Florencia Montes Paez: A transfeminist essay on homelessness

Join us at EBB to celebrate the launch of the full translation *To Accompany is Political* (Formas Press) by Florencia Montes Paez. Meet the author, a member of the Argentinian collective No Tan Distintes ['Not So Different'], to discuss social justice activism in times of creeping fascism. Flor will be in conversation with one of the book's translators, Beth Knowles Casas of Formas Press.

*To Accompany is Political: A Transfeminist Essay on Homelessness* is a call for us to reflect on our own and our organisations’ actions in front of inequity, transforming ourselves in the process – to accompany, as a political act. Appearing for the first time in English, this edition brings a definitive work from the Spanish-speaking world to new lands and readers.

*To Accompany is Political* recounts the journey of No Tan Distintes ['Not So Different'], a social, political and transfeminist organisation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, working with women and queer people who are or have been homeless. Following this journey leaves us with the importance of accompaniment as a political act; creating emotional bonds – committing yourself to one another as compañeres, with implications not just for social organisations working on homelessness, but for the public sector, universities, charities, community spaces and our personal daily practice.

*To Accompany is Political* is a necessary activist tool for those working and fighting within any issue of social justice, but it comes at a vital time when the bodies of women, people of colour and trans and non-binary people, are being fought over and debated.

Bios:

Florencia Montes Páez is a political scientist specializing in political philosophy. She founded "No Tan Distintes" in Buenos Aires in 2011, which supports collective housing projects and provides training in transfeminist integral and popular support. From 2015 to 2018, she managed Frida, the first integration center in Argentina for cis women, trans people, transvestites, and lesbians living rough.

Beth Knowles Casas has worked as an elected politician, a Mayoral Advisor, researcher and lecturer, in trade unions and local and international NGOs. In all of these spaces she utilised community development to bring people together to understand and develop solutions to issues, most prominently around homelessness in Manchester. She created the Greater Manchester Homelessness Action Network for Andy Burnham while he was Mayor and helped to found Arts and Homelessness International, the international network of arts and homelessness organisations. Beth grew up in the North West of England and after working across the UK and internationally now lives in Northern Spain with her wife and their cats. As well as English Beth speaks fluent Spanish and lives with the joys and differences of being neuro-queer.