we create ourselves. we create our belonging. we create our freedom.
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The Underground Rainbow Experiment (URE) is the child of the Underground Railroad and the Chitlin' Circuit.
URE is a global care ecosystem for Black Trans and Gender-nonconforming (BTGNC) Creatives.
Through locally rooted chapters, we cultivate and connect communities by and for Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming creators,united by a shared commitment to creating ourselves,our belonging,and our freedom.
Our Purpose
We believe that every BTGNC person is inherently a creator. To survive and thrive in a world whose cultures and systems do not acknowledge, affirm, or embrace our existence is itself an act of radical creativity.
We believe that creativity is not something we produce, but a way we imagine, navigate, build, and transform the worlds around us.
Through the cultivation of organizational chapters, artistic practice, mutual support, and cultural exchange, we nurture ecosystems where Black Trans and GNC people can imagine new worlds and be free.
We honor Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming beings as innate entities of knowledge, creativity, and transformation, using our lived experiences to reimagine identity, community, and the world itself.
Inspired by the legacies of the Underground Railroad and the Chitlin' Circuit, we are building an interconnected network of communities that share resources, opportunities, cultural practices, and pathways to collective thriving, drawing on the alchemy and wisdom of Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming communities across the U.S. and around the world.
Our long-term vision is to develop a constellation of Black Trans and GNC-led live-work communities where creativity, care, economic cooperation, and self-determination can flourish across regions and generations.
We believe that we create ourselves; we create our communities. And when we create our communities, we create new possibilities for belonging, liberation, and freedom.
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Our Values
We believe liberation is built through practice. Lasting change emerges from the choices we make every day, the relationships we nurture, and the willingness to learn through experimentation and failure. We reject the idea that people or communities have fixed potential, recognizing that growth is an ongoing process of becoming.
Practicality
Transparency
We practice openness as an act of collective care. By honestly sharing our successes, challenges, and mistakes, we create cultures of trust, accountability, and continuous learning. We embrace failure as a necessary part of transformation, using it as information that helps us adapt, deepen our relationships, and move forward together.
We honor the wisdom of our individual and collective ancestors, Black liberation movements, and the generations of organizers, artists, and cultural workers who have shaped the paths before us. We understand that nothing is truly new. Rather than reinventing what already exists, we study, adapt, and build upon both learned and inherited knowledge, carrying forward practices that cultivate liberation, belonging, and collective power.
Reverence
We transform what we have into what we need. By drawing on the resources, relationships, histories, and gifts already present within our communities, we create new possibilities for freedom. We believe transformation begins by recognizing our inherent power and remembering that we are one another's greatest resource.