Queer and gender-expansive young people are changing the world. Trust them with resources. 

Around the world, girls are political actors and agents of power, contributing to vital efforts for justice – and yet their work is severely under-resourced.

That’s the essence of the recent report, Resourcing Girls to Thrive, which analysed public data from 71 funding institutions and used participatory feminist research methodologies, including a survey of feminist adolescent girls funders and workshops with 31 girls in Palestine, Yemen, Jordan, Guatemala, Brazil, Morocco, Sudan, and Sierra Leone.

The report shows that adolescent girls are engaged in every social justice and national liberation movement in the world, and that they play an under-appreciated role in many of them. Yet funders continue to under-resource their work – and support it in ways that only hint at solidarity without actually offering it. 

This article offers examples of incredible organising and makes a case for radical shifts in how this work is being resourced.

First, let’s get clear, or rather queer, with our definitions. When we refer to adolescent girls, that includes gender-expansive, non-binary, and transgender young people. It also includes those who do not self-identify as girls, but have been discriminated against for being perceived and socialised as girls in society. We can’t truly know the gender identity of anyone just by looking at them, we can only see their gender expression and apply our social assumptions in determining their gender. Additionally, the adolescent period of life refers not only to age but also to experience, as there is no agreed-upon age timeframe to define girlhood.

These concepts may be new to some – indeed, we have been constantly surprised by how young people are rethinking this. As a non-binary autistic person myself [Lariza writing] perceived as an able-bodied woman for most of my life, I am inspired by the bravery and courage of young non-binary and trans-young-feminists who speak and act their minds and hearts. They have been the inspiration to live my true self.

In addition to expanding our understanding of identities, these young people have been using multiple strategies and tactics in their work, from delivering direct services in crisis zones, pushing back against rising fascism and authoritarianism, to reshaping institutions from the ground up. Going deeper, you see they are doing it in ways that are particularly creative, sustainable and resilient, as well documented in the Stories of Girls’ Resistance.

We know that girls want and need a funding ecosystem in which they can thrive. Change is possible – and we invite funders to take radical action.

Young bravery, intergenerational inspiration

The interviews for Resourcing Girls to Thrive revealed countless examples of young people organising and acting for justice – in many cases on budgets of less than $5,000, or even much less.

In Chile, adolescent girls made up many of the students who led protests in the capital’s subway system in 2019 over fare hikes. Images of these youngsters sneaking in without paying and fearlessly confronting the police inspired a wave of protests that triggered a collective awakening and resulted in an intergenerational social movement demanding a new constitution.

In the United States, Pidgeon Pagonis, a renowned intersex and non-binary activist, started to speak their heart from a very young age as a (socially perceived) girl, in order to raise awareness of the mutilations that intersex kids were experiencing at hospitals. After a decade, with support from allies, Pidgeon achieved legislation to end non-consensual surgeries on intersex kids, and led Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago to become the first hospital in the country to stop medically unnecessary normalising surgeries on intersex children.

And in Colombia, young and adult trans women made waves by voguing their way through the National Strike in front of police officers, with the support of hundreds of social justice defenders on their backs.

Photo: Instagram / @weadioco

These examples merit the question to all of us in the business of resourcing organising and movements: how can we show up for the blossoming of these young people? The report includes several strains of advice for funders. We’ll pull out two of them here.

Identities are intersectional; So is organising

Funders often structure their funding portfolio around an issue or identity. For instance, foundations will commit resources to ‘women’s rights’ or ‘LGBTQI liberation’, and will create a standalone portfolio for that purpose alone.

Identity is an important lens, and we support the desire to fund excluded or exploited communities. However, identities are intersectional, just like the organising, and this kind of narrow, (self-)restricted funding strategy does not leave room for embracing the complexity of intersecting identities and organising tactics that we know girls constantly experience and use.

For instance: when funding a young queer person, it’s important to understand that their organising may not fit precisely within their identity box. For instance, they might be a racialised person as well as being queer. Just as their identities are intersectional, their organising will likely also be intersectional, as they work with Black or Indigenous straight people who are affected by the same inequalities – around labor rights, access to healthcare services, safety during conflicts, or so on.

Fortunately, it is becoming more common to see foundations – particularly feminist funders – fund on intersections of identities, issues, and strategies.

To provide an example, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice is leading a cross-regional and cross-movement collaboration with Fòs Feminista to unite the voices of trans rights activists and reproductive justice activists from the US and Latin America to expand and uplift the cross-organising of social justice lovers.

Astraea Foundation has also supported individual intersex leaders like Pidgeon Pagonis, not just organisations, as well as groups without legal registration, providing general operating support, and engaging with long-term grantmaking, as systems change takes time. Others, like Urgent Action Fund of Latin America and the Caribbean, also support windows of opportunity and not only emergencies per se.

As another example: as the COVID-19 pandemic started, the Global Resilience Fund was created to support girls and young feminist-led groups worldwide to provide humanitarian support. It is a collaborative fund network made up of more than 250 funding partners, including renowned private and public foundations.

