Gender Affirming Care Foundations

In recent years, authoritarian movements have been using gender affirming care to create fear and disinformation. This training supports a wide variety of stakeholders in building a clear understanding of gender affirming care. It is designed to help cisgender (non-transgender) individuals to identify the ways in which they have accessed or may access gender affirming care.   

This curriculum integrates trans voices while creating space to bust myths in commonly asked questions about gender affirming care. It also situates gender affirming care as a political wedge issue in the racialized history of politicizing community survival. This session will help all attendees identify and counter when transphobia is being used to divide us.

Objectives: 

• Participants understand how gender affirming care is relevant to their lives.

• Participants hear from trans people why gender affirming care is important. 

• Participants grapple with commonly asked questions and bust misinformation.

• Participants develop knowledge of gender affirming care as a politicized wedge issue. 

For over 20 years, tash shatz has been involved in social change work. As a white Jewish transgender youth with disabilities, tash became an educator by necessity in 2004. Since then, tash has served as a LGBTQ policy and community organizer, an advocate for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and a consultant and coach on organizational development and racial equity. For their work, tash has received awards and recognition from Basic Rights Oregon, Northwest Gender Alliance, Portland State University Office of the President, PSU Sexual and Gender Equality Task Force, Queer Heroes Northwest, and The Trans 100.

Learn more at www.tashshatz.com

Kalpana Krishnamurthy is a Licensed Professional Counselor / Marriage and Family Therapist Associate at Sankofa Counseling and in her private practice, Know Feelings Therapy. She works primarily with South Asian, Asian Pacific Islander, and BIPOC individuals and relationships, with a particular focus on anxiety, second-generation immigrant identity, gender exploration, and the emotional work of being human in a tough world. Kalpana earned her graduate degree in Counseling from Portland State University.

Before becoming a therapist, Kalpana spent over 25 years in community organizing and policy change work focused on reproductive justice, health, and rights. Her work included abortion and contraception access, sexuality education, self-managed abortion, and addressing cultural and systemic barriers to reproductive healthcare—experience that continues to shape her clinical lens.

Outside of therapy, Kalpana teaches self-defense with Rose City Self Defense and volunteers with 988. She is an avid knitter, romance novel reader, and home cook, and lives in Portland with her partner and two teenagers.