COMMUNITY
FIERCE
Leadership and Power
T
his month, Parvati Magazine speaks with Ana Conner and Karen Hall, two New York Citybased youth activists with FIERCE!, a grassroots organization for LGBTQ youth of colour.
Parvati Magazine: How was FIERCE founded and what is the significance of the name?
Ana Conner: Three major factors played a significant role: the hyper-policing happening
throughout New York City, the gentrification of the West Village, and the impact that those
factors had on queer and trans youth, especially youth of color. There was a rise in police
brutality during that time, and when Amadou Diallo, a 22-year-old Guinean immigrant, was
shot 41 times by the NYPD, the city’s Black and Latino communities were outraged. Many
of the founders of FIERCE took to the streets, and were politicized by this moment. Parallel
to this was the policing and gentrification happening in the West Village and Christopher
Street Piers, where the founding members of FIERCE, as well as other queer and trans youth
of color, [had] found community, family, and work. Being policed throughout the city, and
pushed out of one of the only historically queer spaces in NYC, the founders decided that
enough was enough, and created FIERCE in 2000 to build the leadership and power of LGBTQ youth of color in NYC. The name stands for Fabulous, Independent, Educated Radicals
for Community Empowerment—we’re FIERCE!
PMAG: What does fierceness mean to you?
Karen Hall: It means being ALL of myself and being in love with me and all of my identities,
which wouldn’t have been possible without FIERCE. FIERCE helped me see that I always had
the beauty I’d dreamed of but couldn’t see because of my internalized racism and other
internalized oppression. Being a fierce person means that despite having an awful day or
year, I know I’m still fabulous and a valuable person that is worth loving. I refuse to be silent