Staying alive to prove them wrong: Collaborating with trans people, drag performers and queers in contexts of alt-right violence

In recent years, we have seen a rise in anti-LGBTIQ+ violence and hate across the settler colonies of so-called Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Turtle Island North America. This video interview describes a response to anti-trans and anti-drag hate. It spotlights an individual therapeutic exchange that grew into a web of collective care, action and activism. In the context of counselling, people’s responses to discriminatory violence are often pathologised, creating contexts of blame and shame for people who are living through oppression. This video conversation retells significant fragments of a therapeutic relationship. It includes collective narrative practices such as letter writing, externalising and deconstructing the effects of doxing. We invite practitioners to reflect on how we might take our practices from the therapy room to the streets for protest and collective action, and to stages for drag, cabaret and performance art, as we take up our solidarity with targeted groups.