Billie McBride-O’Neel is skating out of the shadows for trans youth

Billie McBride-O’Neel is skating out of the shadows for trans youth

Transgender people have been in the news more often recently, so it can be easy to forget that trans people have always existed. But being visibly trans comes at a risk. If you can ‘pass’, many trans people choose to stay in the closet. Billie McBride-O’Neel spent four decades hiding. “I had to hide as a trans person in the eighties because trans people weren’t accepted in the community,” she said. “Then I had to hide because of the AIDS crisis.…

At Desi Rainbow, Aruna Rao Creates Safe Spaces For South Asian LGBTQIA+ Individuals & Their Families

Desi Rainbow Aruna Rao’s child came out as gay when he was in high school. “It was a big blow to my system,” she recalls. “I thought of myself as fairly progressive and well informed, but I saw this as a way for him to be perpetually marginalized.”As she looked for resources, Rao said she couldn’t find a safe space to explore and understand the issue as an immigrant with existing cultural preconceptions.  “It felt like there were people who were…