MaineTransNet, which is kindly hosted by the ECC, also has cool events. Pretty much even informal gatherings are considered to be dry by default out of respect. If anything involving drugs or alcohol comes up I've always seen it navigated carefully. The Equality Community Center and Maine Trans Net both have online social options (Discord) which I can help folx find if so needed.

So is your message that public genital interrogation is fine if conducted by A) anyone who is not a therapist B) directed towards adults C) is incited because someone had the audacity to bring up someone who is trans?

I think you might be thinking of the Department of Health and Human Services, this is a post for MaineTransNet.

Money is good too. I think for right now its best practice to let the kids choose to a reasonable extent. I don't think we are taking public forum on this program right now. It's still in development and we tend to look internally for this kind of feedback so trans-friendly/culturally competent suggestions can take focus. If you'd like to get involved feel free to use mainetrans.net/volunteer

IDK, I think there are options to donate books, art implements, toys, and journals on there too.

We operate a thrift shop called Safe Combinations and they should be able to receive it during store hours. It might be better to like call ahead or, if you're comfortable DMing me, to discuss the drop off scenario (like name and time you're coming) so they don't worry about a package being suspiciously left there. But, it should work out, yes.

>Open Friday thru Sunday, 11am to 6pm Located at 15 Casco St. Portland, ME Inside the Equality Community Center

https://www.safecombinations.org/

Thank you for your interest, btw!

I'm curious as to what the litmus even is for meeting "needing to do a toy drive" in proportion to "how many trans kids there are."

Like 10/1000 trans kids without toys?

100/1000 trans kids without toys?

Is it like once we hit an overall quota of trans kids then we have permission for a toy drive? 1,000? 10,000? 20,000? 100,00? (even more)?

Or is it like a ratio? Like 1:1000 of the total population of Maine is not enough to justify a toy drive but 2:1000 would be?

I think we do collect demographic data on things like this but my guess is it probably had more to do with the director of our youths program wanting the folx in their care to experience something good.

If you can figure out which of those numbers and which methodology you'd like used I can probably ask someone from our executive team.

Though, I have a genuine question too because I like to volunteer and help out y'know. Should this be standard operating procedure for interacting with the community and altruism? Like if someone is doing an Eagle Scout project should I ask them if they have formed a class action with other Eagle Scouts to establish their need? High school doing a bake sale -- well how many students even are there that we need to do a bake sale?

The numbers are probably not off the scales, suppressed in part because this is a hard demographic to survey, many would be trans folx simply choose to suffer instead of transition or join the community because of pressure, and because we are generally resistant to inquest. Even if we did rule out all those factors it may not be enough to please everyone.

Okay, so news from the war front: I spoke to our youth programs coordinator and they said it was okay and possible to send these letters to our office in Portland with a few key conditions. The inner/card content cannot be sealed in anyway. No contact information can be left on the card.

Other than that it should be gucci.

MaineTransNet Youth Programs
15 Casco St
Portland, ME 04101

I will legit pass it on. We are always looking for new ideas.

Shares are very appreciated. We also proudly serve the elders of our community through programming. The way things are structured we always try to obtain leadership from different communities we intend to serve. They have a leadership team that advises MaineTransNet and can make these sorts of requests too!

We are hoping to get all of these package items covered by January!