History

Our story begins in California, the summer of 2017. The APITA was originated during a writing workshop at the first API TransFusion Retreat. In March of 2019, a committee began to discuss and define the anthology’s scope and impact. We outlined an initial inclusion framework that aims to represent the greatest possible breadth and depth of intercultural, intergenerational, and intersectional identities within the API transmasculine community.

The APITA’s volunteer team is still growing — encompassing a diverse group of API transmasculine people. We’ve developed a website and press kit, secured fiscal sponsorship from Kearny Street Workshop, distributed over three thousand call for submission postcards, hosted a handful of writing workshops — and we're only just getting started!

Origins

Thirty-eight people attended the first API TransFusion Retreat. For some, it was the first time they had ever met another API transmasculine person. Co-organizer Willy Wilkinson, author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning book Born on the Edge of Race and Gender, wrote an article for The Huffington Post discussing “the sense of isolation many [API transmasculine people] feel” and how “racial stereotypes contribute to this sense of isolation.”

This historic retreat hosted a number of workshops on trans sex and relationships, family, healthcare, and accessibility. Special attention was paid to the historical intersections of radical trans and API organizing. Two creative writing sessions were offered:

• Memory as Medicine: Creative Movement and Writing Ancestral Memory, facilitated by Jamil Moises Liban-Ortanez

• Words in the Woods , facilitated by Chino Scott-Chung.

Participants wrote about ancestral memory, intergenerational healing, cultural barriers, and familial sacrifice. Through sharing, the API Transmasculine Anthology was born.