Ignis Liberatis: A Manifesto For Collective Liberation
By Gemma Ortwerth
Preamble: The Fire We Carry
We are told the world is ending. But many of us were born into endings—of homes, of safety, of sovereignty, of trust. What’s collapsing now is not the world itself. It’s the myth that the systems we inherited were ever meant to save us.
This manifesto is not a warning. It is a refusal. A refusal to wait for permission, to live by rules that were never meant to protect us, to mistake survival for freedom. It is also an offering. A commitment to those who came before, and a blueprint for those who will come after. It is not only about what we fight—but what we are here to build, and how we carry each other in the process.
We do not claim neutrality. We are not trying to fix a machine designed to exploit, exclude, and erase. We are here to disarm it. Dismantle it. Replace it with something alive.
We do not speak on behalf of everyone. We speak from the bones we’ve broken, the hunger we’ve felt, the breathlessness of grief, the clarity of rage, the joy of kinship, and the sacred work of imagining more.
We carry fire. And with it, we light the path forward—not just out of what we’re in, but toward something worth living for.
Part I: What We Believe
We believe every person is worthy of dignity, care, and safety—without needing to earn it, perform it, or prove it.
We believe in survival, but we are not satisfied with survival alone. We want joy. We want access. We want pleasure. We want beauty. We want time. These are not luxuries. They are our birthrights.
We believe no one is disposable. Not the poor. Not the undocumented. Not the imprisoned. Not the sick. Not the neurodivergent. Not the trans. Not the mad. Not the addict. Not the unhoused. No system that discards human life can call itself just. No society that leaves people behind deserves to endure.
We believe in interdependence. We reject the myth of the self-made person. We survive because of each other—because someone made food, carried water, answered a message, unlocked a door. We are not meant to suffer in silence. We are not meant to be alone.
We believe that truth matters more than comfort. That silence in the face of harm is complicity. That neutrality in systems of violence is not peace—it is permission.
We believe that grief can be sacred, that rest can be revolutionary, that rage can be clarifying, and that joy can be armor. These are not contradictions. These are survival strategies. These are the tools we were told to abandon—but they never stopped being ours.
We believe change is possible. Not because we are naïve, but because we have seen it. We are alive because someone, somewhere, chose to fight, to speak, to organize, to heal, to refuse. We believe we owe each other more than silence and resignation. We owe each other courage.
This is the ground we stand on. This is the heart of the fire.
Part II: What We’re Fighting
We are fighting capitalism, because it feeds on scarcity and survives on suffering. It tells us to work until we break, then blames us for not being strong enough. It extracts labor, land, time, and life—then sells pieces of it back to us as privilege. It hoards, exploits, and disposes. It leaves full buildings empty and full bellies hungry. It rewards cruelty and names it ambition. We reject a world where wealth means safety and poverty means punishment.
We are fighting white supremacy, because it shapes every institution we touch. It cages Black and Indigenous people, poisons communities of color, and rewrites history to justify genocide. It isn’t only visible in slurs or hate crimes—it hides in school curricula, sentencing guidelines, zoning laws, and job applications. It wears a badge. It sits behind a desk. It signs legislation. It kills in plain sight and calls it law and order. We fight for a world where repair is not rhetorical and justice is not cosmetic.
We are fighting cisheteropatriarchy, because it polices bodies, restricts love, and criminalizes self-determination. It defines gender by violence and power by domination. It teaches girls to shrink, boys to harm, and everyone else to disappear. It targets trans people, erases queerness, and confuses control with tradition. We do not want tolerance—we want transformation. We will not apologize for existing.
We are fighting carceral logic, because cages do not solve violence. They repeat it. Police do not make us safer—they manage inequality. Prisons do not end harm—they disappear people who have been harmed and people who have harmed, with no healing for either. Surveillance is not prevention. Incarceration is not accountability. We refuse a world that confuses punishment with justice.
We are fighting ecological destruction, because the planet is not dying—it is being murdered. Climate collapse is not inevitable. It is political. It is driven by corporations, militaries, colonization, and the myth that the earth belongs to anyone. It is worsened by silence, inaction, and greenwashed excuses. We know who is most impacted, and we know who is most responsible. We demand a future where the land is loved, not looted.
These systems do not operate alone. They are interlocked. They feed each other. They depend on us forgetting our history and distrusting each other. They want us divided, distracted, and discouraged. But we are remembering. We are reconnecting. We are rising.
