What is Body Hack and How Does it Relate to Engagement Journalism?
Body Hack is a fundraiser event which pre-pandemic happened every third Thursday of the month at a witchy bar in Bushwick. It disguised itself as a party in order to incentivize people to donate money while drinking, dancing and having a generally fun time. This fundraiser-slash-party is meant to raise money for trans and nonbinary BIPOC who are in need of housing, gender affirming surgery, mental health resources, commissary funds, arts programing, and emergency microgrants, among other things.
Aside from collecting funds Body Hack has simultaneously created a fun and safe space for trans people that didn’t really really existed.
The needs of the community are plenty and Body Hack is meeting them with direct, monetary donations, no matter where in the world these people are. A lot of the funds collected at the monthly parties are meant for organizations or individuals based in The Caribbean, The Americans and/or Palestine.
Now that celebrating and building community in physical places is nearly impossible due to the pandemic, Body Hack’s organizers have moved their event online and thus far it has been a success. In their first ever digital fundraiser, Body Hack was able to raise $7500 out of their $10k goal, which was distributed equally between three trans-led organizations based in Peru, New York City and Ecuador. In their latest one, they raised 10k in one night and the funds got distributed between 11 different causes.
One of the many things that makes Body Hack special is how the organizers often talk about decentralizing the event and have even started hosting fundraising workshops and skills-shares. These are meant to redistribute the lessons and tactics they’ve gathered from hosting a number of successful fundraisers, and to share their collective knowledge with anyone interested in fundraising and doing direct impact community work.
Another aspect that makes Body Hack so unique is their “keeping fundraising fun and sexy” motto. For their digital fundraisers they’ve hosted community artists, performers, and DJ’s; dancing and nudity is highly encouraged for anyone participating, and if you’re watching, you can expect an array of great looking people smiling at you.
Much like Body Hack is mobilizing people to act and donate, I joined a graduate program in engagement journalism to gain vital skills and figure out how I can best work with members of my queer, nonbinary and trans community. I want to figure out the best strategies to help each other out; to take care of the most vulnerable of us and to use mutual aid and anti-capitalist practices as a means of survival, and as such, construct new ways of living.
Despite the resilience that is so representative of who we are, a lot of people in my community experience a daily struggle to get by or to access even the most basic means of survival. Needless to say it isn’t because of the choices we make, but because the way societies have been built to work against us. I see this day in and day out when I walk outside my Jackson Heights apartment, when I visit friends in their homes, when I see a performance, when I meet new people, and when I hear the stories of queer and trans elders who have been doing the work for far longer than I’ve been alive.
It is no easy task and I’m often in awe at the perseverance and talent I see all around me, talent and perseverance I often feel I won’t be able to live up to. But if I can only be one of the many electric circuits that galvanize this gigantic movement, I must confess, I’ll be satisfied.
But how exactly can I become said circuit?
Simply put, I became a journalist because I enjoy writing (I find it therapeutic) and I believe putting easy-sounding sentences together comes naturally to me. I might be wrong. Regardless, I do think there is certain value that the journalistic practice can and should bring to other industries and communities. Luckily for me, I am socially driven and I enjoy working with others to achieve a common goal, but figuring out how I can combine my drive to write and to help others has become the difficult part. How does a person bring journalistic practices into community work and vice versa?
I want to be able to move beyond the story and create something tangible, sustainable and ever-changing that can provide the tools people in my community need. Maybe this tangible thing has already been created and I can only help improve it; maybe it’s Body Hack or any other grassroots organizing group pushing the movement forward.
I honestly don’t know, but I’m hoping to find out because otherwise I don’t think I will be satisfy doing anything else that doesn’t relate to the creation of a better world for my people.
Body Hack hosted their latest online fundraiser, or as they called it Hack-a-Ton, last Saturday October 10th. Yours truly got to anchor one of the funds they are supporting and I couldn’t be more excited about it.
