Activist Meet & Greet Series: LGBTQ+ Health and Advocacy

Black & Pink National is a prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing.  

Black & Pink National, founded in 2005, now has a strong grassroots network of 11 volunteer-led chapters and more than 20,000 current and formerly incarcerated LGBTQIAS2+ and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) members located across the country.

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Ethos is a private, nonprofit organization that assists the elderly and disabled to live at home. We serve over 3,000 individuals and families, primarily in the Boston neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, West Roxbury, Hyde Park and Mattapan. Ethos offers a wide range of high-quality, discounted services and support, delivered at home and in the community.

Ethos runs AgeWell Equality (AWE), a systems change initiative designed to promote the LGBT friendliness of aging services through improved access and utilization. Despite deliberate and well-meaning efforts to engage LGBT seniors in the current aging system network, they remain fearful of accessing mainstream programming due to a lifetime of discrimination.

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Our key commitment is to address the specific health needs of sexual and gender minorities (SGM) and people affected by HIV. To that end, we engage and foster collaborations with diverse community and professional stakeholders; conduct and disseminate research; design and deliver education, training, and technical assistance; develop and promote empirically-supported public policies; and work to cultivate and nurture a multidisciplinary and diverse community of faculty and staff. Honoring the intersectionality of identities and lived experience, and taking action to advance racial equity and social justice are central components of this commitment.

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Gay For Good Boston mobilizes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) and ally volunteers in the broader Boston community to promote diversity, foster inclusion and enhance LGBTQ+ visibility. We facilitate welcoming, inclusive service projects in support of a wide range of causes throughout Boston and the surrounding areas, and we look forward to meeting you.

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LGBTQ Senior Housing Inc is a non-profit whose stated mission and raison d’etre  is to facilitate access to welcoming, safe and affordable housing for low-income LGBTQ seniors, including through a formal role in the development of such housing; to define onsite housing services and programming that addresses the needs of LGBTQ seniors; and to support community space to serve seniors in the Greater Boston community.  We are an all volunteer board.

Currently, along with our developer partner Pennrose,  we have now been granted TDD (Tentative Developer Designation) status by the City of Boston, to develop LGBTQ friendly senior housing at the William Barton Rogers School in Hyde Park, the first such housing development in New England. With the success of this project, we will be addressing both the need for welcoming and affordable housing and services that are LGBTQ friendly.

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MassEquality is the leading statewide grassroots advocacy organization working to ensure that everyone across Massachusetts can thrive from cradle to grave without discrimination and oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.  We partner across identities, issues, and communities to build a broad, inclusive, and politically powerful movement that changes hearts and minds and achieves policy and electoral victories.

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The Transgender Health Program at Massachusetts General Hospital is dedicated to providing gender-affirming care, including comprehensive primary care, endocrine/hormone management, case management and links to behavioral health and surgical services.

The Department of Medicine at Mass General embraces diversity in all forms. Under the leadership of former physician-in-chief Dr. Katrina Armstrong, the Department established the MGH Transgender Health Program in an effort to ensure a welcoming and affirming environment across the hospital. The Transgender Health Program integrates clinical care for the transgender community, environmental changes across the Department and the hospital system, a commitment to community-based research to advance health care for the transgender community, and an investment in transgender health education.

The clinic provides a safe, affirming and inclusive environment for transgender patients and their families, utilizing “wrap-around” services linked to and invested in the community (e.g., trans-identified staff, community navigators, embedded social work services, dedicated financial services, team-based medical providers). The clinic serves as a hub for patients and operates in an interdisciplinary environment, linking patients to specialists throughout the Mass General network.

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Asian Pride is a youth development and leadership program that provides services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. The program serves as a safe space for young adults and allies to explore their identities while building job and life skills, and a sense of community with their peers.

The overall goal of Asian Pride is to empower youth so they can become knowledgeable, skilled, confident leaders in their community and society. Asian Pride exists to help reduce feelings of isolation among API LGBTQ+ youth. We host weekly drop-in hours where participants can learn and socialize with their peers in a non-judgmental environment through various activities.

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The New England Aces (NEA) is a group for asexual spectrum individuals and allies that provides support in an open and affirming environment, builds community based on friendship and respect, and promotes awareness of asexual spectrum identities in the New England area through outreach, trainings, and collaboration with community partners.

NEA was formed in 2010 as a small Boston-based group and has since grown to more than 1200 members throughout New England. In addition to hosting regular social and community-building events, NEA members have presented at conferences and workshops across the country and organized Boston’s first Asexual Awareness Week in October 2013.

NEA is committed to values of inclusivity, intersectionality, and social justice. We welcome members of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, races, religions, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and abilities.

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From the very beginning, Victory Programs has had a reputation: We don’t turn anybody away. We offer second chances. We keep people alive. We look for unmet needs and we work to address them.

During the height of the AIDS epidemic, when people diagnosed with both HIV and substance use disorder found themselves with nowhere to go for treatment and care, we were the first to open our doors. We used what we learned from being the first to develop successful service models we could share with other organizations.

When the only option for women who had been designated a danger to themselves or others due to substance use disorders needed a community-based treatment option as an alternative to incarceration, we were there to offer a solution. We have always stood on the front lines, ready to identify and address the unmet needs in our community. Ready to help individuals and families with nowhere else to go find their way home.

That is the Victory Programs’ promise. Service, treatment, support, and care for everyone, no matter what. We offer individualized care from a strengths-based philosophy to help our clients identify, and achieve their personal goals. In practical terms, we meet people where they are and help them address the unique challenges that stand in the way of stability, safety, independence, and participation in community life.

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