What we are fighting is not the natural order. It is a series of choices. And we choose to end them.
Part III: What We Demand
We demand housing for all. Not as a market commodity, but as a human right. No one should sleep in the cold while luxury condos sit empty. No one should be criminalized for existing without a lease. We reject a world where safety is for sale. Everyone deserves shelter, privacy, stability, and space to dream.
We demand free and accessible healthcare. That means care for bodies, minds, transitions, pregnancies, chronic conditions, and crises. It means ending gatekeeping, medical neglect, and the profit-driven violence of the insurance industry. It means care that is affirming, informed, and rooted in consent—not coercion.
We demand the abolition of police and prisons. We will not settle for body cameras and training. We want disarmament. We want decarceration. We want systems of safety that are built from the ground up, rooted in accountability, healing, and prevention—not force. Cages do not create peace. Communities do.
We demand climate justice. We want land back. We want clean water, breathable air, food sovereignty, and Indigenous stewardship. We want divestment from fossil fuels, military pollution, and corporate greenwashing. We demand a world where ecology is not exploited, but honored.
We demand education that liberates. Schools should not feel like prisons. We want police out of classrooms, trauma-informed teaching, decolonized curricula, and accessibility embedded from day one. Learning should not require assimilation. It should expand what’s possible.
We demand bodily autonomy. That includes abortion access, gender affirmation, the right to transition, the right to refuse treatment, and the right to exist without surveillance. No law, badge, or border should come between a person and their body.
We demand the decriminalization of survival. We want to end the war on sex work, drug use, undocumented life, and poverty. Harm is not healed by handcuffs. We want public health, not punishment. We want care work and street economies recognized, protected, and honored—not policed.
We demand reparations and land return. The future cannot be just if it is built on stolen time and stolen land. We demand material repair, not symbolic apology. That includes wealth redistribution, land sovereignty, and deep investment in communities targeted by generations of violence.
We demand access and disability justice. Access is not a luxury. It is a foundation. We want design that includes all bodies. We want care that doesn’t require begging. We want a world where disabled and neurodivergent people lead—not as exceptions, but as standard.
We demand cultural freedom. We want art that is funded, not censored. We want storytelling that is communal, not commodified. We want joy, ritual, pleasure, and grief to be public rights—not private indulgences. Culture is not decoration. It is power.
These are not requests. They are blueprints. They are not dreams. They are decisions waiting to be made. Every one of them is possible. Every one is overdue. And we will not wait quietly while they are denied.
Part IV: What We Are Building
We are not only tearing down systems. We are building life.
We are building a world where care is not earned but expected. Where people check in, show up, and slow down. Where nobody falls through cracks, because we have sealed the cracks with collective hands and made new foundations from scratch.
We are building a world where your gender is what you make it, fluid, sacred, protected and your own to explore without limit or regulation. Where trans kids grow old. Where people explore who they are without fear of being legislated out of existence. Where no one’s body is debated. Where bathrooms are safe and names are respected.
We are building a world where rest is not reward, but rhythm. Where the pace of life honors grief and joy. Where people can pause without punishment. Where sleep is safe and softness is strength.
We are building a world where community is not something you earn access to—it’s something you are born into. Where families are chosen and expansive. Where no one is alone in their illness, in their birth, in their death, in their heartbreak, or in their becoming.
We are building a world where pleasure is not suspect. Where desire is not criminalized. Where sex work is respected, polyamory is affirmed, and intimacy is guided by consent—not shame. Where people learn how to touch each other with care before they are taught how to fear.
We are building a world where joy is not escapism—it is survival. Where people make music without needing to monetize it. Where art is everywhere: on walls, in mouths, on bodies, in movement. Where laughter is not a distraction from struggle—it is proof of life.
We are building systems of justice that don’t rely on exile. Where people who harm are not discarded but held accountable, and where people who are harmed are not made invisible. Where conflict is not met with punishment, but with process, courage, and repair.
We are building neighborhoods, not battlegrounds. Schools without cops. Clinics without judgment. Parks without surveillance. Streets without sirens. Borders without cages. Relationships without domination. Futures without fear.
We are building a culture that does not demand perfection but invites presence. That makes room for contradiction. That lets people change, heal, rest, come back. That knows revolution is not purity—it’s practice.
We are building a world big enough for all of us. And we are not asking for permission.
