TDTF at Pride 2023

It is the start of the 2023 Pride season, following a year of exponentially increasing violence and hostility towards our community. During Pride season 2022 and following that, we and our colleagues were personally threatened with violence, and more has happened since then that we won’t go into just now. For safety reasons, at least for now, you won’t find us making announced appearances or presentations at gatherings or conferences such as AAFS like we have done in the past several years. If we do something like that, we will post about it after the event.

Yesterday, we took the opportunity to be in the Hampshire Pride Parade in Northampton, Massachusetts. Pride is important, especially when dealing with really hard things. We at the Trans Doe Task Force deal with really hard things a lot, so it was a good day, and our doggo was pretty happy about it also. We hope that some people have looked us up and become aware of our work and service, and to those new people, hello! While we do our work globally, TDTF has hopes to make the Valley our permanent location in the future, along with providing a space for grieving those taken from us too soon.

Shout-out to TDTF co-founder Lee for walking the whole parade route with his walker behind/alongside our car just a few weeks after surgery! He was able to pass out hundreds of stickers, pencils, flyers, etc to get the word out about the Trans Doe Task Force.

If you would like to help your local Pride know about TDTF, email us!

TDTF Pride Attendance June 2023

We continue to participate in Pride festivities as our schedules allow, and as mentioned before, we will not be announcing where we will be beforehand due to safety issues.

On the first Saturday of June, TDTF board member and LAMMP admin Viktor Veltstra (and family!) went to Jersey Pride, held in Asbury Park, NJ. They were able to talk to many local orgs about our work, pass out our flyers, and they also had the amazing opportunity to be able to see some of the historic AIDS Memorial Quilt.

This past weekend, TDTF co-founder Lee Bingham Redgrave attended Franklin County Pride in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Our office is in Franklin County, and we previously have sponsored this Pride event and hope to do so again in the future. Lee was able to make connections with local organizations as well as hear from and speak with politicians.