Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Vanessa Sheridan helps trans community at Center on Halsted
by Molly Sprayregen
2018-03-21

This article shared 1751 times since Wed Mar 21, 2018
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Vanessa Sheridan is a woman of many talents.

She's an author and a musician, a veteran and an advocate. She was a transgender inclusion consultant for businesses like McKinsey and Company, Mayo Clinic, Best Buy and the Human Rights Campaign, and agencies like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

She was also the first person to write a book on transgender Christian spirituality and have it published by a mainstream publisher. Now, Sheridan is using her talents at Chicago's Center on Halsted, the Midwest's largest LGBTQ community center, as the Center's first-ever director of transgender relations and community engagement.

Sheridan took on the job in February 2016, and since then has been tasked with building a department focused not only on offering resources and support to trans people in need, but also on creating a space where trans people can find and build community.

"It's been wonderful, terrifying, challenging, problematic, fantastic and everything in between," Sheridan said. "When you're doing anything new from scratch, there's always challenges, but then there's always some great opportunities as well, and I like to focus on the opportunities."

Among the events Sheridan has helped spearhead are the annual Transgender Community Ice Cream Social, Trans Military Appreciation Day and the annual Trans Turning Point, a series of presentations by vendors that provide goods and services to the trans community. The Center on Halsted also offers several transgender support groups as well as specialized counselors equipped to work with trans individuals struggling emotionally or psychologically.

Sheridan is especially excited about a current project: developing a Transgender Leadership Academy. "We want to help train and equip the next generation of trans community leaders," she says, "and this will be a way to help us move in that direction."

Throughout her 26 years working as a trans advocate, Sheridan has placed a major focus on educating people on the realities of transgender life. "People can't begin to change their attitudes or their actions until they're given enough information to make them want to do that or help them to do that," she says, "I see a big part of my role here at Center on Halsted as being one of those folks to educate and to bring some of that into the mainstream, to give people a framework of understanding, so they can make better choices about how they deal with transgender people."

One of the realities about which Sheridan wants to spread awareness is the high transgender suicide rate. Forty percent of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey said they have attempted suicide. The suicide rate of the general U.S. population is 4.6 percent.

"If that were any other demographic group in this country … we'd have already declared a national emergency," Sheridan said. "We'd have been calling out FEMA and all that kind of stuff, but that's not happening, and it's not happening because there's a lack of understanding and a lack of respect I think for trans individuals in this culture, and I think we need to do a better job of educating people."

Trans unemployment rates are another big issue. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found trans unemployment to be three times that of the national rate. "I don't think you can have full social equality until you first have economic equality," Sheridan said, "and you can't have economic equality until you have employment opportunities. So we have to try to educate employers, hiring managers, recruiters about the realities of the fact that transgender people have a lot of talent and they're an untapped demographic group to a great degree.

"My hope is the rising tide will lift all the boats: The employers get a better employee, the trans employees have the opportunity to work for a living, companies get better products or services and society wins. Because again, the rising tide lifts all the boats—but that only works if you have a boat. So in this case we have to build the boat around authenticity, around facts and around realities, and that's what I try to share with folks."

Education, however, is not only for cisgender folk attempting to better understand the trans community. Sheridan said she urges those struggling with their gender identity to educate themselves as well. "There's a million things online to look at," she stressed. "There's good books out there to read. Do that. Educate yourself. Find out what your options are. A lot of folks don't think they have any options but I think we find out as we begin to educate and inform ourselves that options begin to appear."

Sheridan said she believes the Center on Halsted has a fantastic opportunity to make an impact not only on the transgender community of Chicago but also on a national level. She hopes, for example, that the Transgender Leadership Academy may become a template other cities can use to develop their own.

"I think this organization is so uniquely positioned to have an opportunity to move forward and to help trans people gain self acceptance, become equipped with skills they need to be successful in life, and to create community that will provide support and resources and reinforcement as people struggle with, again, the realities of life as a trans person," she said.

Sheridan also stated that she wants to help the Center on Halsted remain a safe haven for LGBTQ people. "When disaster strikes for the LGBTQ community in Chicago, this is a place where people come," she said. "They gravitate here, and we want to be prepared to be supportive of the trans community. … I think that's really important for us on any number of levels, not just on a practical, resource-based level but on a symbolic level too. My hope is that people will look at this organization and say, when things go bad, we know we can depend on Center on Halsted, and I want to be part of that and help create that support that people want to find when they come to a place like this."

