Voices of Purpose #9: Elliot
By: Serena Jamison
Tags: Transgender, Biography, Interview, Journal, Voices Of Purpose

“Hello Elliot!” I greet my latest guest. “I’m glad to have you by this week! I always look forward to our chats!” The man across from me nods his head smartly. “So how are you and what are you up to?”

Elliot chuckles “You know… yay about the format! I like not having to talk with my voice!” He thinks for a couple seconds and responds, “I’m tired. Emotionally tired because I want this pandemic to be over- I have so many hugs and trips planned.” After a couple more seconds he adds, “And physically tired because I keep getting back spasms that hurt lots, which means I can’t do my normal exercise, which means that I sleep worse.”

Elliot looks at me as he continues. “On bad days, I’m going on walks, playing video games, and reading romance novels. On good days, I’m doing stuff for a “jail support” activist group (my current project is to turn our “how to answer the jail support phone line” into a video that people can reference), a local food pantry doing food drop offs, and learning how to sew. Also working from home, but work is just what pays the bills… it’s not interesting.



“So, I’d love to hear about your trips!” I enthusiastically ask. “Is travel one of your hobbies or interests?”

“Nope!” Elliot chuckles. “I like sleeping in my own bed. However, I want to see my grandma and cousins in California, and my sisters in Maryland, and my parents in Florida, and friends in New York, and the Grand Canyon because I heard it’s cool.”

“So many places! And it sounds like your family is scattered… and huge!” I reply. “It also sounds like they have been pretty supportive too?”

“My family’s not that big, but we’re really scattered.” Elliot tells me. “We’ve been doing Zoom calls for holidays. I think I’ve talked to most of them more this year than I have any other year.” He considers for a second and continues. “Yeah- everyone’s supportive except my dad’s parents, who live in my city. But I didn’t expect anything from them. Sadly, they have decided to watch specific media and have ended up receiving negative messages. I was avoiding them long before I came out.”

I shake my head sadly. “That’s a shame,” I offer. After that, I ask “Work may be what pays the bills but I hope that it’s also a place that you are happy to be at… or are you on the search for something better?””

He gives me a rueful look as he responds, “Nope. It has good benefits at least. I actually enjoy not being invested in my work! It saves more brain space for caring about everything else, and I care about a lot of things already.”

“I mean, I love the frankness that this offers,” I tell him. “It’s tough to find a place that allows you to just be who you want to be while not taking a ton of your life. Your volunteer work sounds absolutely beautiful though! I’d love to hear more about both activities. What challenges have you encountered, successes have you found?”

Elliot gives a grin and a nod. “Yeah! It’s nice. And thank you. The food pantry only started existing in March after another food pantry failed to adapt to the pandemic and had a super-spreader event.” He scratches his temple as he thinks. “So most of their challenges were just ‘how should this work?’ and setting up systems to get and distribute the food. I just deliver food as a backup driver if they promised food to households and their first driver can’t do it. Unfortunately I don’t know whether I’m capable of driving more than a few hours in advance.”

“So you get to be the master organizer?” I ask.

Elliot shakes his head again. “Nope! I just do driving sometimes. I tried to help with the organizing, but I have zero experience there so I just watched.”

I nod as he speaks, and then say “So how about the prisoner advocacy?”

“So, the jail support activities existed before the pandemic, but the pandemic made it so much harder,” Elliot reflects. “It used to be that we’d get together in a room before a protest with a phone and several laptops, get tips about people being arrested at the protest, and reach out to those people’s loved ones, check in with them in jail, and make sure they made it out and home safely.” Elliot’s eyes shine with purpose as he continues to relate these experiences. “Now we’re all scattered and communicating via the internet. Which is also more risky because a lot of this stuff is sensitive- people don’t always want news of their arrest to spread.”

“You have such a huge heart and passion for others to put so much of yourself out to do this!” I compliment him. “How did you start with these places? What made you decide to begin and to choose these causes?”

Elliot laughs and replies, “Both of those places are the same group of people! Basically, some ugly queer-phobic events went down in college. This group of anarchists helped us make some things right. It was an introduction to protesting and the support that we needed to keep most of us alive when the college specifically prohibited its staff from offering support.”

“So it’s been a supportive friend group that has matured into a positive force for good in this world. That’s amazing!” I comment.

“Yeah, basically.” Elliot continues, “They have a lot of projects and I step in for some of them when I can help. It’s chaotic most of the time because we’re trying to build systems from scratch, but it’s also deeply rewarding. Because a lot of the existing systems have baked in biases or structures that make it harder for people to access what they need.”

“Can you describe some of those issues?”

“Sure! For instance, in order to get donations from some big companies and the government, you have to prove that you’re tracking certain things, or only giving things to people legally allowed to be in the country, or in certain zip codes,” he explains. “So the easy way is comply with those restrictions and get the funds or the free food.”

Elliot’s gaze fixes on my eyes as he adds, “The hard way is to contact farmers or independent grocery stores directly and ask for donations, and then build a network of volunteers, and a database, and then spread the word through fliers. But it means that if somebody needs extra food, they can get extra food. Unlike another food pantry I helped at, where they couldn’t.”

