodiverse and managing complex mental health experiences. Witt Gorrie (he/they - pictured in the middle) is a social worker who has supported community and their families impacted by criminalisation and incarceration for over 14 years. In these truly unprecedented and heartbreaking times, the BBB team continue to show up and fight alongside our community who have been criminalised day in and day out. This week alone the team supported 3 women to get out of prison ahead of Christmas ❤️🎄 As another year comes to a close Beyond Bricks & Bars will continue to show up, support and advocate alongside all trans and gender diverse community inside and out, until we are all free 🏳️‍⚧️⛓️‍💥

Stacey and Witt were on Gadigal country today to meet with the United Nations’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. In Victoria and across Australia, the overwhelming majority of trans and gender diverse people who end up in prison are trans women, with Aboriginal trans women and Sistergirls disproportionately represented. In particular trans women managing complex mental health experiences as a result of trauma, who are neurodiverse or have an acquired brain injury.   This is not a coincidence and it is not a mistake. It reflects the way transmisogyny, racism, colonial policing, ablism and criminalisation work together to funnel certain bodies into cages. This is the prison system doing exactly what it was built to do.    Prisons are unsafe for everyone, because they are designed to be. But they are especially unsafe for trans people. Trans bodies are treated not as people deserving of dignity but as administrative problems—problems to be contained, isolated, or invisiblised—because they disrupt the rigid, violent gender binary that prisons rely upon. 
  Policy suggests that trans women may be “offered a choice” of placement. If a “choice” is offered, trans women in the women’s system are placed in solitary confinement based on a presumed risk, while trans women in the men’s system are placed into guaranteed risk. Their lives are treated as expendable. Their identities are treated as disposable.  A choice between arbitrary forms of harm is not a real choice at all.  
 This violence is not an anomaly. It is the logic of imprisonment. And it is precisely the kind of discriminatory, arbitrary deprivation of liberty that the UN framework should seek to expose—and what our service exists to dismantle. 
 We know in our daily practice and service delivery that real safety comes from community care, connection, accessible and available housing, healthcare and education—not from cages, not from isolation and not from systems designed to enact and perpetuate harm.

Gia and Witt presented at the Victorian Legal Aid - Criminal Connections conference today to hundreds of criminal defence lawyers. They spoke of the rise in trans and gender diverse people being held for long periods in police custody since the bail law backflip. The reality and serious risks trans community, especially women, face in police and prison custody. And called for lawyers to use their power and privilege to hold systems to account and fight for decarceration always.

Talking to camera makes me feel awkward as all hell, but I’d do anything for @beyondbricksbars ! Let’s do what we can to support them for this @giveoutday_au so they can continue to do their life-saving work with incarcerated trans & gender diverse community members. Link in stories and bio

@giveoutday_au is just 3 days away! Please share, donate and get behind Beyond Bricks & Bars life-saving support and advocacy alongside currently and formerly incarcerated trans and gender diverse community. All donations up to $1750 will be doubled! Big love and respect to the other campaigns running. We’d like to give a big shout out to three in particular: @transjusticeau All Nations Housing Co-Op @languagejusticenetwork Lesss run it up!! 🏳️‍⚧️💕

Beyond Bricks & Bars provides direct support, care and advocacy alongside trans and gender diverse community currently and formerly incarcerated, and those at high risk - focused on addressing the root causes of criminalisation and ensuring our communities survival inside and outside of the prison walls. This @giveoutday_au we are calling on your support to ensure our critical and all too often life-saving work can continue. Please share and donate, with all donations up to $1750 matched! Link in our bio 💘🔥🏳️‍⚧️