T4T Repairs Is a Trans Construction Organization Building Community From the Ground Up

These trans handypeople are going Tool 4 Tool. A new home repair company, owned by two transgender construction professionals, has opened in Atlanta, per local LGBTQ+ publication Georgia Voice. The two professionals behind the nonprofit, who go by Nicky and Sam, formerly worked as part of the organization Queer Hands, a collective of queer people who provide home services. Per the Voice, Nicky and Sam requested that their last names not be used in the reporting. While Queer Hands focused on help around the house, including painting, automotive care and cleaning, Nicky and Sam’s new venture, T4T Repairs will focus entirely on construction “to focus on workforce development for trans and gender non-conforming folks while continuing to provide reasonable priced carpentry, repair, design, demo, and general handy they work,” according to their website. Per the Voice, the T4T in the name of the nonprofit, which can often mean “trans 4 trans” in dating parlance, here means “Trans 4 the Trades.”“I think that there’s a lot of room for a lot of queer people doing a lot of things,” Nicky told the Voice. “We wanted to create T4T to center skill, accountability, community, and respect for both the works and the clients and have a safe and encouraging space for trans people and gender non-conforming people to work and feel more honored than tolerated, let alone hated.” Courtesy of the subjectsThe duo opened T4T Repairs in April, per the business’s Instagram account. Per their inaugural post, not only will they focus on helping clients with repairs, the 501(c)3 nonprofit will also focus on training trans people who want to learn construction skills. “Building something different is not easy, nor will we be doing it perfectly, but we [want] to invest in our kin, in their futures, and into the next seven generations,” the inaugural post reads. “Being in community is a reciprocal act that takes an exchange of emotional, mental, and physical labor and t