🏳️‍⚧️ Trans Empowerment Project

Partnership Code of Ethics

Centering Equity, Accountability, and Community Power

Our Guiding Values

Trans Empowerment Project (TEP) was built by and for 2TIGE (2Spirit, Trans, Intersex, and Gender Expansive) people — especially those who are Disabled, Black, Brown, and Indigenous. Every partnership we enter must align with the same commitment: to build liberation with, not on the backs of, marginalized people.

Our Commitments

1. Center the Most Impacted. Collaboration begins and ends with the leadership, wisdom, and lived experience of those directly affected by the issue.
2. Share Power, Credit, and Resources. Equity isn’t an add-on; it’s the baseline. This includes equitable pay, co-branding, and access to funding raised through our shared work.
3. Acknowledge Origin and Ownership. Ideas, programs, and materials developed by TEP or our community members remain our intellectual property unless explicitly transferred through a written agreement.
4. Honor Transparency and Consent. No project or proposal should be launched, promoted, or funded under a shared concept without written mutual consent and acknowledgment.
5. Reject Tokenism and Extraction. We will not participate in partnerships designed to check a diversity box, leverage our identity for optics, or repackage our work under white leadership.
6. Practice Accountability Over Optics. When harm occurs, we expect open dialogue, acknowledgment, repair, and a concrete plan for change — not silence or PR spin.
7. Value People Over Profit. We do not collaborate with organizations whose practices or leadership structures perpetuate harm against 2TIGE people, Disabled people, or communities of color.
8. Move at the Speed of Trust. We build relationships with patience and clarity, not urgency or pressure. Urgency culture is a tool of oppression — not liberation.

Our Expectation of Partners

• Demonstrate a consistent track record of equity and inclusion.
• Commit to shared decision-making and open communication.
• Uphold the principles above throughout our collaboration.

Any violation of this code — including appropriation of our ideas, erasure of our leadership, or failure to share credit — will result in the immediate termination of partnership discussions and, if necessary, public acknowledgment of harm done.

Our Invitation:

Partnership with TEP is a privilege, not a performance. If you’re ready to build something rooted in justice, transparency, and collective liberation — welcome. Let’s build power, not extract it.

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