TLGBQIA+ Community Safety Training Series

This free skill-building training series is open to TLGBQIA+ neighbors, their allies, and service providers supporting Baltimore's TLGBQIA+ community. While we welcome all Baltimore City community members invested in trans liberation, we ask that folks joining us from outside Baltimore, or who do not themselves identify as TLGBQIA+ purchase sliding scale tickets to support and sustain our network.

Trainings will be held over zoom weekend afternoons in May and feature the use of small break out rooms, to engage in role plays and practice skills together in community. Please be prepared to join us with your audio and/or video on for the interactive role play and exercise portions of the training.

At the end of the series, we will gather at the YNOT Lot on Sunday, May 29th from 4-7 pm to grieve, breathe, and be in community with one another as we co-create a Community Grief Circle.

Sunday May 15, 1-4pm: Upstander Intervention & TGNC Self-Defense with Rej from Secure the Bag Safety

Join Rej from Secure the Bag Safety for an interactive training on Upstander Intervention and Self-Defense for TLGBQIA+ folks. We'll cover ways to intervene when witnessing harassment on the street or at the club and how to keep ourselves and our communities safer in the face of transphobic violence. Participants will be expected to join us with their cameras on for the self-defense portion of the training so facilitators can give notes on posture and form. We strongly encourage attending with a partner to practice with and request that if possible, you log on from one shared device, to ensure more participants are able to attend. Due to capacity limits, participants will be capped at 75 for this training. Content warning: this training will feature discussion of physical violence and transphobia.

Rej (he/him) is a co-founder and a lead trainer of STB (Secure the Bag) Safety, which is an organization that centers its work around protecting the lives of our BIPOC T/GNC/NB siblings by equipping them with safety kits and currently offering monthly T/GNC/NB self defense + safety virtual class. Rej has been a practitioner of martial arts (hapkido, TKD, BJJ, muay thai, Kumite Jiujitsu) for over 16 years (and holds black belts in hapkido and TKD). He has been facilitating Upstander intervention, de-escalation, and self defense + personal safety classes from trauma informed lens for the last five years. STB Safety offers a free monthly self-defense and safety class for TGNC folks over zoom. Learn more at: https://stbsafety.org and https://www.instagram.com/stbsafety

Saturday May 21, 1-4pm: Grounding Through Crisis with Jesse Gold

Join Jesse Gold for a deep dive into grounding practices to stay cool in a crisis, find your center, and remain present and able to help others as they navigate crisis situations. They’ll discuss trigger mapping, somatic self-awareness, share an overview of different DBT skills, the bodymind connection, and close with a group breathwork exercise. This training will feature the use of small break out rooms to role play and practice grounding skills together. Small break out rooms will not be recorded.

Jesse Gold (they/them) is Clinical Mental Health Counseling Intern (soon to be licensed therapist!) at Inner-Evolution Holistic Psychotherapy and Coaching, specializing in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Polyvagal Theory. They are also a trauma-informed body positive yoga instructor who works to facilitate nervous system regulation through gentle restorative movement and breath. They live in Baltimore with their partner and cat, and spend a lot of time gardening, foraging, making herbal medicine, and making music.

Sunday May 22, 4-7 pm: Basic First Aid with Lex + Marian

Join Lex and Marian, members of the Baltimore Street Medics Collective, for an introduction to first aid and crisis triage. This training will cover assessing scene safety, basic first aid, opioid overdose reversal, how to determine when to escalate care, how to communicate with medical professionals, and ways to advocate and reduce harm for people in crisis when interacting with emergency medical services. Content warning: frank discussion of bodily injury, life threats, bleeding, discussion of opioid overdose & reversal.

Lex (they/them) is a healthcare provider and public health researcher with specialties in reproductive justice, gender-affirming hormone therapy, midwifery, and HIV awareness, prevention, and treatment among highly- affected populations. They live in Baltimore with one of their children, several cats, and lots of plants.

