Build-a-Queer by Mail

The Queer Trans Project

Background:

The Florida-based, black- and trans-led Queer Trans Project (QTP) was founded in 2021 by Cielo Sunsarae. A female who identifies as non-binary, Sunsarae started QTP to “alleviate [her] gender dysphoria around [her] chest.” Sunsarae, an “established champion for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ equality [is] passionate about restructuring the biased mental framework in today’s cis, white, and heteronormative society.”

Motivated by the founder’s own body-dysphoria, one of QTP’s first missions was to provide free breast binders for trans-identifying girls. Upon securing donated binders and other resources, QTP next began assembling and shipping free “Build-a-Queer kits,” mostly to youth. After posting a TikTok promoting the kits, Sunsarae gained more than 20,000 followers in just a few days.

Reason for Surveillance:

For the Build-a-Queer shopper, the QTP website delivers a boutique experience. When building her kit, the young transmasculine (female-to-male) shopper is prompted to select a binder, a 4-inch “easy squeezy soft packer,” and other goodies to disguise her pernicious natural-born femininity. The transfeminine shopper is tasked with selecting a bra, tucking tape to hide that giveaway bulge, and panties. Makeup, false eyelashes, and nail polish are optional add-ons. Queer kits may also be topped off with condoms, books, plushies, additional souvenirs, and a hand-written “affirming” note. QTP boasts that there are no age restrictions, and obtaining a kit requires no parental consent. And since they are free, Sunsarae points out, they will not appear on a parent’s credit card statement.

In addition to Build-a-Queer kits, QTP provides gender-affirming care flights; sexual education inclusive of all genders, sexualities, and abilities; and until recently, “Trans Self Defense Kits” that included pepper spray, knives, tasers, and steel batons. QTP has also reportedly given away $6,000 in hormone-blocking drugs and breast-removal surgery funding.¹

Most Egregious Offense:

Trepidatious minors can rest assured that QTP will help them keep their secret. Sunsarae demonstrated in an Instagram video how she cleverly camouflages kits for shipping to prevent parental capture. Items are carefully tucked in the cavity of a plush toy or wrapped in a breast binder, and everything goes inside an empty T-shirt box. Finally, the package bears a fictitious business name and return address.

In a YouTube video titled “Discreetly Receiving Your Build-A-Queer Kit,” Sunsarae advises children on how to receive the goods apart from the watchful eyes of their non-affirming parents by either renting a P.O. Box, having items shipped to an affirming friend or schoolteacher, or doing a “name switcheroo” by putting a different name on the order. If those options won’t work, they could order a mail-hold or follow tracking notifications to intercept the package.

As if parents are children’s enemy number one, under the guise of “gender-empowerment,” Sunsarae and her QTP activists openly flout parental authority. Yet it will be the caring moms they impugn who will eventually tend to daughters injured by breast-binders.² It is doubtful that QTP “champions” for the LGBTQ+ cause will ever know the young men who will mourn diminished sexual function or sterilization caused by the tucking tape they “heroically” concealed.³ Fixes for problems like these aren’t so easy-squeezy. The care of these injured and maimed youth will fall not to Sunsarae or allies like her, but to the very loving parents they work to undermine.

Notes
1. https://www.theflstandard.com/florida-lgbtq-group-sends-weapons-sex-toys-to-kids-for-gender-transitioning/.
2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13691058.2016.1191675.
3. https://genspect.org/binding-and-tucking-self-harm-101/.