Community Building and Organizing

In my free time, I enjoy taking on leadership roles in Southeast Michigan communities that help empower marginalized people. I’m most proud of my mutual aid fundraising work for members of the trans-masculine community, as well as, my work drafting contract language for GEO 3550 to expand healthcare coverage for trans and nonbinary students at U-M.

Continue reading to learn more about some work I have done with local community groups.

Selected Community Work

  • Support Group Facilitator; Group Admin

    Oct. 2020 - Mar. 2025

    • Facilitated monthly meetings that provided emotional support and healthcare education for over 150 transmasculine and nonbinary individuals in Southeast Michigan

    • Designed and implemented two separate GoFundMe campaigns for multiply marginalized members of the support group who had critical financial needs, raising more than $10,000 dollars in less than 2 weeks

    • Helped build and maintain a vibrant community as a member of the admin team, by hosting monthly support group meetings; planning free accessible summer events for group members; facilitating admin team meetings; and recruiting new volunteers to manage our social media pages and Discord server

  • Trans Health Working Group Chair; QT Caucus Co-Chair

    Jan. 2021 – Aug. 2023 

    • Spearheaded the formation of a working group whose end goal was to write gender affirming healthcare proposals for the GEO 3550 contract campaign

    • Facilitated meetings of 4-10 members to conduct research on health insurance policies and best practices for gender-affirming healthcare

    • Wrote contract proposals that secured two major wins during the GEO 3550 contract campaign, increasing access to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender folks by removing pre-authorization barriers and adding coverage for new services

    • Formulated negotiation strategies for bargaining team members, enabling GEO to win a network expansion for gender-affirming healthcare, more than doubling the providers covered under the “GradCare” plan

  • Elected Student Representative

    Sep. 2018 – Apr. 2020 

    • Facilitated two focus groups that highlighted a critical need to revise UMSI’s candidacy milestone and emphasized a strong desire for a more caring academic community 

    • Partnered with other DEC members to conduct a department-wide survey collecting feedback on the pre-candidacy milestones, which informed discussions with the program committee and led to UMSI revising the scope and instructions for the prelim to make the candidacy exam more equitable for 100+ students to date

    • Created a local mental health resource document for University of Michigan graduate students, which explained how university health insurance works, and multiple options for seeking mental healthcare