About Us
Hi! We are One Among Us, proudly a community of the proud East Asian and East Asian-Canadian transgender and gender-diverse family. We provide peer and community support for our fellows, aiming to build connections between travelers and those in our hometown.
We started as a memorial site for our friends and allies who passed away. We believe that both those who are still living and those who had passed away are important members of our community, are the “Ones” Among Us. Now we have developed into an alliance of seven interconnected workgroups.
We are a registered not-for-profit organization in Ontario, Canada.
Workgroups
Memorial
We are the starting point and the most important part at One Among Us. We maintain the One Among Us memorial website.
Local
We started on 2023 July 12. We do community service, including medical support, peer support, community gatherings, etc. Most of us live in Toronto.
The Rabbit Hole
We started on 2023 September 27.
Operations
We started on 2024 January 15. We manage the operations, administration, and funds. We avoid success at all costs.
Resources
We started on 2022 December 11 and joined One Among Us on May 2023. We collaborate with Project Trans on editing RLE.wiki.
FOSS
We started on 2024 February 21 as a free/libre open-source software club. Join our Matrix group #foss:oau.app!
Arts
We do trans arts and prepare for the upcoming gallery Arts Among Us.
Our Mandate
One Among Us starts first as a memorial of our departed fellows in the transgender and gender diverse (TGD) community, which is our most important mission and shall not be changed. Therefore, we are a trans service organization and trans community based on the departed, or more accurately, on the relationship between the living and the deceased. Everyone, regardless of their living or death, shall be one among our diverse and spiritual trans community. Since we would not gather here in solidarity as an organization serving the living without the shared memory of the departed, in all of our events or services shall we try our best to make available for both the living and the departed, with our consideration of those who are silently watching over us on the other side of the Galaxy River which, though, demarcates us. Our organizational symbols, including but not limited to the anthem and flag, shall include in its purpose the connection between the living and the departed.
We are certain that any kind of remembrance, in its essence, is not private but political. However, we also note that its publicity, concerning the political, is generated by the intimate connection between the self and the other. Therefore, we, as an organization, shall never address frivolously our political ideas as if we were them, the deceased, with our arrogance. However, this shall not imply we should act apolitically: We hold that in our era, becoming trans or allies is to face -- even if not willing to be thrown into piles of sociopolitical disputes -- a life of heavier political responsibility, intentionally or unintentionally, voluntarily or forcedly. Hence, we believe that, at the very least, calling for equity, social justice, and each one's freedom of expression of their identities, including but not limited to gender identity, shall be considered as the collective will of the departed, and shall accordingly not be viewed as disrespect, nor should it be viewed as a failure to keep the impartiality of the memorial.
Since we are a trans community built among the departed, we are bound to carry a bitter reflection on the precarity of life. Especially in our current world, trans lives are even more vulnerable due to our shared sufferings and difficulties. We do not glorify our sufferings, but we are not ashamed to speak out about our fragility and persist in looking after each other. We stand with all individuals and communities who are still suffering from inequality, including those who do not have a joint "identity" as their identifier. We strive for social change for the happiness of our community friends, with our realization that individual happiness would never be achieved before the happiness of all humankind, not to mention that true happiness is always a puzzle. Even though our efforts to promote social change often end up with loss, we hope to share and heal each other's wounds in this process with our mutually increasing gratitude and reconciliation.
We are an "east asian and diaspora" trans community: Our members are either from east asia or have anyway a connection to east asia at some point in their lives. Here "east asia" is not the geographical East Asia, but rather east asia as a method: it is neither the 'central' nor the 'marginal' for its inability to fit into a mainstream and hegemonic narrative while always desiring to materialize and standardize another value system as opposed to it. Our critical connection to east asia lies in the fact that while we restrain our desire to fit into the 'center,' we shall also avoid presenting ourselves as the purely 'margin' being juxtaposed with the center. We shall keep reflective constantly to be conscious dwellers in a critical state between the 'center' and the 'margin,' a state of tension with all self-evident cultures and traditions, whether new or old.
Therefore, our organization shall also keep ambiguous the boundary between 'insiders' and 'outsiders' by admitting the intersectionality between organizational members, community friends, supporters and the supported. We shall be open and inclusive rather than acting as a small circle only for 'insiders.' Presumably, it shall not be interpreted as tolerating violence against our organizational or community members.
In order to meet the requirements of the regulatory authorities in our registered place and to better serve the community, as a not-for-profit organization, we should be professional and receive and produce knowledge on all aspects of community work and peer support. However, we are also clearly aware that professions and institutions are only for service maintenance and self-preservation instead of the purpose itself and have been inevitably limiting the full and free development of humankind until the end of capitalism. Therefore, we follow the principle of minimal professionalization to avoid success at all costs. Professionalization must not give way to our ethics or integrity, nor to our collective will or expectation.
— “The Mandate of One Among Us,” 2023 Dec 19
Our History
Our Memorial
We started a website to mourn their transgender friends since 2021 November. It was launched before 2021’s Transgender Day of Remembrance. The website was named “One Among Us.” — That name represents that both those who are still living and those who had passed away are members of our trans and gender non-conforming community. As we write on the front page:
Perhaps the names written on the monuments made of stones do not convey what they really are, but we can remember them properly by building monuments made of zeros and ones with our hearts.
We collect information about those who have passed away within our transgender community and write entries for them lest we forget.
Visit one-among.us and leave a small lollipop to our beloved friends. Contribute an entry to whom you commemorate via our GitHub repository.
Local Groups
On 2022 Dec 15, One Among Us was incorporated as a registered NPO in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We believe the incorporation isn’t just a change in name; the NPO status will certainly help with our work. We serve and gather people wherever we live, either in Toronto or somewhere.
Visit our Linktree or Instagram for more events information.
Transgender University Guidance
On 2023, Transgender University Guidance editing group joined Us. Visit our document through uniguide.oneamongus.ca. We invite you to contribute that!
Arts Among Us
On 2023 Mar 13, we lost our beloved member, ArtsEpiphany, to her mental health condition. We named our new online-arts-gallery project “Arts Among Us” in memory of her. Please keep up with our further updates.
Our Flag and Anthem
The Flag: Double-Flowered Cherry Blossom
◎ The Flag of One Among Us
The Anthem: Star Tour Song
『星めぐりの歌』 宮沢賢治 作詞/作曲
◎ Star Tour Song, from The Complete Work of Miyazawa Kenji, Chikuma Shobo
Can you see the red eyed Scorpion?
And the Eagle spreads his wings so wide
Over there the blue-eyed young Puppy
See the coiled up Serpent of the light
Orion sings from far away
It drops it’s dew and frost from the sky
Can you see the cloud of Andromeda
Looking just like the lips of a fish
See the Mama Bear’s pawn up in the north,
Take five steps south and you will find
The shining Little Cub’s head is the key
Guiding us to the soul of the sky
(English translated by Lindsay)