Meet our August 2024 Community Spotlight organization, Translate Gender. Translate Gender is a collective-based, consensus-run (501c3) non-profit organization that works to generate community accountability for individuals to self-determine their own genders and gender expressions. They accomplish this through conducting workshops, consultations, mediations, and facilitations of discussions in agencies, organizations, schools, universities, at conferences, and in the workplace.

What is the focus of your work?

Translate Gender was founded in 2006, and after 15 years operating as a volunteer effort, we incorporated as a 501c3 in 2021. The primary community that Translate Gender serves is trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive young people (ages 3-18) and those connected to them, whether they be families, schools, or community organizations. Our programming falls in four main areas: Youth & Family Support, Workplace and Organization Inclusion Trainings, Gender Affirming Counseling, and Cultivating Trans Art and Culture. We mainly serve residents of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties, but regularly have people join our events from all across Massachusetts, and even draw from Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. While the focus of our work is on supporting our trans families, our community is deeply interwoven with the larger LGBTQ+ population, and many of our programs serve LGBTQ+ families and help local businesses and organizations adopt workplace policies and practices that affirm and protect LGBTQ+ people.

What goals are you hoping to achieve over the next few years?

We aim to expand our outreach to support younger folks in their gender journey and provide LGBTQIA adults with leadership development, community building skills, caregiver support, and psychotherapy. We wish to expand our set of proven program models that we currently run so that we can bring on more staff, serve more young people and families in our region, and strengthen and support our internal administration to ensure the long-term sustainability of our people and our organization.

What is one simple thing an individual can start doing that could make a difference in the lives of those you serve?

Across our state we face a youth mental health crisis. This is particularly acute for trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive youth and their families who—even when they can find mental health support—often struggle to find affirming care and counseling staff who reflect their lived experiences. Even in Massachusetts, where we have strong legal protections in place, trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people—especially people of color—are disproportionately impacted by systems of oppression, policy decisions, and institutionalized discrimination that marginalizes their voices and experiences.

The recent Massachusetts Community Health Equity Survey (CHES) found that more than 92% of trans people in Massachusetts have experienced discrimination, compared to 54% of cisgender people. The survey also found that trans adults in Massachusetts experienced high levels of psychological distress (53% compared to 16% of cisgender adults). For trans youth, the statistics are even more alarming: 73.5% say they have experienced high levels of psychological distress, compared to about 22% of their cisgender peers. Trans youth are 3X more likely to experience discrimination and 6X more likely to face safety concerns. Finally, over 60% of trans youth experienced suicidal ideation compared to about 10% of cisgender youth in Massachusetts, according to the CHES.

One thing the average person can do to make a difference for the trans community is to respect folks’ self-determination such as name and pronouns. This is, for us, the bare minimum. In addition, donate to trans-led organizations and small businesses, normalize using pronouns even if you’re not trans/gender-expansive/nonbinary, and advocate for love!

We understand that our work has both immediate impact in the lives of the people we work with, and is also about making long-term systemic change in the communities and society we are part of. Thus, success means providing care, resources, support, and safety to youth and families, helping them live fully in their gender identity and construct thriving lives right now. But it also means contributing to systems-level change through institutions like schools, organizations, governments, and businesses where we can shift the conditions for people on the ground.

We are always happy to collaborate with folks around those issues and are open to creative ideas, various forms of support, and collaborative action.