Who We Are:

C.T.T. — Mission Statement

The mission of C.T.T. is to protect, guide, and uphold the values, culture, and political clarity of the C.O.T.T.O.N. project through community-centered accountability. We ensure that every decision, program, and initiative reflects the needs, leadership, and lived experiences of Black & Black queer and trans people. Through transparency, truth-telling, and a commitment to the long-term thriving of our community, C.T.T. serves as the guardian of integrity, safety, and alignment across all aspects of C.O.T.T.O.N.

C.T.T. — Vision Statement

We envision a future where Black LGBT people are positioned at the center of decisions that shape our communities, movements, and collective futures. A future where accountability is not punitive, but liberatory — rooted in transparency, care, community wisdom, and shared power. C.T.T. seeks to build a model of governance where Black & Black queer and trans voices guide the structures that hold us, ensuring that every part of C.O.T.T.O.N. contributes to our collective thriving, cultural preservation, political empowerment, and freedom.

C.T.T. — The Community Accountability Board

C.T.T. serves as the guiding body that oversees and safeguards the principles, integrity, and community impact of the C.O.T.T.O.N. project.
 It centers Black & Black LGBT leadership, community protection, and transparent decision-making.

C — Community

We root all decisions in the needs, leadership, and lived experiences of Black & Black queer and trans people. Community determines direction.

T — Transparency

We operate with honesty, clarity, and truth-telling. We hold ourselves and our partners accountable to our values, our people, and our purpose.

T — Thriving

We ensure every part of C.O.T.T.O.N. is designed to help Black & Black LGBT people not just survive systems, but thrive — emotionally, politically, culturally, and economically.

Role of C.T.T.:

  • Oversees all programs under C.O.T.T.O.N.

  • Ensures accountability to Black & Black LGBT community needs

  • Protects the mission, political alignment, culture, and safety of the work

  • Makes sure nothing we do is extractive, harmful, or disconnected from the people we serve

C.T.T. is the ethics, values, and culture keeper of the entire project.


C.O.T.T.O.N. - Mission Statement 

Our mission is to build and protect a powerful Black & Black LGBT community in the Bay Area through community care, transparency, truth-telling, and the creation of intentional third spaces that are truly ours. We honor the origins of Black movement work on the West Coast and connect it to national Black & Black queer and trans liberation. We confront anti-Blackness and anti-LGBT rhetoric head-on, preserve our stories, and cultivate spaces where Black LGBT people can gather, heal, organize, and thrive socially, politically, and economically.

C.O.T.T.O.N. - Vision Statement 

We envision a Bay Area where Black & Black queer and trans people live freely, visibly, and unapologetically—anchored by community power, cultural legacy, and vibrant third spaces created for and by us. A region where our histories are centered, our safety is non-negotiable, and our communities are no longer displaced, overlooked, or silenced. We strive for a future where Black LGBT people shape the landscape of liberation, joy, innovation, and belonging across the West Coast and the nation.

C.O.T.T.O.N. — Full Acronym for the Project

C.O.T.T.O.N. represents the full ecosystem of programs, organizing, and third-space creation. It is the work. C.T.T. is what guides it.

C — Community

Centering Black & Black queer and trans community power, chosen family, and collective care.

O — Origin

Honoring the history of Black movement work on the West Coast and the national roots of Black LGBT liberation.

T — Transparency

Practicing truth-telling about anti-Blackness, anti-LGBT language, erasure, and systemic harm — and naming what must change.

T — Thriving

Building pathways where Black & Black LGBT people thrive in health, housing, safety, culture, economics, wellness, and leadership.

O — Organizing

Developing local and national strategies to push back against anti-Black and anti-LGBT rhetoric and create structural change.

N — Nexus

Connecting the Bay Area’s Black & Black LGBT movement to the larger national ecosystem — linking community care, history, activism, and future-building.



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