A Florida pro-trans group advertises “Build-A-Queer” kits filled with devices aimed at helping individuals — particularly minors — transition to another gender.
The Queer Trans (QT) Project based in Jacksonville, Florida, creates free packages of chest binders, condoms, weapons and other items on TikTok and social media, and offers advice to recipients for concealing the kits from parents and guardians.
According to Fox News, The group has sent out nearly 1,000 kits to states across the country in the past two years, and the small operation has a growing social media following of tens of thousands of people. It is unclear how many minors have received packages from the group, but the project advertises its “discretion.”
In a video, founder of the QT Project advised half a dozen strategies for kids to receive the kits without their parents knowing — including setting up a post office box, putting a friend’s name as the addressee, or sending the package to friends. Another strategy to conceal the packages is to send to a school care of a sympathetic teacher, a QT Project video suggests.
One kit that is no longer offered, called the “Trans Self-Defense Kits,” had been distributed by Thorn, an organization supporting a “self-defense project based in Chicago that works to arm and protect Black & Brown trans folks.”
According to the reports, these kits included “a knife, taser, steel baton, pepper spray, and instructions on how to use each weapon.” According to QTP founder Cielo Sunsarae, who is also transgender, Black sex workers were given first priority while they distributed the weapon kits.
Sunsarae outlined in a video how children might, in the name of “privacy,” avoid informing their parents that they have requested the kits. Sunsarae suggested that minors use a P.O. Box and request for the kits to be delivered to a friend, relative, or teacher’s address, put a different person’s name on the package, or have the packages held at the post office. The website emphasizes that the supplies are free and accessible for all ages, but the kits for boys and girls who want to transition are customizable.
A further statement from the organization had said that “Those who identif[ied] as Black, indigenous, and/or people of color […] receive[d] 30 minutes of VIP Early Access before the restock […] open[ed] to the general public.”
Whether the government allowed them or not, according to Sunsarae, people who were interested in transitioning would discover the tools and goods to help themselves explore their preferred gender.
Sunsarae testified in March, while displaying a shirt that said “blood on your hands,” against a Florida law that forbade adolescents from undergoing gender-altering procedures including puberty blockers and surgical sex reassignment, which was passed on Wednesday and became a law.
