LaGender Inc.

LaGender, Inc., is a black and transgender women of color led organization dedicated to empowering the transgender community on the unique issues of HIV/AIDS, homelessness, wrongful incarceration, mental health and the fight against discrimination of any sort.

LaGender, Inc., is a black and transgender women of color led organization dedicated to empowering the transgender community on the unique issues of HIV/AIDS, homelessness, wrongful incarceration, mental health and the fight against discrimination of any sort. In 2001, Dee Dee Chamblee, a Black woman, transgender activist and organizer living with HIV for over thirty years founded LaGender Inc. to amplify the voices of Black transgender women who were experiencing high rates of HIV/AIDS in Atlanta. At that time, they were reluctant to access HIV prevention and treatment services due the discrimination they experienced from health care providers and the erasure of their transgender identities by local LGB organizations and other HIV/AIDS service organizations. In an effort to combat stereotypes, misconceptions, and misinformation, LaGender developed a training program specifically geared to educate and inform AIDS service organizations, academic institutions, and public health providers on transgender issue areas locally, nationally, and internationally. From there, LaGender has expanded to include an ongoing support group for transgender people, which centers transgender women of color; establishing a leadership development pipeline and coaching training programs; in the tenure of LaGender, they have built a coalition of transgender-led and progressive organizations, working on a shared advocacy platform that addresses criminalization, HIV, immigration and sex work in the transgender communities.

This organization is supported through the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, which is housed at Astraea.

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