As Toni-Michelle Williams, a community organizer and advocate for Black trans justice, gears up to celebrate her 35th birthday next week, her thoughts go back to her suicide attempt at 14 and the challenges trans youth face in Georgia today.
“My message to young trans people is to get excited and stay excited to be alive right now,” Williams told Capital B Atlanta. “I just want to continue to encourage young people to stay alive and stay grounded and stay connected to the people that love them and the people that show up for them, because those are the folks that’s the chosen family that we need in order to navigate through these uncertain times.”
It’s those uncertain times that fuels her work as co-founder and executive director of the Solutions NOT Punishment Collaborative (SnapCo) in Atlanta.
“I came onto the team in 2015 and really helped build the membership and create the programming that still exists today, like our mutual aid fund, our Snap for Freedom School, which is a political education hub for trans organizers and our allies to … be equipped with the skills to keep trans people safe and to center our leadership.”
And as SnapCo hosts its “Deeper Than Visibility Summit: Shift the Narrative and Gag the Right” today, March 31, at City Hall to mark Trans Day of Visibility, Williams is focused on continuing to fight anti-trans legislation. The organization will also release “How We Talk About Us,” a new digital zine that serves as a guide for community members, advocates, and media professionals, offering language and frameworks to “interrupt harmful narratives and reframe public discourse around trans lives.”
“Trans people are literally being erased out of history and out of so many opportunities to be in leadership and to be integrated into communities, families, and institutions,” Williams said. “But we exist, and we have always existed, and so the day of trans visibility is really important, especially when so many trans people are oftentimes murdered or isolated or incarcerated. It’s important to tell the stories of the brilliance and the joy and the magic that is within our communities.”
Through SnapCo’s work, they’ve been able to give out 400 free subscriptions to the public safety Citizen app, and hosted an expungement clinic where they served over 150 people. In 2024, the organization hosted a clinic to offer free passports to more than 300 people, a critical service at a time where people needed help navigating the system.
“There’s been a targeted attack against trans people and our documentation to invalidate our lived experiences and to make it harder for us to navigate travel and to move freely,” Williams said. “And so it’s been really our mission to make sure that trans folks have the identification that’s affirming to who they are and how they move through the world.”
Even as Williams and the dedicated team at SnapCo continue to make strides in the city, they have continued to push on the front lines of other issues like the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known as “Cop City,” and the ever expanding role of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the city.
The unsolved murders of trans people in Atlanta are also never far from her mind and let her know the struggle continues.
“While APD may show up for the visual, they always find they haven’t considered anything as a hate crime yet,” Williams said. “Atlanta talks about it being the LGBTQ or Black Mecca, but the system still works and operates against marginalized groups.”
