Loan Tran

Coordinator, Southern Movement Infrastructure Exchange

Loan Tran is a migrant originally from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam currently organizing and writing in Durham, North Carolina. For more than a decade they have been involved in liberation struggles for migrants, LGBTQ people, communities of color, and all working class people. As a writer, their work has been included in publications such as The Solidarity Struggle: How People of Color Succeed and Fail At Showing Up For Each Other In the Fight For Freedom (2016) and Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives (7th Edition, 2019). They are known for their piece, Calling In: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable, released on Black Girl Dangerous in 2013. Their work focuses on building coalitions, alliances, and solidarity across identities, geographies and issues. Loan co-founded and led Southern Vision Alliance, a southern regional, grassroots movement intermediary where they began the Queer Mobilization Fund, Southern Movement Infrastructure Exchange, and a number of youth organizing fellowship programs. Other affiliations include: Highlander Research & Education Center (former board of directors), Rising Majority (former coordinating committee), Third Wave Fund Advisory Council (co-chair), Visionary Freedom Fund (advisor), and Migrant Roots Media (board of directors). Loan loves all of the quick-witted Southern queers with big hearts and brains helping to lead and fortify efforts across all social movements.