(no subject)

[tedrick-james.livejournal.com]

Midwestern Transgendered People!!!

FORGE (For Ourselves: Reworking Gender Expression), a national education, advocacy and support umbrella organization supporting FTM+s (female-to-male transsexuals and transgenderists, and others who were assigned female at birth but who now have some level of masculine identification) and SOFFAs (Significant Others, Family, Friends and Allies), is announcing its next Midwest social support group meeting.

Our next meeting is on Saturday, April 5, 2003, from 7:00 to 10:00pm at Milwaukee's LGBT Community Center, located at 315 Court Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

FORGE meetings provide a friendly, facilitated setting for FTM+s/SOFFAs to network, share their personal experiences, become more informed, and gather resources.

Meeting agendas include:
* open rap session
* socializing time
* a moderated, single-topic discussion

April's topic is "The Limitless Possibilities of Gender Identity and Expression". Issues covered at this meeting may include:
· what is gender?
· how do you identify?
· how do you express the gender you feel within?
· how is (or how has) your relationship to gender emerged and/or changed over time?
· what does your expression of gender reveal to you about yourself, to others?
· do you have language for your internal state of gender identity?
· how does your gender identity/expression dance with those around you?
· is your gender finite or infinite?


The topic schedule for the next FORGE meetings are...
May 3, 2003 Emergence and Disclosure
June 7, 2003 Making Our Bodies Our Own
July 5, 2003 Spirituality
Aug. 2, 2003 The Heat Is On!
Sept. 6, 2003 Depression and Mental Health Issues
Oct. 4, 2003 Hormones
Nov. 1, 2003 Trans+/SOFFA Aging
Dec. 6, 2003 Holidays and Rituals


FORGE support group meetings are open to ALL people interested in FTM+/SOFFA issues. We support and honor the plethora of ways there are to be FTM+/masculine/butch/trans+ and the wide variety of people who fall under the broad category of SOFFA.

For more information about FORGE (meetings, basic information, resources), please contact FORGE, PO Box 1272, Milwaukee, WI 53201. Phone: 414-278-6031. Email: info@forge-forward.org. Web: www.forge-forward.org.

I have to be at drop-in for Project Q, down the hall in the community center, but I'll be around.