TOA Celebrates T’Naya Ramirez, Business Startup Consultant, Advocate, and Newly Published Author

Tenant Organizers & Advocates (TOA) is proud to announce that T’Naya Ramirez—business startup consultant, public speaker, and social justice advocate—has added a new title to her work: published author.

Her debut book, Trauma’s Got Jokes, is a raw, darkly humorous exploration of lived experience and survival. Through deeply personal storytelling, T'Naya examines recurring themes of poverty, trauma, abuse, addiction, grief, parentification, and resilience, offering readers an unfiltered look at what it means to grow up and live within systems that quietly fail people every day.

Rather than treating trauma as a single moment in time, Trauma’s Got Jokes explores how hardship compounds—how instability becomes normalized, how resilience is expected instead of supported, and how people learn to survive long before they are ever given the space to heal. Humor appears throughout the book not as a mask, but as a lifeline.

While the stories are personal, they reflect experiences shared by many: households stretched thin, cycles of instability passed down through generations, and the quiet exhaustion of navigating systems that demand strength simply to endure. These lived realities—often unseen or minimized—form the emotional backbone of the book.

For TOA, this publication reflects values deeply aligned with the organization’s work. T'Naya’s writing underscores a core truth TOA holds: lived experience is expertise. The same perspective that informs her consulting, speaking, and advocacy is present on every page—centered on honesty, dignity, and the refusal to sanitize harm for comfort. (and a whole lot of humor!)

Trauma’s Got Jokes is not a guidebook or a redemption story. It is a witness. A record of what it means to grow up too soon, to survive what should never have been normal, and to find meaning—sometimes even humor—without denying the weight of what was carried.

TOA celebrates this milestone with pride, recognizing the power of storytelling as both a personal achievement and a collective offering to those who see their own lives reflected in its pages.

About the Author

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