Center on Halsted will hold its TDOV Transgender Day of Visibility program, coming up on March 31. Here is a link to it: www.centeronhalsted.org/newevents-details.cfm .


This article shared 1751 times since Wed Mar 21, 2018
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Nex Benedict's autopsy report released
2024-03-27
The full autopsy report for Nex Benedict (he/they)—a 16-year-old transgender and Indigenous student from Oklahoma's Owasso High School who died in February a day after a school fight—has been released. The Oklahoma Office of the Chie ...


Gay News

Brown Elephant Returns To Northalsted
2024-03-26
Brown Elephant's Lake View location is moving to Northalsted and already accepting donations. Howard Brown Health, the largest LGBTQ+ health center in the midwest, operates three Brown Elephant resale shops in the Chicagoland area to help ...


Gay News

An interstate trans healthcare crisis: Illinois prepares for influx of people seeking gender-affirming care
2024-03-26
With hard-won rights, such as access to hormone replacement therapy or permission to use one's chosen pronouns in school, breaking down in states across the country, trans residents of all ages are left with a choice: ...


Gay News

Planned Parenthood of Illinois expands Orland Park health center
2024-03-26
--From a press release - ORLAND PARK, Ill. - Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL) announces the expansion of its existing Orland Park Health Center at 14470 S. LaGrange Rd., Suite 106. The 1,800-square-foot expansion is projected to increase sexual and reproductive ...


Gay News

Wyoming is latest state to ban gender-affirming care for minors
2024-03-24
On March 22, Wyoming became the latest state to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors, The Hill noted. In doing so, it joined 23 other states that passed laws restricting or banning the treatment. Legislators in both ...


Gay News

No charges filed in Nex Benedict fight; campaigns call for Walters' removal
2024-03-22
In Oklahoma, Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler announced that no charges will be filed in connection with the fight that happened the day before transgender, nonbinary high school student Nex Benedict died by suicide, NBC ...


Gay News

JP Karliak morphs into non-binary character for Disney+'s X-Men '97
2024-03-22
series X-Men '97, a revival of the popular X-men: The Animated Series that's both continuing the ongoing mutant storyline and breaking new ground along the way. The character of Morph now looks more like the comic ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Va. marriage bill, AARP, online counseling, Idaho items, late activist
2024-03-21
Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed bills protecting same-sex marriages at a state level, surprising some, WRIC reported. The bills—passed out of both chambers along mostly party lines—will require clerks ...


Gay News

Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council sets a new course
2024-03-18
Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council held its first meeting of the calendar year on Feb. 28 at City Hall in the Loop under the leadership of the recently appointed chair Jin-Soo Huh. The LGBTQ+ Advisory Council is ...


Gay News

Almost 8% of U.S. residents identify as LGBTQ+
2024-03-16
The proportion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ+ continues to increase. LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as LGBTQ+, according to the newest Gallup poll results that ...


Gay News

WORLD Leaked messages, Panama action, author dies at 32, Japan court, out athletes
2024-03-15
Hundreds of messages from an internal chat board for an international group of transgender health professionals were leaked in a report and framed as revealing serious health risks associated with gender-affirming care, including cancer, according to ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Missouri measure, HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, judge, Texas schools
2024-03-15
In Missouri, a newly proposed law could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they're found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning, CNN noted. ...


Gay News

College athletes sue NCAA over transgender policies
2024-03-15
Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among a group of college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on March 14, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing trans swimmer Lia Thomas ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Lady Gaga, 'P-Valley,' Wendy Williams, Luke Evans, 'Queer Eye,' 'Transition'
2024-03-15
Lady Gaga came to the defense of Dylan Mulvaney after a post with the trans influencer/activist for International Women's Day received hateful responses, People Magazine noted. On Instagram, Gaga stated, "It's appalling to me that a ...


Gay News

SPORTS Red Stars prepare to kick off NWSL season against Utah Royals
2024-03-15
It's been a busy winter for the Red Stars, and it's time to put their work to the test. Following a last place finish in the 2023 NWSL season, Chicago has had an active offseason transforming ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.