Bianca Aponte (Research Associate on the LifeSkills team) and Ruben Hopwood (Coordinator of the Trans Health Program).

Fenway Health was well-represented at this year’s First Event (January 18-22, 2012), an annual transgender conference produced by the Tiffany Club of New England (TCNE.org) and attended by over 600 people. More than 10 Fenway Health staff members made the trip to Peabody, MA to attend workshops and network with pride with the transgender community—Fenway’s biggest showing ever.

Fenway Health sponsored a table hosted by Ruben Hopwood, Coordinator of the Transgender Health Program, and staffed by other members of the Fenway community including Transgender Health Program Assistant Thomas Lewis, Health Navigator Alex Solange, and The Fenway Institute’s LifeSkills Team—who made their debut at the conference in an informational workshop lead by Ruben Hopwood and Sari Reisner.

LifeSkills is a new NIH-funded study on HIV prevention in the transgender community (Investigators: Matthew Mimiaga and Sari Reisner). The LifeSkills study will test the efficacy of an HIV prevention intervention with young transgender women ages 16 to 24, in order to address health disparities around HIV infection rates in this community.

Fenway staff also hosted two workshops and did a lot of personal networking with conference attendees. The first workshop was an information session with Ruben Hopwood covering Fenway’s Transgender Health Program and overall health center services, followed by an introduction to The Fenway Institute by Matthew Mimiaga, and an overview of the field of transgender health research by Sari Reisner. Jackie White and Emilia Dunham helped showcase the new LifeSkills study and participated in a panel discussion of the study with Bianca Aponte, Nelisa Rash, and Sari Reisner.

The second Fenway workshop was a transgender suicide prevention skills workshop presented by Ruben Hopwood and Thomas Lewis. Suicide represents a pressing public health issue for transgender communities, with a recent national survey of transgender and gender nonconforming people showing that 41% of respondents had attempted suicide in their lifetime. The workshop discussed the risk and preventive factors for suicide in transgender communities, showing the workshop participants the latest data available and focusing on community peer-intervention skills.

This workshop also included a new transgender suicide prevention video released by the Transgender Suicide Working Group, which is co-sponsored by Fenway Health, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Samaritans, and the Department of Public Health. The video, entitled, “Saving Our Lives,” can be watched for free on MassTPC.org.

First Event offered the opportunity for Fenway Health staff to network with a variety of different organizations and programs serving transgender people in Massachusetts. Conversations took place between healthcare service providers, researchers, organizers, activists, legal advocates, and members of the community about the diverse needs of transgender people and collaborating to meet those needs. Feedback from the community was overwhelmingly positive. Staff received appreciative comments throughout the day from people in the hallways and at the Fenway information table. The diversity of transgender expressions and identities was celebrated by all. Thank you to First Event!

Co-written by Ruben Hopwood, Transgender Health Program Coordinator, and Sari Reisner, Associate Research Scientist at The Fenway Institute 

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