Mic Check! Podcast


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​Mic Check! is a podcast featuring conversations with young women, intersex, queer, and trans folks of color about what it’s really like on the frontlines and backlines of the fight for gender justice, and how listeners - and funders - can best support grassroots movements. Listen below or on Soundcloud and Apple Podcasts.
Episode 7 : Transforming Our Relationships with Conflict & Accountability
Episode 6 Part II: Centering Sex Worker Leadership & Liberation  
Episode 6 Part I: Centering Sex Worker Leadership & Liberation  
Episode 5: Making It Through an Economic Crisis 
Episode 4: Healing Justice as Cultural Organizing
Episode 3: The Value of Leadership Transitions
Episode 2: Disruption, Healing Justice, & the Power of Autonomous Spaces 
Episode 1: Abolishing Police & ICE—The Myth of Separate Movements
EPISODE 7: Transforming Our Relationships with Conflict & Accountability
Conflict is inevitable–so how do we fortify our relationship to it? What approaches to conflict can we take when it shows up in our organizations and communities? What are some ways philanthropy can strengthen its support for organizations leading  transformative justice work?

At Third Wave Fund, we have been dreaming alongside some inspiring organizers and leaders in transformative justice organizing to answer these questions and more. We’re joined by Stas, co-founder of Spring Up, bluelight academy of the arts, and member of the Accountable Futures Fund Advisory Council, and Valleria Miranda-Ferrick, Executive Director and founder of Unity Circles to discuss the work they are leading to deprofessionalize transformative justice and make its teachings more accessible to all. We also get a great primer of what Third Wave’s Accountable Futures Fund does to co-conspire in these goals from our Program Officer mai doan.

​Total Run Time: 50:00
Release Date: Monday, July 31, 2023
Transcriptions: English and Spanish coming soon.

Resources from this Episode:​
EPISODE 6 Part II: Centering Sex Worker Leadership & Liberation
Why are sex workers uniquely positioned to lead reproductive justice efforts? In what ways can philanthropy shift to better bolster and sustain sex worker-led organizing?

Continuing our conversation from last week's episode with sex worker organizers Jenna Torres and Raquel Savage, we discuss the ways in which sex worker-led organizing and reproductive justice overlap, and how philanthropy can step up and better support sex worker-led organizing efforts without co-opting their movements. 

Total Run Time: 25:00
Release Date: Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Transcriptions: English and Spanish coming soon.
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EPISODE 6 Part I: Centering Sex Worker Leadership & Liberation
What is sex-worker led organizing, and why is it important to center sex workers in gender justice organizing? As an organization that houses the Sex Worker Giving Circle and has been supporting sex worker-led organizations since 1998, we have always believed in the power of centering and resourcing the gender justice work that sex workers lead.

Along with sex worker organizers Jenna Torres and Raquel Savage, this episode dives deeper into why it is important to center current and former sex workers in gender justice organizing, what decriminalization is and isn’t, and the ways that sex work decriminalization overlaps with abolition movements. We also get a great primer on what the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund is and how it came to be from Third Wave’s very own Christian Giraldo and Pati Morales!
Total Run Time: 43:00
Release Date: Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Transcriptions: English and Spanish coming soon.
Resources from this Episode:
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EPISODE 5: Making it Through an Economic Crisis
Did you know that Third Wave Fund almost completely shut down during the 2008 economic recession? How did Third Wave make it through? More importantly, who helped us to thrive and exist as the feminist community fund we are today?

In this episode, Monica Trinidad welcomes back former Executive Director Rye Young to be in conversation with Third Wave's new Co-Directors, Ana Conner & Kiyomi Fujikawa. We get the historical take on what Third Wave experienced during the 2008 economic crisis, the lessons we learned as a community-based fund, and what philanthropy can do to ensure our movements weather the COVID-19 pandemic storm and subsequent economic crisis. 
Total Run Time: 47:22
Release Date: Thursday, May 28, 2020
Transcriptions: English and Spanish
Resources from this Episode:
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EPISODE 4: Healing Justice as Cultural Organizing
What is the glue that binds our resistance work? How does healing justice fit into our resistance for the long haul? We sat down with Kifu Faruq of Fireweed Collective to discuss healing justice as a foundational part of organizing and activism work.

Fireweed Collective centers mental health & wellness within the context of a healing justice lens via workshops, webinars, and rapid response in the areas in which they are located. As we’re witnessing the philanthropy field moving more funds towards healing justice work, we want to make sure the message is loud and clear that healing justice funding needs to be sustainable.
Total Run Time: 24:56
Date Release: July 9, 2019 
Transcriptions: English and Spanish coming soon 
Resources from this Episode:

EPISODE 3: ​The Value of Leadership Transitions
Transitions in organizational leadership always get a bad wrap, but are they truly moments of crisis, or critical opportunities for growth and transformation?

On this episode, Monica Trinidad is joined by guest host Pidgeon, an internationally-recognized intersex activist, academic, writer and artist.

​We join Third Wave Fund's Outgoing Executive Director, Rye Young, to talk about his time at Third Wave Fund, what it was like going from intern to ED, why it's important that he makes room for new leadership, and all the crucial steps necessary to ensure sustainability in transition. 
Total Run Time: 43:49
Date Released: October 18, 2018
Transcriptions: ​English and Spanish coming soon
EPISODE 2: Disruption, Healing Justice, and the Necessity of Creating Autonomous Spaces
Total Run Time: 51:30
Date Released: July 25, 2018
​Transcriptions: English and Spanish coming soon
Our 2nd episode comes to you live from the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI! We sat down with Phoenix-based organizers, Xyra and Crystal of Trans Queer Pueblo, an autonomous LGBTQ+ migrant community of color who work to generate community power for liberation.

Xyra and Crystal dive deep into the importance of healing justice within anti-criminalization work, the value of disruption, and the necessity of creating alternative, autonomous spaces for queer and trans people of color.

We also had two quick chats with rad organizers from grantees Southerners on New Ground (SONG) & Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project. We asked them how their AMC was going, what knowledge they’re bringing back to their organizations, and of course, how funders can do better at respecting organizers time and labor.

​Trans Queer Pueblo receives multi-year support through Third Wave Fund's Grow Power Fund and have also received the Mobilize Power Fund for urgent community mobilization.
EPISODE 1: Abolishing Police and ICE—the Myth of Separate Movements
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Total Run Time: 39:07
Transcriptions: English and Spanish coming soon
​In this inaugural episode, we chat with LA-based organizer Yessica Gonzalez of Immigrant Youth Coalition, and Chicago-based organizer Hannah Baptiste of Assata’s Daughters.

From police abolition to dismantling ICE, we dive deep into conversations around shared visions of liberation, Black & Brown solidarity across the work, and how funders can do better at respecting organizers' time and labor.

​Both Assata's Daughters and Immigrant Youth Coalition receive multi-year support through Third Wave's Grow Power Fund and have also been grantees of the Mobilize Power Fund for urgent activist and organizing needs in their communities.

Credits:
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Episodes 1 - 5

Design: Bria Royal

Music: DJ Tikka Masala, Jhaleh Akhavan, and Lee Rosevere

Hosts: Monica Trinidad and Tara Tabassi 

Guest Hosts: Pidgeon

Production: Monica Trinidad

Production Support: Sarah Lu, Debbie Southorn

General Support: Ana Conner, mai doan, Joy Messinger, Nicole Myles, Rye Young

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