Today we’d like to introduce you to Mari Tomlinson.
Hi Mari, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Hi! My name is Mari Tomlinson (they/them) and I’m the Central Florida Field and Relations Fellow with The Queer Trans Project. I began my path as an organizer, activist, and event planner when I joined Lavender Council at UCF. This was a youth led LGBTQ+ executive board dedicated to creating safe spaces and educating folks on our community. This role shaped me as a leader and gave me the skills to move forward to becoming UCF’s Pride Director with the Multicultural Student Center. I brought Karamo Brown from Queer Eye to campus, I threw a ballroom event centering black queer and trans history, and I successfully put together a LGBTQ+ prom for students. After graduation, I became a rapid rehousing case manager for Zebra Youth, pushing myself beyond my limits trying to get queer youth housing, but I realized that while I loved working with clients and solving challenges, it wasn’t fulfilling as the event planning and connections you make when you’re directly working with your community. So, I transitioned away from case managing and started working with Peer Support Space and The Queer Trans Project! I love how I get to engage with community in different ways with each job; I feel like I get a piece of someone’s story with every new person I meet.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My life gets in the way of organizing, and we live in a capitalist driven world, so I also work 3 jobs to survive. I’ve gotten into car accidents, moved from place to place, took cuts to my income, and put my dreams to the side in the years I’ve been a community organizer. Nonprofit work does not make you a rich man, so don’t choose this field if money is what you’re after. Instead, it’s provided me longtime friends, people who will show up for me in times of struggle, new ways I can express my creativity, new ways I can express and come into myself. That’s why I stay, that’s why I love it. Even with the roadblocks that life has thrown my way; I couldn’t imagine myself doing other work that limits me and tells me to change who I am as a person. Furthermore, I’ve had inner struggles with my gender, my sexuality, and my mental health. Hell, I was working myself out so much, I developed hypertension and chest pains from stress, anxiety, and depression. And yet, I’m still here. I’m still doing the work for my trans siblings… but I’m more intentional now with taking care of myself because I want to be here, alive and healthy, when my community finally wins against the forces that oppress us.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m the Central Florida Field and Relations Fellow with The Queer Trans Project! We are a black trans led organization based in Jacksonville, but I do all of their outreach for the Central Florida region. I essentially explain to community that we are a resource there for them with free QUALITY gender affirming care items in our Build-a-Queer kits and our free flight assistance program for trans folks looking for gender affirming services outside of their home state. I do tons of tabling, volunteering, community events, and fundraising for our organization because I believe deeply in our mission. As a black nonbinary person myself, I know how hard it is to access services for trans bodies in Florida. I know how hard and terrifying it can be to navigate the medical system as a trans person. I think it’s beautiful that The Queer Trans Project is working diligently to bridge that gap.
I’m most known for my community events, and I’m so extremely proud of my event planning portfolio. I’ve gotten amazing opportunities to work with various Orlando organizations such as TransMasc Orlando, Divas in Dialogue, Basically 1derful, The Ripple Hauxs, Gender Advancement Project, GenCLEO UCF… the list goes on and on. I’ve done a picnic, a rock concert fundraising event, a queer radical zine making event, a trans led field day, and I’m cooking up more ideas everyday! I believe my creativity and knowledge of my community sets me apart from the rest. I know what I want to execute, I know the ways to do it, and I know how to turn out an event. I’ve always been confident in my abilities and I’ve had wonderful community leaders in my life to mentor me, push me to dream big and have faith that it’ll all work out. And it does, it always works out without fail.
What matters most to you? Why?
Creating moments of safety, joy, care, connection, love and happiness for queer and trans folks matters to me the most. I say this because right now, the world is rapidly changing in a way where transgender and queer identities constantly have a target on our backs. Whether it’s the fear that grips me when I see another anti-trans bill pass, or cuts to funding services that aid minorities, or alerts that ICE has been spotted around Orlando, or another clinic is shutting the doors on providing gender affirming care, or another safe space for LGBTQ+ folks can’t afford to keep existing or or or… the list feels never-ending. Growing up as a Caribbean American in a strict, homophobic household, I never got the taste of how freeing a safe space can be until I was able to move out. 18 years of stifling the real me, of making myself smaller to accommodate everyone but myself. So, I came into activism to make sure no one would feel the way I did for so long. It fills my chest with a warm glow when I’m at an event I helped organize and someone tells me they’ve been yearning for a space full of people who just understand without all the explanations and this event gave them exactly what they’ve been looking for. It’s amazing to see trans people playing together like kids in an adult’s body at a trans led field day. It’s the best when I’m tabling and someone comes up to me saying how they’ve felt so much happier after using items from our Build-a-Queer kits. Now more than ever, we need safety. We need joy. We need childlike wonder. We need friends and chosen family to lean on. That’s why I do what I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://queertransproject.org/
- Instagram: @queertransproject
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/12K2rrs9qsR/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-queer-trans-project
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@thequeertransproject?si=nR4c_-5bSA2PtNme
