Our community is under attack. How do we grieve? How do we protect our youth?

In honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance, the Ackerman Institute for the Family’s Gender & Family Project will host a virtual panel featuring individuals and organizations supporting transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive youth in the New York area. The panel will offer a virtual space for families of transgender and non-binary youth and allies to gather resources, ask questions, and be in community amid rising anti-transgender legislation and rhetoric.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is observed annually to memorialize members of the transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive community lost to transphobic violence, through murder or suicide. Such tragedy can feel overwhelming and terrifying, especially for young people in our community and the adults who support them. Join us in honoring those we’ve lost and learn how to show up and protect our transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive youth during these tumultuous times. In grief and resilience, we are stronger together.

RSVP

* To ensure a safe, virtual experience for our panelists and attendees, we kindly require an RSVP. A virtual link will be sent out to attendees shortly before the event. If you have any questions regarding this event or RSVP form, please email gfp@ackerman.org .

About Us

The Gender & Family Project (GFP) empowers youth, families and communities by providing gender affirmative services, training, and research. GFP promotes gender inclusivity as a form of social justice in all the systems involved in the life of the family.

Working directly with transgender and gender expansive young people, their families and their communities, GFP offers a variety of programs and services aimed to build community, decrease isolation, and foster hope and resiliency. Through clinical services and community groups (both virtual and in-person), research, training and education, GFP provides comprehensive and customized advocacy, regardless of a family’s financial situation or ability to pay.

Upcoming Offerings

Virtual Caregiver Group
Saturday, November 22nd from 10:00am-12:00pm Eastern
Email Sanniel at ssanabia@ackerman.org

Ten, FREE Family Therapy Sessions for FEAT clients
Email Sanniel at ssanabia@ackerman.org

Panelists

Alexis Diaz, LCSW
they, them
Ackerman Institute, Gender & Family Project, Clinic Supervisor
Alexis Diaz, LCSW, PLLC, Private Practice

Alexis (they/them) is a licensed clinical social worker with more than a decade of experience in a variety of settings; from outreach, to clinics, to schools, & nonprofits. They are a small business owner, offering counseling, consultation, and teaching with a focus on queer and trans people of color as well as those working towards social & environmental justice. Alexis is a professor at the Silberman School of Social Work and supervises clinicians at the Gender & Family Project and the Ackerman Institute for the Family. They’re from a middle-class, Puerto Rican family— big in people, opinions, personalities, and stories!

Mae Testa Feliciano
she, her
Gender & Family Project, Former Youth & Peer Facilitator

Mae Testa Feliciano (She/Her) is a 26 year old trans woman from Brooklyn, NY. As a former GFP youth, and then Peer Facilitator, GFP has been a meaningful place, especially in early transition. Since then she has become a Pratt graduate in Communication Design. Spending time working in advertising, as a freelance graphic designer, and as a youth culinary and food science educator, she enjoys finding ways to be creative, especially with work. In her free time she loves to bake, cook, and crochet, and is a big theater, sports, and trivia fan.

Alaina Daniels
she, they
Trans formative Schools, Executive Director & Co-Founder

Alaina Daniels is a white, queer, neurodivergent, nonbinary trans woman devoted to building a world where trans kids can just be kids who live, learn, love, and belong. After ten years teaching middle school science and sex ed, co-founding the NYC Trans Educator Network, and co-writing NYC School’s protections for trans kids, Alaina co-founded both Trans formative Schools and Aunties and Friends for Liberation. Their work provides a free joyful afterschool space where over a hundred trans kids have felt safe enough to learn. Moreover, TfS and the Aunties successfully fought the Moms for Liberty on the school board; emboldened NYC to invest a historic $14 million in trans power and care; broke the story that trans youth were losing health care in NYC; organized the largest ever rally for trans youth; and were Grand Marshalls of the NYC Pride Parade. They are opening a trans middle school and seek to catalyze a global movement of liberatory trans-led schoolhouses.

Charlie Ferguson
they, them
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Daniel H. Renberg Legal Fellow

Charlie Ferguson is the Daniel H. Renberg Legal Fellow at Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV/AIDS. In this role, they use both litigation and policy to protect the fundamental rights of transgender and queer people nation-wide. Prior to joining Lambda Legal, they were the Director of Housing Work’s LGBTQ+ Youth Clubhouse in Brooklyn, NY.

With a healing offering from:

Jea Frasier, LMSW RYT-200
they, them

Jea Frasier is healing. A proud Black and Trans New Yorker, they are committed to co-creating spaces where healing, repair, and joy are an ever-present possibility. As an ancestor-in-training with a superpower of “feeling their feelings,” they bring their experience of trauma and somatic healing to equity work and are building the future of their ancestors' wildest dreams.