Name: Sylvie Malamet

Social Justice Group: Trans Rights: Gender Affirming Care (B)

Date of Fieldwork: January 13, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Trans Affinity Group

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

Alex, my citizen action project partner, and I wanted to have a safe space for trans individuals to go and talk. We knew that it would be impossible to create an actual affinity group, so we thought the next best thing would be a lunch period once a week. To be able to start a club, you need the permission and help of a teacher, so we went to Suzanne and Mo, the GSA teachers, and told them about our idea. They both seemed very excited about it, and we discussed the idea here and there, until we came up with a plan. Since there are no openly trans faculty that work at the school, we had to get a teacher that we felt comfortable enough with being in the room. We chose both Suzanne and Mo to facilitate the meetings. On Monday the 6th, they made an announcement during middle school meeting, telling everyone that the meeting would take place at 11:30 every Monday and that anyone who identifies as trans can come.

Later that day, we had the first meeting, and when people started to show up, we talked a bit about our relationship with being trans. The group’s purpose is to, not only have a safe space, but to just be able to hang out with other people who have similar experiences to you. The next week, on the 13th, we had another meeting, and it was more about just hanging out and feeling comfortable.

I hope that other schools can be able to create trans affinity groups to help support the student at the school, who don’t feel comfortable talking with cis people about their trans experience.