DOCTOR GENNIFER HERLEY

Founder and Executive Director of TransNewYork

DOCTOR GENNIFER HERLEY IS THE FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TRANSNEWYORK

What are the aims of TransNewYork?
TransNewYork’s mission is to educate, empower, and enhance the lives of transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals globally through advocacy, community visibility, human and social services, advance knowledge, and lifelong learning development of self.

While trans visibility has increased in the past few years, what more needs to be done?
We believe that educating the public is critical in moving the issues forward that affect our community. In order to go about that it is imperative that we get buy in and educate within both public and private corporations. We need to build and create leadership programs for our community. We need to be active in getting highly qualified transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals onto boards. Lastly we need to continue to partner with our allies to bring about acceptance and change.

There are many challenges to the transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary community. Kids who identify under the trans umbrella need much more understanding and acceptance. This needs to occur in schools as well as the home. TransNewYork is making an effort to work with our allies so that we may begin educating the school districts through parent teacher meetings.