Trans Equity Summit offers hope amid rights rollbacks

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By Zach Lebowitz  / Hubbard Reporting Experience

The McNamara Alumni Center hosted the 10th annual Trans Equity Summit Monday after months of transgender rights rollbacks and anti-trans legislation from both federal and state lawmakers.

The Summit featured panels of trans speakers, career and rights workshop seminars, performances by trans entertainers and an exhibition for resource-support organizations. The event drew 376 members of the trans community and allies. 

The theme of the Summit was the future of trans rights and crediting those who fought for trans liberation in the past, said Shor Salkas, LGBTQIA+ equity manager for Minneapolis.

The event comes after President Donald Trump signed a narrowly passed bill in July to cut nearly $1 trillion from the Medicaid budget, putting more than a fifth of transgender individuals in the U.S. at risk of losing their healthcare.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a long-time trans activist who participated in the Stonewall uprising in 1969, spoke at the event.

Griffin-Gracy, 84, said finding time for rest and joy helps motivate people in her community.

“It's peace, it's comfort and they get a chance to think about what got them in this fight to begin with,” Griffin-Gracy said after her speech. Then, using lively language, she said it is time to go out and give folks “complete and total hell.” 

The Summit also heard from Minneapolis City Council member Andrea Jenkins, the first Black openly trans woman elected to public office in the United States. Mayor Jacob Frey, also a panelist, celebrated Jenkins’ retirement by declaring Aug. 11 a day in her honor. Jenkins is 64.

Salkas said elders in the community like Jenkins and Griffin-Gracy have been important voices for their community, which has been marginalized and mistreated for so long.

“They're saying trans folks have a future, we have full beautiful thriving lives,” Salkas said. “We are not only living and thriving but we are leading the way in our communities.”

The Summit featured performances from trans singer Hilde Edwards and the ballroom dance collective Vogue Down MPLS.

Max Bolver, a trans healthcare worker for the Aliveness project, a non-profit which offered free HIV testing at the event, said performances in the queer community can help her stay positive through the vitriol of recent news. 

“Seeing people come up and show up for the trans girls, it's the only thing that keeps me sane,” Bolver said.

Participants were also able to get information from 25 organizations, some displaying resources on tables.

Quorum, an LGBTQ+ allied community and business organization based in Minneapolis, offered a career fair—the first time for the summit—with resume reviews, mock interviews, career training and employment opportunities for queer attendees.

Rebecca Waggoner, chief executive officer of Quorum, said the organization helps trans people who move to Minnesota find financial support and housing. 

Gwendolyn Sierks, 26, an attendee at the event who recently moved to Minneapolis from Indiana, said a significant reason she relocated was for access to trans health care and improved quality of life for transgender people. This past year, Indiana introduced 17 bills threatening trans public life.

“Being able to come here and find that kind of support that a lot of states are missing is wonderful,” Sierks said.

DeAndré Morris Jr., a mental health assistant at Minnesota People of Color LGBTQ+ Pride Organization, also had a table at the Summit’s resource fair. He said the company lost a grant from the Minnesota Department of Health this year. Because of this, Morris has seen community resources provided by the organization such as HIV and COVID testing kits decrease by 60%.

“We have to pay for them ourselves now, and then we get reimbursed on the back end,” Morris said. “We're not as visible, but we're still here.”

Even so, Morris said the breadth of panelists and nonprofits who appeared at the Summit encouraged him.

“When we show up in numbers, more can get done, and we have more allies out here that's still able to fight for us,” Morris said.

Sierks said communal support for trans people such as the resources offered at the Summit and people she’s met in trans inclusive spaces gives her hope.

“It's a lot of work to put on one person when you come out, when you want to change the way that you're living your life,” Sierks said. “It just makes it a little bit easier to be able to do that, and to be yourself, when you have this positive support network.”