Research and praxis
The Center for Trans Futures is not only a service organization. It is also a site of knowledge production. Our programs, governance practices, and community processes are shaped by participatory, community-embedded research that treats lived experience as expertise.
This approach recognizes that many institutional failures affecting trans people are not accidental. They are the result of policy design, administrative practices, and decision-making frameworks that exclude trans voices while claiming neutrality or universality.
Our work responds by building alternatives that are both practical and analytic.
Participatory embedded research
Participatory embedded research means that research is conducted within the community under study, rather than from a distance. At the Center for Trans Futures, this includes:
- Designing programs with community members rather than extracting data from them
- Treating feedback, facilitation experiences, and implementation challenges as meaningful evidence
- Revising practices based on lived outcomes, not just stated intentions
Community members are not subjects; they are collaborators whose knowledge shapes how programs evolve.
Positionality and community-rooted research
The research informing the Center for Trans Futures is conducted by a trans researcher who is also a member of the community this work serves. This positionality matters. It shapes how questions are asked, how trust is built, and how accountability is practiced.
Rather than approaching the community as a site of extraction, this work emerges from shared experience and shared stakes. Participation extends beyond data collection. It includes relationship building, facilitation, mutual care, and the creation of spaces where trans people can come together, reflect, and imagine futures beyond institutional harm.
Participatory research here is not neutral or distant. It is relational. It recognizes that bringing people together, creating safer spaces, and supporting collective sense-making are themselves forms of knowledge production. These spaces allow community members to articulate needs, test ideas, and build solidarity in ways that formal institutions rarely permit.
This approach strengthens both the research and the organization. It ensures that theory remains accountable to lived reality, and that practice remains informed by critical reflection. The Center for Trans Futures exists at this intersection, where trans led research and community building are inseparable.
Praxis as accountability
Praxis is the integration of theory and action. We understand praxis as accountability to real-world consequences.
Research at the Center for Trans Futures is inseparable from practice. Ideas are tested through implementation. Policies are evaluated through their effects on trans people’s safety, dignity, and access to resources. When something does not work, it is changed.
This feedback loop ensures that research does not remain abstract or disconnected from material conditions.
Connection to doctoral research
The Center for Trans Futures is directly informed by doctoral research in public policy and administration that examines how institutions systematically fail trans people through misrecognition, exclusion, and administrative harm.
This research focuses on:
- How policies are interpreted and implemented in practice
- How marginalized communities experience administrative systems
- How separatist and self-determined governance models can produce better outcomes
The organization functions as a living application of this scholarship. It translates research questions into operational structures, governance norms, and service delivery models.
Trans separatism as an applied framework
Within this research context, trans separatism is understood as an applied administrative framework in the same way other beneficiary spaces are maintained. It prioritizes:
- Trans led decision making
- Clear boundaries around participation and governance
- Protection from institutional practices that require trans people to justify their existence
Rather than being purely theoretical, this framework is tested through daily operations, program design, and community governance.
Knowledge sharing and ethics
We are committed to ethical knowledge sharing. This means:
- Transparency about how insights are generated
- Respect for community privacy and consent
- No extraction of data without a clear purpose and benefit
Research outputs, such as publications, presentations, and reports, are grounded in existing practices that serve the community.
Why this matters
Too often, research about trans communities reinforces the very systems that cause harm. By integrating research into a trans led organization, we reverse this dynamic.
The Center for Trans Futures demonstrates how community-governed, participatory research can inform policy, improve practice, and build sustainable alternatives to failing institutions.
This page reflects our commitment to building futures that are not only imagined but enacted.
Our work responds by building alternatives that are both practical and analytic.