As anti-trans attacks escalate, Michigan-based Stand With Trans empowers by building community

Oct. 1 marks the start of Transgender Empowerment Month — a series of events launched by Michigan nonprofit Stand With Trans that has grown to a national and even global audience of transgender people, their families and allies. 

Stand With Trans executive director Roz Gould Keith says that this year’s theme, “Stronger Together,” reflects the fact that “we really feel that we have to be on the same team, and we are so much stronger together. We want young people and their families to feel like they have a community, and that they don’t have to be isolated and alone.”

Trans Empowerment Month began in 2015 as a one-day workshop for trans youth, Keith explained, to celebrate young trans people and to give them an opportunity to be in community with one another. During the pandemic, the programming switched to a month-long conference-style format to meet the need for a virtual setting. 

“We started out local, Southeast Michigan, and then once we went virtual, we were tracking this national and then international audience, so that’s the plus side of being virtual,” Keith explained. “There’s the recognition that people don’t always live in places where they have access to local resources. There might not be a community center. There might not be a support group they can attend.”

Aidel Hawkins, the program manager for Stand With Trans, noted 2026 programming will include speakers from Berlin and Abu Dhabi, and the programs are drawing participants from an international audience, including Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Germany, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Thailand.

The transgender community has increasingly become the target of political and legal attacks, with the Trans Legislation Tracker showing 835 anti-trans bills introduced across 43 states in 2026, including 32 in Michigan. 

“I think any opportunity that we have to break that up and show stories of resistance, of helping each other within the community, of celebrating each other, the ways that our efforts to support trans people help the community at large, even beyond just trans and queer people, are really important for people to hear,” Hawkins said.

She added that, in spite of attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and transgender people specifically, Trans Empowerment Month proves the strength of the community. 

“It feels like some of the trans and queer communities that I’m part of are feeling stronger than ever,” she said. “Although there’s a lot happening, there are many points to highlight the ways that we are stronger together, and we’re building deeper methods of community, like organizing and supporting each other.”

“With everything going on in our state, in our country, in the world, we really want to reinforce that,” Keith added. 

In 2025, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer officially recognized Transgender Empowerment Month and National Coming Out Day, which is observed annually on Oct. 11.