Ephraim Alexander Schwartz

Berkshire Trans Group awarded Trans Justice Fund Grant

Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition

Media Contact: Ephraim Alexander Schwartz | Ephraim@berkshirestonewall.org

Berkshire Trans Group awarded Trans Justice Funding Project grant

[PITTSFIELD, MA] Berkshire Trans Group has been awarded $6,267.40 by the Trans Justice Funding Project to go toward programming, captioning, guest speakers, and mutual aid for and about transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming members of the community. The Trans Justice Funding Project is a community-led funding initiative founded in 2012 to support grassroots trans justice groups run for and by trans people in the United States (including U.S. territories). 

Berkshire Trans Group is a peer support group and a project of Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition, Berkshire County’s longest standing LGBTQ+ organization. It has been essential to the launch of organizations like Berkshire Pride, Rainbow Seniors, Queer Men of the Berkshires, and other groups focused on LGBTQ+ wellbeing. Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition has since shifted its focus to its Berkshire Queer History Project, which often partners with projects and organizations to expand access to queer history in the Berkshires – including trans history. 

Berkshire Trans Group has served since 2017 as a peer support group and information resource for, by, and about the local transgender community. In addition to presenting opportunities to meet the local trans community in Great Barrington, Pittsfield, North Adams, and online, it is also a place where people can exchange resources, opportunities, and information on trans-friendly establishments.

This funding brings the opportunity to Berkshire Trans Group to extend the availability of cross-county meetings, which were slated to be reduced due to volunteer burnout. The Trans Justice Funding Project has also awarded enough to allow for Berkshire Trans Group to begin hiring captioners for trans-specific Berkshire Queer History Project interviews.

In addition to its regular annual Friendsgiving and Trans Day of Remembrance in November, Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition held its second Queer History Month Screening on October 24th. This year plans to address activists who have been lost to or impacted by LGBTQ+-specific marginalization, including the AIDS crisis and escalated violence against transgender individuals. If you know someone or of someone who has been lost to or impacted by LGBTQ+-specific marginalization, please reach out to queerhistory@berkshirestonewall.org.

More information on Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition and its project, Berkshire Trans Group, can be found on their website at berkshirestonewall.org. Please direct questions to info@berkshirestonewall.org.

FOR MEDIA INQUIRES:

Ephraim Alexander Schwartz | Ephraim@berkshirestonewall.org

By Ephraim Alexander Schwartz, ago

Fiscal Sponsee Seeing Rainbows granted 501(c)3 status less than month after incorporation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Ephraim Alexander Schwartz | always.seeing.rainbows@gmail.com

Announcing

Seeing Rainbows granted 501(c)3 status less than month after incorporation

[PITTSFIELD, MA] Seeing Rainbows, a trans-led art organization, has received its nonprofit 501(c)3 status less than a month after filing. Drawing from community initially discovered through Berkshire Trans Group, Seeing Rainbows received a generous temporary sponsorship from the support group’s fiscal sponsor (Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition) to bridge the gap as it awaited word of its own nonprofit status.

“We’d heard from multiple nonprofits that it took months, closer to a year, for their status to be finalized,” says Ephraim Alexander Schwartz, cofounder of Seeing Rainbows. “It was certainly a welcome surprise. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of welcome surprises come our way.”

“Everyone I’ve spoken to about this is absolutely floored that we heard back so quickly,” says cofounder Maayan Nuri Héd. “We don’t know the ‘why’ of it, but we’re very grateful to Berkshire Stonewall for supporting us in the interim, and also relieved to be an independent nonprofit in our own right, so quickly.”

The founding of Seeing Rainbows dovetails with Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition’s strategic planning. As of 2024, Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition surveyed the LGBTQ+ community for its current needs. Serving as a temporary fiscal sponsor to LGBTQ+ projects like Berkshire Pride and Queer Men of the Berkshires made sense in years past and enabled organizers of various economic backgrounds to change Berkshire County for the better. However, the amount of volunteer hours needed to continue as a fiscal sponsor regularly diverted attention from its greatest strength: as the longest standing LGBTQ+ organization in Berkshire County at 27 years, it has found itself best situated as a vessel for preserving queer history.

 “Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition has a long history in the Berkshires, but in our recent past has served as a hub and fiscal sponsor for various LGBTQ+ projects,” says Ray Garnett, treasurer of Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition. “We will be in a period of transition as we move away from serving as fiscal sponsor and move towards focusing on Berkshire Queer History.”

Seeing Rainbows is the first program to graduate from fiscal sponsorship since this transition began. It is also the youngest Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition fiscal sponsee.

“I remember a time when BSCC was the only nonprofit representing the queer community and it’s exciting to see the support of our community that is enabling the growth of many queer organizations, some of which have already blossomed into nonprofits of their own. We are proud to have been a part of their journey and look forward to what’s next,” said Jason Vivori, current chairperson of Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition. Vivori has also served as president, vice president, and other roles through various chapters of its life.

