Principles

NJNP core principles are extensive and by no means is this inclusive of all of our principles. NJNP believes and is dedicated to promoting strategies that:

– empower the most oppressed Trans community members;

– do not reinforce or legitimize systems and institutions that harm our community members including police, prisons, mass incarceration and modern slavery;

– divest from people, institutions and systems that harm us and invest in the people, institutions, systems and other models that support our liberation and empowerment;

– use a diversity of tactics to promote harm reduction, political education and non-cooperation as strategic visions;

– Understand if any of us had all of the answers we wouldn't be doing this shit.

NJNP believes in holistic solutions to the problems facing Trans and Queer communities that target systemic forces and root causes. 

NJNP believes that we will not be free until the most marginalized amongst us are free, and that by prioritizing solutions that support folks facing multiple intersecting forces of oppression will lead us all to liberation. 

Most importantly, we believe that those most impacted by these issues need to be the ones calling the shots.

In addition to the principles included here, NJNP practices DC’s local organizing principles!

We practice the DC Organizing Principles!

Talk to Local Organizers!

• Value the opinion of D.C. organizers and use those opinions to inform decisions about actions in D.C.
• Check in with and consult local organizers before planning events in our city.
• Include D.C. organizers in a meaningful way - Bring us into the decision making process.
• Understand the difference between nationally focused groups based in D.C. versus their local affiliate or a local group working on that issue in the local context. Make the effort to coordinate with locals working on the ground.

Advance Local Organizing!

• Be aware of the consequences of your actions and decisions - local organizers will deal with the repercussions from the police and other authorities long after you’re gone.
• Do your best to give support to local organizing - Empowering the local movement is building the movement as a whole.
• Include locally organized events and actions in your calendar for out-of-town activists.
• Ask local organizers how a national event can advance their work:
  • Provide a training for their group or speak at their event
  • Ask local organizers to speak at your event to connect local and national struggles
  • Have a strategy session to build relationships and share ideas
  • Add a local action to your mobilization plan
  • Add a local demand to your asks
• Realize that one-time deals - whether mobilizations or direct service opportunities - have only limited impact when sustained commitment is what is needed to make change.
• One measure of success for any action held in D.C. should be whether the local organizing on that issue has been advanced in a real way

Don’t Just Use Our City - Strengthen It!

• Support local businesses by buying tools and resources locally.
• Hire local organizers, trainers, artists, and activists when you have work in the area.
• Pay local organizers, trainers, artists, and activists a living wage.
• Attempt to leave the D.C. activist community stronger than when you came - there will always be a “next action” that will require similar resources, time, and energy provided by locals!

Read more here.