Part V: What They’ll Say—and Why They’re Wrong
They’ll say it’s too much. Too big. Too bold. That freedom on this scale is unrealistic. That care on this level is unsustainable. But we know what’s unsustainable: mass incarceration, climate collapse, medical debt, hunger in a world of abundance. We know what’s unrealistic: thinking the system that created these crises will solve them. We are not asking for the impossible. We are asking for what we’ve been denied.
They’ll say it’s too fast. That change takes time. That we need to be patient. But we have waited for decades. Some of us have waited for generations. And for many, waiting has meant dying. There is no neutral timeline. Delay is a decision. Gradualism is a luxury for those already protected.
They’ll say people can’t handle that much freedom. That without prisons, without borders, without cops, there would be chaos. But there is already chaos—manufactured, managed, normalized. Chaos is being unhoused while buildings are empty. Chaos is being uninsured in a pandemic. Chaos is calling 911 and being killed. What we seek is not chaos—it’s care.
They’ll say the money isn’t there. That there’s not enough to go around. But we’ve seen who gets bailed out, who gets subsidized, who gets to hoard. Trillions are spent on war, policing, and corporate welfare. The issue has never been scarcity. It has always been allocation.
They’ll say we’re angry. And they’re right. We are angry—because we are paying the price of someone else’s power. Because we’ve buried too many. Because we’re still here, still hurting, still fighting. Anger is not the problem. Injustice is. And we will not apologize for feeling it.
They’ll say this manifesto is too radical. But what’s radical is letting children starve while billionaires race to space. What’s radical is criminalizing existence. What’s radical is pretending business as usual is anything but deadly.
They will try to change the subject. To discredit. To confuse. To divide. But we are clear. We are ready. And we will not be reasoned out of our liberation by those invested in our submission.
We are not naive. We are not asking for everything to change overnight. But we are done pretending we can’t change anything at all.
Part VI: Where We Come From
We come from people who knew the fire before us.
From those who broke chains with bare hands and taught others how to run. From those who burned their oppressors’ flags and raised their own from the ashes. From those who survived borders, prisons, genocides, pandemics, and propaganda—and still sang lullabies to their children.
We come from enslaved rebels who risked everything for freedom and taught that dignity is not something the system gives—it is something you never let it take. We come from Indigenous nations who defended their land with their lives, who protected waters others tried to poison, and who reminded the world that the Earth is not a resource—it is a relative.
We come from queer and trans organizers who faced police batons, media silence, and state neglect—and still built families out of nothing. From ballroom houses, crisis lines, protest camps, zines, healing circles, and underground clinics. From whispers that became chants. From closets that became stages.
We come from abolitionists who dared to imagine a world without cages. From survivors who spoke truths too raw for courtrooms but too real to ignore. From youth who walked out of classrooms, workers who shut down ports, and elders who reminded us that “radical” just means going to the root.
We come from everywhere empires tried to erase. Palestine. Chiapas. Soweto. Kashmir. Wet’suwet’en land. Ferguson. Gaza. Rojava. Standing Rock. Rio’s favelas. Puerto Rico. Baltimore. From every occupied territory, every refugee camp, every back alley where someone said, I won’t let this end with me.
We are not the beginning. We are continuation. We are convergence. We are the memory that refused to die. The dream that survived exile. The voice that said, You are not alone.
This movement was not invented. It was inherited. And now it is ours to carry forward.
Part VII: Where We’re Going and How to Join
We are building a world where care is currency, joy is strategy, and justice is not an institution but a practice. We are building it in public parks and living rooms, in group chats and street corners, in union halls, shelters, art collectives, and kitchen tables. The future is not a place we arrive at—it is a path we walk together.
You do not need permission to begin.
If you can speak, speak up. Challenge what’s said at the dinner table, in the classroom, in the boardroom, in the meeting chat. Call out cruelty. Call in confusion. Say what needs to be said—even if your voice trembles.
If you can organize, organize. Join a tenant union, a student walkout, a mutual aid pod, a harm reduction team. Show up where people are already fighting. Make phone trees. Share resources. Print flyers. Train people. Hold space.
If you can create, create. Make art that holds pain and possibility. Tell stories that won’t be aired on the news. Paint murals that reclaim stolen space. Design things that make life livable. Film the moment. Write it down. Archive the movement.
If you can protect, protect. Watch each other’s backs. Show up to protests with snacks, first aid, and water. Keep people safe at vigils. Walk people to their cars. Learn safety plans. Learn what to do when police show up. Learn what to do when someone’s in crisis. Be the person others can rely on.