The fund was created with an Activist Advisory Committee of girls and non-binary young feminists, including a well-appreciated non-binary autistic person from Mexico: Violeta, who, among other things, led for several years Mezquite CTC, a neurodivergent group of young LGBTQI feminists, as well as Bifanzine Colectivo. GRF allowed the boldness and flexibility for the funding distribution of the funding partners, that they may not have within their own institutions. 

We invite more funders to explore funding on intersections of identities and organising, beyond siloed portfolios. 

Going deeper in changing power dynamics

Models like participatory grantmaking and trust-based philanthropy are increasingly popular buzzwords and aspiring practices in philanthropy. They are useful models, but can also be misused by putting all of the pressure on girls to fix the problems,  coming up with radical solutions, and making decisions on who gets resources under the umbrella of the existing philanthropic system. 

The research found signs of distrust between children and young people — including adolescent girls — and a range of actors in the children’s funding stream, including INGOs, multilateral and bilateral agencies, and public and private foundations. Putting girls and young people into positions they may not want or feel ready for is not part of showing up for girls; it is setting them up for burnout and failure.

Instead, funders need to step in with them together as experienced organisers and managers, representatives of other age groups, in a horizontal and collaborative leadership structure where voices are both important and taken into consideration. This can relieve the burden and support the creation of functional containers and systems for girls to lead and thrive within. 

Being in the background, offering fundraising support, and providing financial and operational management support are ways adult allies can show up to support girls’ organising efforts. While mentorship is traditionally thought of as hierarchical by older folks to younger ones, we believe in and advocate for all-around mentorship.

We have experienced this ourselves. I [Angelika] have been in constant awe of each next generation of organisers coming through the FRIDA universe. They have taught me so much – from creative and strategic ways of using social media, to compassionate connected collective leadership models, to how self and collective care are deeply intertwined and political.

What funders can do: Get radical

The challenges with funding that we write about are not rhetorical and philosophical exercise; they are urgent. As we write this, anti-rights groups around the world brainwash and recruit youth, expanding their reach to political and social spheres of influence.

The opposition is using strategies such as direct government lobbying and engagement to fund co-option, recruitment, and control the minds of young populations. They do this through social media and on-the-ground tactics that persuade youth into believing, for example, that trans people are less human and that the self-determination of their genders is taking away rights from cis people.

So what can funders do to fund adolescent girls and youth sustainably? If we listen to what girls and trans youth are telling us, if we pay attention to how they organise, if we respect their voices and their agency, if we trust their choices about where we go from here: It’s going to look radical. 

Here’s what we propose:

• Radical trust: We invite funders to release their mistrust and let adolescent girls and youth decide where the money goes and how to distribute it. 

• Radical flexibility: Given the deeply restricting contexts in which organising is happening, be flexible in how you provide support. Go beyond funding NGOs and projects. Support campaigns, short-term initiatives, as well as the long-term sustainability of movements, individuals, collectives, and everything in between. 

• Radical practice: What are your application and reporting requirements? And most importantly, why? Ask as many whys as you can until you’ve got the most accessible, flexible application and reporting processes possible. Radical practice also includes how you send money. In oppressive contexts, many groups cannot afford legal registrations and formal institutional bank accounts. You do the labor to figure out how to be most accessible and responsive to the funding needs of the groups you want to support. 

• Radical community: While there are not many funders supporting adolescent girls, there are some. Be intentional about creating community with your peers; think of your contribution as part of a larger ecosystem. What is your role vis-à-vis others? What is your role in nurturing honest, equal, and healthy relationships with younger change-makers? 

As girls and young LGBTQI people refuse to comply with socially imposed identities, as they demonstrate fearless strategies and tactics that are having positive impacts on all of our lives, we in the funding community must rise to the occasion.

We need to provide the resources girls, intersex and trans youth need to not only continue speaking their minds, but also to be heard and adequately resourced. 

We need their voices to resonate in the walls of decision-making spaces that can change not only their lives but the future of our planet. 

Ending with the words of Ayat Mneina, MENA Curator for stories of Girls Resistance: ‘Girls thriving, girls living, girls resistance shows us the way. In a better world, we would see less girls’ resistance because they’ll exist in a world that doesn’t force them to resist… But until then, resistance will continue to be that marker, of their resolve and of our failure.’

What do we say? Ready to get radical so girls and youth can thrive?

Angelika Arutyunova (she/her) is a resource activist and co-founder of FRIDA: The Young Feminist Fund and Dalan Fund. She was a program director for AWID Feminist Forum in 2016, and led the Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia regional grantmaking portfolio at the Global Fund for Women.

Lariza Fonseca (they/them) has collaborated with the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice since 2021. They are currently an advisor to the Global Philanthropy Project and EDGE Funders and are passionate about neurodivergence community organising.

This article is co-published by Proximate and Alliance magazine. You can find the original article on Proximate’s website here.