Dear Colleagues!
We are coming up on summer, a time for adventures, opportunities for play and greater lightness, the apex of the year when soon we will reach the longest day of the year. It is also a period of growth when many flowers are coming to full bloom and the baby animals born in the spring are in exploration mode. Some of our plans for this year are coming to fruition: we held our first in-person hybrid luncheon on May 20th! Maureen Johnston, LMFT presented Supporting the Supporters: Understanding and Assisting the Families and Friends of Gender Expansive Kids, Teens, & Adults at Michael's at Shoreline in Mountain View. People were in person at Michael's eating lunch, and people also joined online. All our luncheons and workshops are organized as hybrid offerings this year and we hope to continue using this modality. This way, people who feel comfortable can attend in person while those who cannot be there in person or prefer to listen from the comfort of their home or office can join online.
It was such a pleasure to be back at Michael’s after a long hiatus. Most of all, it was a treat to get to meet some of you in person… you know, place a face on a name, and get together with colleagues and friends. After a couple of years doing only online presentations, getting this first in-person meeting was a feat and for this I would like to specifically recognize the work of our board members Vanessa Ventura, Brandon Hoshiko, and Liliana Ramos. We were also aided by chapter member Justin Gillespie and our chapter coordinator, Nancy Orr. You can see pictures of this event HERE. All in all it was a success and we are looking forward to the next in-person hybrid luncheons and workshops scheduled for the rest of the year. See the list HERE.
We continue to seek various ways to support the community. We have added a Black Therapist support group that will be held every fourth Saturday of the month, starting on 25 June at 10:00am, led by Erica Jenkins, LMFT. As some of you have noticed, we have been sending e-blasts to celebrate various occasions, either national/global recognitions of communities (LGBTQ+, Asian, Veterans Day) or spiritual (Eid, Passover) to name a few. I would like to thank those of you who have reached out with feedback and particularly those who have caught our mishaps. We are exploring, and learning as we go, to be more inclusive and we may very well not use the right words. We appreciate your efforts to support our willingness to create change and expand our reach.
Have a beautiful, sunny, and breezy summer!
Back to Summer 2022 Newsletter
