Butterfly Collective logo
Butterfly Collective MKE is a social outreach platform with the mission to help provide resources and support to Black and Brown trans and gender-nonconforming folks in Milwaukee. Started by Genie Green and JJ Draper in 2020, the effort is organized around mutual aid, sharing crowdfunding campaigns for those who need immediate assistance with money or goods.
Green explains how Butterfly Collective all started. “It was during the first summer of the pandemic when there was a lot of job insecurity and housing issues going on,” they said. “I spent a lot of time online like a lot of people did and I noticed that there were a lot of mutual aids going around where people would need some money for food or bills, and there were organizations in every city and state that were doing this. Although there were organizations doing similar work here, there wasn’t anything specifically doing it for queer folk.
“We took it upon ourselves to collaborate with Flowers Bloom and she organized our first event which was an ice cream social that was also an EP release and art fundraiser. That one we raised about $1,100 for and it was amazing, so with that in mind we saw that people supported what we were doing. We kept it going, and here we are now.”
Draper said about the platform’s name, “There's the transformative power of a community, like a metamorphosis; a lot of us as trans people who go through housing and job insecurities need support from the community in order to level up in society. Folks need an extra helping hand sometimes, and that’s the whole point of Butterfly Collective.”
In their two years of existence Butterfly Collective have collaborated with a number of organizations and businesses such as Midcoast Collective, Ayuda Mutua MKE, Yours Truly Studio, LIT Wisconsin, Dead Bird Brewing, The Green Gallery, Bounce Milwaukee and Four Seasons Skate Park on fundraising events and drives. Additionally, local bands Rat Bath and Pescetarian at Best have thrown benefit shows.
Butterfly Collective’s most recent event La Gayla took place at The Sugar Maple in Bay View at the end of last month, featuring music performances and vendors as well as a donation box for the family of Brazil Johnson. Overall, they felt the event was a huge success and plan to make it annual moving forward. Draper said, “It was a bit nerve-wracking because we had a month to plan it and there wasn’t a lot of traction at first. But as the date got closer there were a lot more people buying tickets and then we started doing the vendor/artist spotlights on our page. It was cool being able to highlight the people who were actually there, and it brought me to ease seeing people sharing the posts.”
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“I felt very high-energy just going from room-to-room and talking to everybody,” Green said about the actual event. “Any time you plan an event you have to be prepared for the unexpected and ask for help when you need help; it was a lot of that, but it ended up fine. Once we were all set up and figured out we were ready to just have fun. There was a lot of community love pouring out everywhere.”
Green and Draper also host a radio show called BFlyradio where they uplift queer Milwaukee artists and give them a platform to share their work. There’s two episodes out now (one featuring Mikey Cody Apollo and the other featuring Flowers) and they hope to bring the show back soon after having been on a break. “There’s so many people who deserve a platform like that,” Draper said.
Butterfly Collective
On the biggest things they have learned from organizing Butterfly Collective, Draper reflected, “I’ve learned just how much of a leader I can be. As a young Black trans person I don’t really get too many opportunities other than the opportunities I’ve gotten from other community members. I’ve gotten my first salary job through all the connections I’ve made but not a lot of us have that privilege. I think leveraging that and knowing who I know through Public Allies Milwaukee (which both of us served in) or who I’ve met through going to events at Diverse & Resilient and the LGBT Community Center has helped me network, which allows me to keep dreaming. If we have a cool idea, we can actually see it through with Butterfly Collective. I’ve learned that I have so much power and can use it to create joy and good in the community.”
Green added, “I feel like I went through this stage of uncomfortability knowing that there’s so much responsibility on my shoulders doing such organizing and sometimes it would make me just shut down. I’ve had to recognize that I can do great work but I also have to take care of myself at the same time. You can’t give all of yourself to it. But watching the collective in action has been a really big learning process; a lot of people know the concept of mutual aid but don’t necessarily know how it works. The way that I would describe it is like an equalized transaction between two parties, where one does something for the other and vice versa, but there’s nothing behind-the-scenes or sugar-coated about it.”
Butterfly Collective MKE are always looking for new folks to collaborate with; they are currently working with the zine publication Moody on a series. People can support Butterfly Collective monetarily but simply sharing their posts also helps. Visit their Linktree to learn more.
