Hi! This is Leandra, one of the new Trip! Peers. Since it’s my first blog post (and the first post overall in a while), I figure I’d introduce myself and list some highlights of my first six months with Trip! Project!
A bit about me: I’m tall, fat, and brown, and I’m a butch trans lesbian. I’ve been community organizing for Filipino youth for the last six years, and I go to lots of DIY shows in the city – you might hear me from afar with my belly laugh or see me throwing my weight around in the pit (if I’m not on shift, that is).
My first Trip! event was Holiday Board Games and Tea, two days before Christmas last year. I waded through soft snow to Bampot – my glasses fogged up from the warmth as soon as I stepped inside. Warm and cozy was the vibe that night – I met Peers and volunteers, drank many cups of tea, got more into a game of Sequence than I expected, and picked up care packages Trip! had put together for everyone who attended. I remember feeling that it was exactly the kind of evening I needed.
At the end of January, I went to a New Friends DIY show with a stacked lineup: And Always, Cease, Botfly, and Life in Vacuum. Trip! happened to be tabling that night, which was a pleasant surprise. The Trip! table was a needed reprieve when the mosh pit got a bit too overwhelming. That night, I learned that volunteer training was starting up in the spring and I knew I wouldn’t miss it.
Volunteer training took place from March to May – and at the end of it I got hired as a Peer! I learned so much from volunteer training: CPR, precautions for overdose prevention, Hep C transmission (pictured: CW blood, needle injury), specific drug interactions, Trip!’s harm reduction principles, and more. The boundaries training in particular helped me advocate for myself in my friendships. At the Anti-Racism & Anti-Oppression Training, I felt safe to speak on transmisogyny in a room where my lived experiences would be listened to and honoured, which often hasn’t been the case. One moment of instructive irony: on a ‘wheel of intersections’ worksheet which illustrated positions of varying privilege, the ableism part of the wheel was hard to read.
Finally, I started to go on outreaches in June. I have experience doing outreaches in community organizing, so I haven’t felt completely out of place. My first outreach was at the Trans 4 Toronto benefit show at Houndstooth on June 16th. I was very supported by the volunteers that went with me – it helped that I was among community and friends too.
Wherever I’ve been in a harm reduction space in the city, I mention I’m a new Trip! Peer and people’s eyes light up. In these interactions, I really feel the collective impact of Trip!’s work over the last 30 years. I’ve met former volunteers from the early 2010s, learned that some of my friends used to go to Trip! drop-ins, and found Trip! literature in DIY house shows. It’s been rewarding, fulfilling, and special to be a part of it, and I’m really excited to be a part of this new era of Trip! Project! See you around! <3
– Leandra, Trip! Peer
Social landscapes have changed: two years away from consistent partying has meant that many of your friends have taken the opportunity to leave that part of their lives behind. Maybe many others spent the past two years getting “too” wrapped up in their substance use (something we each get to define for ourselves, of course) during a time when it felt like the “rules” had changed or were no longer applicable. Perhaps you are one of these two kinds of people, or perhaps somehow you are both. Either way, the nature of being there for each other has changed as well. 