Philadelphia's Transgiving Offers an Inclusive Celebration to Let People Be Their Authentic Selves

GALAEI, a Philadelphia organization serving LGBTQ+ people and communities of color, offered an early holiday celebration with its Transgiving event last Thursday.

The event is designed to provide a welcoming environment for those who don’t have traditional Thanksgiving dinners to go to, along with anyone else who wanted to drop in, organizers said.

“The holidays can be a little bit depressing … so when people get [the] opportunity to find places where they can share community, I feel like it’s a beautiful thing,” staffer Ebony Ali told local TV station WHYY. Ali, who cooked ziti for guests, is manager of GALAEI’s Student Power Leadership and Activism Together program.

Lead Coordinator Nelson Torres-Gomez said the organization isn’t a substitute for family, but “what we do is we offer an open and safe affirming space for folks to just be themselves.” This is the second year that GALAEI has held Transgiving.

Hara Nui, who attended the event, said it’s a needed alternative to traditional celebrations. “As a young adult, I’ve just decided to break free from the traditional Thanksgiving spread and just do my own thing and define what community and what family looks like outside of the norm,” Nui told WHYY.

GALAEI was founded in 1989 as the Gay and Lesbian AIDS Education Initiative, focusing on the Latinx LGBTQ+ community. Its mission has evolved to go beyond AIDS to social justice in general. It still provides HIV testing and linkage to treatment and prevention, while also linking transgender and nonbinary people with gender-affirming care, job training and placement, and more, and offering mentorship and other programs to queer youth.

The group will have a contingent in the Philadelphia Holiday Parade, which takes place December 2 and celebrates all the winter holidays, including Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and the Chinese New Year. GALAEI marchers will carry a 200-foot Pride flag.