FIERCE

FIERCE - New York, NY. 2000-2010

FIERCE is a membership-based organization building the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color in New York City.

Queer Pier: 40 Years is a new FIERCE initiative to mark the organization’s tenth anniversary. The project publicly documents the organization’s commitment to youth-led grassroots organizing, leadership development and critical thinking. In the process, the project demonstrates the value FIERCE places in its living archive. Queer Pier also traces four decades of radical politics, art-making and community-building on Manhattan's West Side, celebrating a vital history out of which the organization emerges.

Photo by Hiroko Masuike. Courtesy The New York Times

FIERCE: Organizing on the Queer Pier. 2000-2010

About FIERCE

FIERCE is a membership-based organization building the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color in New York City. We develop politically conscious leaders who are invested in improving ourselves and our communities through youth-led campaigns, leadership development programs, and cultural expression through arts and media. FIERCE is dedicated to cultivating the next generation of social justice movement leaders who are dedicated to ending all forms of oppression.

FIERCE hosted the first-ever LGBTQ Youth of Color Organizing summit at the Creating Change Conference in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday February 3, 2010.

Campaign Development

FIERCE is committed to exercising our power through strategic campaigns that win real victories for our communities. We ground our work within a long-term vision of changing the structures and root causes that give rise to the challenging conditions our communities face.

FIERCE has been able to change the terms of the public debate about quality of life and public safety in the West Village so that the voices of merchants and residents, politicians and police, are not the only ones that are heard.

Our S.P.O.T. (Safe Place to Organize Together) - Pier 40 Campaign

FIERCE is campaigning for a 24-hour LGBTQ drop-in center on Pier 40 (the pier directly south of the Christopher Street pier) to provide a set of holistic services young people of color in the West Village.

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Safe Space Saves Lives Campaign

In 2005, FIERCE launched our Safe Space Saves Lives Campaign to ensure the needs of LGBT youth of color were not forgotten in the wake of the development of the Christopher Street Pier.

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Cop Watch

Through our Copwatch program, FIERCE is committed to creating a West Village that is safe for everyone, especially LGBTQ youth of color who are often targeted by the police.

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Base Building

In order to create real social change in our communities, FIERCE believes we need to build a sizable membership base. We build our membership base through street outreach, monthly base-building events, and presentations at LGBTQ youth service organizations. To date, FIERCE has reached thousands of LGBTQ youth of color in NYC with our membership base exceeding 1000 LGBTQ youth of color.

FIERCE has developed our own unique style of outreach through established social networks and by engaging other LGBTQ youth in the language, culture and style that is specific to our community. FIERCE also has an Outreach Team, which consists of FIERCE members who are dedicated to building our membership base.

Leadership Development

In order to build the power of our community we have to build the leadership, political consciousness, and organizing skills of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color in New York City. FIERCE does this through our Education for Liberation Project (ELP).

ELP is a paid leadership development program which provides comprehensive community organizing, political education, and anti-oppression trainings to new and active members of FIERCE. ELP combines interactive workshops and practical hands-on experience in organizing.

Ultimately, ELP strives to help develop a new generation of community organizers dedicated to social justice work in historically underserved communities. This unique program provides a systematic way for LGBTQ youth to gather the self-esteem, skills, and knowledge required to effectively advocate to transform institutions that impact their lives.

Photo by Mango, FIERCE Alumnus

Movement Building

FIERCE engages in movement-building activites through participating in local and national alliances, networks, and coalitions that advance multi-issue progressive social change agendas which bring together many different communities.

LGBTQ Youth of Color Organizing Summit

On Wednesday February 3, 2010 FIERCE hosted a day-long organizing summit at the Creating Change Conference in Dallas, Texas. The summit worked to build the grassroots skills of LGBTQ youth of color who increasingly face homelessness, lack of safe public space, and violence. Over 30 LGBTQ youth of color from across the country experienced a fabulous interactive training space that covered organizing skills and strategies for how to build the political power of LGBTQ youth of color.

Click here to download a copy of the summit curriculum.

Right to the City (RTTC)

Right to the City Alliance (RTTC) is an alliance of organizations from across the country who came together in January 2007. We stand together to build a united response to gentrification and the drastic changes imposed on our cities.

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Media and Arts Activism

All too often the experiences of LGBTQ youth of color are left out of or misrepresented in the mainstream media. At FIERCE, we are committed to fostering a space where we are the actors in creating our own independent media.

FIERCE produces independent media and communications to reach our communities. Using video spots and documentaries, we promote our campaigns, educate people about our experiences, and build support for our work.

Challenging the relationship between cultural production and politics, FIERCE uses art-making and critical thinking to empower queer and trans youth, activating the role of the imagination in creating social change.

Member-produced videos

YouTube channel

FIERCE photos on Flickr

FIERCE blog

FIERCE: Building a Living Archive

"Queer Pier: 40 Years." 1970-2010

Initiated to celebrate FIERCE’s ten-year anniversary, Queer Pier: 40 Years is an arts-based archive project.

This project is designed to develop an infrastructure to incorporate archiving into FIERCE’s programming according to the values set by the organization’s mission.

The first public stage of Queer Pier, this page will document the living archive of FIERCE’s work by inviting individuals who have played a role in the political and arts community at the Piers to get involved in building its archive.

Queer Pier: 40 Years will culminate in a participatory exhibition of contemporary art at the end of 2010.

Photo by Alvin Baltrop. Courtesy The Alvin Baltrop Trust, New York

Get Involved

Initiated to celebrate FIERCE’s ten-year anniversary, "Queer Pier: 40 Years is an arts-based archive project.

Launching in late 2010 with a participatory exhibition of contemporary art, the project will also call for community submissions later this year. Check back here for more information. You can also visit us and support our work.

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Text written by FIERCE. Compiled for OutHistory.org by Andre Banks, Thomas J. Lax and Ellen Vaz.

Photos courtesy of FIERCE © 2010. All Rights Reserved.[[Category:New York City]