Marian (they/them) is a community educator and street medic certified in basic first aid, Community Emergency Response and Wilderness First Aid. They have lived in Baltimore since 2011 and have organized and taught protest health and safety and 20 hour street medic trainings in several states. Marian loves to travel and makes it a point to research and find rocks and minerals wherever they go.

Saturday May 28, 1-4pm: Somatic Self-Care & Qi Gong for Grief and Energetic Balance with Haylin Belay & Jamee Pineda

Join Haylin and Jamee for our final session on Somatic Self-Care and Releasing Grief.

Haylin will discuss somatic self-care and ways to care for ourselves and nervous systems, touching on boundaries, pleasure, and coming home to ourselves. Her workshop will end with a group guided self bodywork session focusing on acupressure techniques to release tension from the face and neck.

Then Jamee will lead us through a workshop on Qi Gong for Grief and Energetic Balance. Qi gong, cultivation of vital energy, is a low-impact movement practice that originates from China and draws on martial arts forms. There are a wide range of benefits one can experience including calming the nervous system, reducing pain, increasing energy, and improving mood. In this workshop we will be learning qi gong movements and Chinese medicine theory to help process grief, balance our vital energy (qi), and deepen our connections to ourselves and our communities. The movements can be done seated, standing, and with various modifications.

Please join us for this session in comfortable clothing that is easy to move in, having recently eaten and had something to drink. We recommend having something to sit on, water, and a journal or some way to take notes.

Haylin Belay (she/her) is a trauma-informed bodyworker, sexual health educator, and pleasure witch whose work is focused in teaching people of all ages practical skills for a healthier, more pleasurable life. In addition to over a decade of experience in developing research-based health education programming and providing professional development for clinicians, educators, and activists, she offers workshops, trainings, and one-on-one coaching from an integrated mind-body-spirit perspective.

Jamee Pineda (he/him) is a hilot binabaylan, acupuncturist, and Chinese medicine practitioner. His practice is informed by his identity as a queer, trans, non binary, Tagalog person living in the U.S. With the combination of his lived experience and training, his goal is to help individuals and communities live their fullest lives by offering a decolonizing approach to medicine rooted in traditional and ancestral practices.

Sunday May 29, 4-7 pm: Community Grief Circle @ the YNOT Lot

QCRU invites all TLGBQIA+ community members and allies to join our Community Grief Circle on May 29th from 4-7 pm at the Y-Not lot. Join us to grieve and honor loved ones in community with one another, foster deeper connections with neighbors and learn from each other ways to feel into our grief. Materials will be available to create your own portable altar, feel free to bring pictures or personal effects. We will cry, laugh, dance, learn new skills and admire art from local artists. Snacks and non-alcoholic refreshments will be available.

Access notes: These trainings will be held virtually, over zoom and will be recorded. Automatic closed captioning will be provided. Links and prompts will be copied and pasted into the chat and the chat log during the trainings and resources will be shared with attendees after the meeting. This training will feature the use of small break out rooms to role play and practice skills together in community (small break out rooms will not be recorded). Participants are encouraged to join us however they can, but as these workshops are centered around skill-building and deepening relationships, we encourage active participation via audio/video during the role plays and exercises, if possible.

Questions? Access needs you're not seeing? Let us know!

About us: QCRU is a community care network by & for TLGBQIA+ people in Baltimore City, formed in 2020. Our growing network of neighbors, allies, and service providers knows firsthand just how dangerous and traumatizing interactions with law enforcement can be for TLGBQIA+ folks in crisis - particularly Black and Indigenous trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities - and we are committed to caring for one another, to reduce the impact of that known harm. As queer and trans folks, we know that our survival is dependent on one another. We believe that deepening our relationships and committing to caring for one another is a necessary investment in our collective liberation. By turning to our neighbors when we need help, we're building the future we dream of, one relationship at a time.