“Wow, that sounds involved” I acknowledge. “Have you been involved in that level of contact and bridge-building?”

“Nope, happily.” Elliot answers with a smile. “I wouldn’t know how to begin with that.”

“Now, I know that you’ve faced a ton of challenges in your life too… I remember discussions we’ve had in the past where you’ve laid out steps so that you can follow them successfully. And I really admire that about you. Are you willing to talk about that aspect?” I ask.

Elliot nods as he discusses. “Yeah, sure. I get stuck sometimes because I have anxiety and memory problems. So, like, if I want to leave the house, I have to put on shoes, socks, and grab my water bottle. But I forget stuff easily. So I’ll end up next to my shoes with no socks, and then walk to my room and forget that I wanted socks, and even if I get everything, I’ll worry that I’m missing something important because it happens a lot. Writing checklists helps that!”

“I really love how you developed these tactics to really help yourself with your challenges.” I say. “So with both the food pantry and with the legal defense initiative — do you have any successes that have helped you see that you’ve made a difference, or things you learned along the way that have helped you?

Elliot’s face shows contentedness as he replies, “Sometimes people say thank you when I’m dropping off food, and share that their mom just had a stroke and they couldn’t go to work, or that a bunch of family members just moved in and there’s not enough food to go around now, or that the primary breadwinner of the family is in jail.”

“So does this mean that occasionally there’s overlap between the two initiatives?” I ask

“Yeah, sometimes. There’s also a copwatch program that sends people to police encounters with cameras to hold them accountable- and that has overlap too,” Elliot informs me. “It’s the same general crowd of people on different fronts. One thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is ‘soft skills’ and how undervalued they are, especially in computer-related fields. Almost all of the supporting people in jail, coordinating food deliveries, and activities are soft skills.”

Elliot thinks for a couple more seconds. “It sucks sometimes because society doesn’t seem to even recognize those things as skills. Like, being able to engage with people positively is a skill that a majority of people think is inborn- you either have it or you don’t…” he muses.

“That’s really interesting because it’s a topic I’ve been thinking about more than a bit recently too,” I tell him. “Just the idea that everyone has a nexus of skills and that they are best equipped to do certain things because their skills allow them to really engage with their work. What skills have you been able to enhance and use as you’ve been going forward on these paths?” I inquire.

“At least I know I’m good in a crisis, which came in handy when 20 people got arrested and I was the only one on jail support. We thought the event would be small and low profile!” he exclaims.

“What a stressful time!” I say. “Would you be willing to discuss this?”

His eyes get a bit hazy as he thinks back to the occurrence. “So, a new-ish group of activists were planning their first big event. it was supposed to be a small festival with a couple of booths in a street. Everyone was supposed to meet at a certain subway station and they’d walk to the street corner and set up. However, the cops predicted where the festival would be and showed up first. So once a certain number of activists arrived at the subway station, the organizers gave the word to hop back on the subway and go downtown. I’m not sure what happened there… apparently there were cops with bikes. I have a picture of a ninety-year-old being arrested for peacefully sitting in the middle of the street, apparently part of the parade went past a high school at closing time and picked up a bunch of kids, and my ‘person on the ground’ lost sight of any group halfway through so I could only get guesses about who got arrested when people called, or emailed, or texted.” Elliot’s eyes seem to snap back to the present and fix mine with a pained look. “Also I only had a flip phone and typing on it was difficult because I lost that skill in middle school.”

I look aghast. “That’s such a challenge. What happened?”

“This happened on a Friday,” he replies, “and everyone got out on Monday with essentially jaywalking charges. Even though this was also a problem because some of the people were visiting from eight hours away.”

“And what was your role during that whole night? Taking messages back and forth, working at the police station to ensure that the people were booked, arranging for others to help bail, et cetera?” I inquire.

Ellliot says “I was taking messages back and forth mostly. After a few arrests I called in more help, so it wasn’t just me. There was a lawyer who managed to get a list of everyone arrested. Also there was an established bail fund, so that was already set up.” He gives me a bit of a tired look. “Thankfully, otherwise this would have been much harder.”

“How did that affect you on a empathy basis? Seeing these people dealing with unfairness, trying to comfort them and do everything you can to help, was that difficult or were you really happy that you were able to assist?”

“It’s hard.” he states. “That’s most of the reason that I’m not involved more. Because I feel bad for not being able to do more to stop all of that”

“You are valued, important, and have helped so many people Elliot. I’m so happy to share pieces of your story and yourself so that others can see that even if they have challenges that they can overcome too. Could you tell me some of the organizations you work with?”

He smiles. “So, I work with FoodNotBombs.net. I also work with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, and the Food For Lives organization.”

“Thank you so much for telling me about these Elliot! I will include links to these organizations at the bottom of this interview. I am so grateful that you came by to talk with me! Good luck as well with your volunteer work!”

“Thank you as well readers for learning about Elliot and his journey! Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @SerenaNoelle_ or on Discord at Serena#7329. I am really happy to share Elliot’s story and I’d be happy to share yours as well!”

Food Not Bombs Site

https://atlsolidarity.org/

Atlanta Solidarity Fund

https://food4lives.org/

Food For Lives