And if you can rest, rest. You are not a machine. There is no prize for burnout. Take breaks without apology. Heal without guilt. Let your body be a site of resistance—not only through action, but through care.
There is no single way to fight. No one is coming to save us. But we are already here—ready, rising, enough.
You are not too late. You are not too small. You are not alone.
This fire belongs to all of us. Let it carry you. Let it warm others. Let it burn down what has harmed us. Let it light the way.
Glossary of Terms
Abolition
The political and moral commitment to end policing, prisons, detention centers, and all systems that rely on punishment and surveillance. Abolition is not just about tearing down—it’s about building new ways of caring for each other, preventing harm, and creating safety rooted in dignity, not domination.
Access
The right to exist fully in public, private, and communal spaces without barriers. Access is about making sure all people—especially disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent folks—can participate, move, rest, speak, and be heard without having to beg for accommodation. True access is built in, not added on.
Accountability
Taking responsibility for harm with honesty, action, and care—not shame, exile, or punishment. Accountability means naming what happened, understanding its impact, repairing what can be repaired, and doing the work to change. It’s a practice, not a performance.
Carceral Logic
The belief that punishment equals justice, that safety comes from surveillance, and that harm can only be addressed through isolation, force, or control. It shows up in policing, incarceration, school suspensions, child removals, and even social media culture. Carceral logic is everywhere—and abolition is the answer to it.
Cisheteropatriarchy
The system that privileges cisgender, heterosexual men while policing and punishing everyone else. It defines “normal” based on control, gender conformity, and dominance. It harms everyone—especially trans people, queer people, women, and anyone who resists its roles or refuses to perform submission.
Colonialism
The violent theft of land, labor, language, and life by settler states. Colonialism isn’t just history—it’s present tense. It lives in forced displacement, oil pipelines, border walls, and treaties that were never honored. Decolonization means returning land, power, and sovereignty—not just symbolic gestures.
Disability Justice
A movement led by disabled queer BIPOC that centers access, interdependence, and the belief that no one is disposable. Disability justice demands we stop treating disabled people as burdens and start treating access as a right, leadership as shared, and care as collective.
Ecocide
The destruction of ecosystems and the climate by corporate greed, military force, and state violence. It is not a side issue—it is mass violence. And it is disproportionately felt by Indigenous people, the Global South, and those already pushed to the margins.
Gender-Affirming Care
Healthcare that respects and supports a person’s gender identity—including hormones, surgeries, therapy, name changes, and basic safety. It is lifesaving, necessary, and under attack. Denying it is not a policy difference—it is cruelty.
Interdependence
The truth that we survive because of each other. That none of us is meant to do everything alone. Interdependence is not weakness—it is wisdom. It is how we build lives that are sustainable, connected, and rooted in care.
Mutual Aid
People helping each other to meet immediate needs—without hierarchy, saviorism, or profit. It’s community defense, not charity. Mutual aid is diapers, rides, food, housing, bail, medication, and love shared across
networks built on trust. It is how we survive—and how we win.
Neurodivergent
A term that includes autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, sensory differences, and more. Being neurodivergent means your brain works differently—and that difference should be respected, not punished. Neurodivergence is not a flaw. It is a way of moving through the world that deserves support, not erasure.
Reparations
Material repair for the ongoing impacts of slavery, land theft, colonization, and systemic harm. Reparations are not guilt payments or charity—they are justice. They can look like land return, direct cash payments, investment in communities, and public accountability for generational theft.
Restorative and Transformative Justice
Alternatives to punishment. Restorative justice focuses on healing between people. Transformative justice looks deeper—at the conditions that caused harm and how to change them. Both prioritize repair, growth, and accountability without relying on prisons or police.
Survival
Getting through each day in systems that weren’t built for us. Survival is not shameful—it is sacred. But survival should not be the end goal. We are here to live, to thrive, to experience joy and connection. Survival is the starting point—not the limit.
White Supremacy
A system that maintains white power through laws, culture, institutions, and violence. It is not just hate groups—it’s the foundation of the police, housing, education, and healthcare systems. White supremacy kills not only through bullets, but through bureaucracy, silence, and stolen futures.
Womb-Bearing People
People who can get pregnant—including women, trans men, and nonbinary folks. We use this term to include everyone affected by attacks on reproductive rights—not just those who are labeled “female” by the state.
Gemma Ortwerth 