“I am thrilled to see the smooth transition of Seeing Rainbows from a BSCC sponsee to its own nonprofit status. As one of its first supporters, we look forward to continuing to support the important work that Seeing Rainbows is engaged in, creating and sustaining a thriving trans community in the Berkshires,” says Charlie Catacalos, newly elected president of Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition.

Seeing Rainbows has launched with a slew of active programming, from weekly Trans Hikes, to monthly closed (trans and nonbinary only) Trans Art Workshops in partnership with Berkshire Art Center, as well as monthly Salons, open to all.

More information on all of Seeing Rainbows’ programming and partnerships can be found on their website at seeingrainbows.org. Questions may be directed to the entire staff at always.seeing.rainbows@gmail.com.

FOR MEDIA INQUIRES:

Ephraim Alexander Schwartz | always.seeing.rainbows@gmail.com

Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition | berkshirestonewall@gmail.com 

By Ephraim Alexander Schwartz, ago

Nex Benedict: Anti-LGBT+ Laws Lead to Child on Child Murder

Edited by Nuri Héd

On February 8th, Nex Benedict (they/them) died one day after being overpowered and repeatedly beaten against the girls’ bathroom floor (of which Oklahoma’s law forced them to use) by three older girls. They needed assistance walking to the nurse’s afterward, and only received emergency treatment after returning home.

Nex Benedict is the only one currently reported to have received a suspension. The Owasso Police Department is claiming their death was not related to the attack, and that they are waiting on a toxicology report that could ‘take months’.

This comes just shy of two years after Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law SB615, which was declared an ‘emergency’ to expedite the bill. Its only purpose is to pass restrictive measures around bathroom use, including banning gender-neutral bathrooms and mandating that students use bathrooms that match their assigned gender at birth or else get federal funding pulled.

Oklahoma rates #49 out of 50 in K-12 state education, and #48 in healthcare. No one specializing in education, health, gender studies, or LGBT+ standards of care were consulted in the writing of this bill, which has contributed a hostile learning environment.

This is not the first anti-LGBT+ instance that has taken place in Owassa High School: in August 2022, two months after the anti-trans bathroom bill was passed, Chaya Raichik, who goes by “Libs of TikTok” online, took aim at an Ellen Ochoa Elementary School for having an LGBT-friendly educator. This educator became the target of death and bomb threats, resulting in their resignation. Libs of TikTok has been linked to 21 known bomb threats and targeted harassment by hate groups like Proud Boys.

Last month, State Superintendent Ryan Walkers appointed Chaya Raichik, who is unlikely to even live in the same time zone as Oklahoma, to the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s Library Media Advisory Committee.

The national LGBT+ community continues to be targeted by hundreds of dehumanizing bills each year, with states within our own country being declared high risk or no travel advisories due to the danger they pose for some of their own citizens.

Massachusetts has two of its own anti-LGBT bills in consideration as I write this.

Children like Nex will continue to be murdered – including by other children following the examples of bigoted adults – as long as we allow those who pursue an agenda of hatred to lead us. 

May Nex’s family find them justice, and find peace. May Nex’s memory be a blessing.

By Ephraim Alexander Schwartz, ago

STATEMENT: Tennessee Trans Youth Healthcare Ban

On July 8th, 2023, 6th Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled to make the Tennessee Trans Healthcare Ban effective immediately. This ban prohibits transgender youth from seeking and receiving gender affirming healthcare, as well as doctors from providing this type of healthcare. In addition, it prohibits continued care after March 2024. This ruling comes in the wake of multiple drag show prohibition bills across the USA, with the first being passed in Montana as of May 22nd, 2023. It also takes advantage of the same language used to take away abortion access by citing the Dobbs Abortion Ruling, stating that transgender care is not “deeply rooted in the nation’s history or traditions.” Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition stands for the rights of all LGBT+ people, and these rulings attack those rights.

This is not where it ends. On February 28th of 2023 (House File 508), Iowa proposed overruling same-sex marriage. A record-breaking 500+ anti-LGBT bills have been introduced across at least 20 states in 2023, over 200 of those specifically targeting trans youth. Seventy of those so far have been enacted into state law. These bills disregard medical advice and put many of our neighbors in heightened danger just for how they were born and where they live.

Currently, the Tennessee ban is being appealed on the grounds of being unconstitutional sex discrimination. If you want to help prevent the Tennessee Trans Healthcare Ban, please consider reaching out to and supporting ACLU Tennessee.

You can also contact Tennessee’s elected officials, including:

Governor Bill Lee

Speaker Cameron Sexton

Representative Pat Marsh

Representative Karen D. Camper

Tennessee House of Representatives

References:

Erin Reed/Erin in the Morning (independent journalist and trans woman)

American Civil Liberties Union (follow-up article here)

Human Rights Campaign 

AP News

USA Today

Iowa Legislature

By Ephraim Alexander Schwartz, ago