Central Florida’s 1st place in Favorite Local Trans-Affirming Organization; 2nd place in Favorite Local Trans-Affirming Space
For this year’s WAVE Awards, we introduced two new categories that focused on the advancement of our local transgender community — Favorite Local Trans-Affirming Organization and Favorite Local Trans-Affirming Space — and the one organization that appeared in the top three for both categories was Bliss Cares.
“I am so honored that Watermark readers and the community recognized us for what we did in the community with our TRANSformation program,” says Juan Rodriguez, executive director of Bliss Cares.
Bliss Cares’ TRANSformation is an instructional series that assists the transgender community in providing education on a variety of topics such as safety, discrimination, medical, name changes and more. It was started by Rodriguez in 2016 at a time when there were no other extensive resources like it in Central Florida.
“When we started Bliss Cares in that same year, we were trying to look for those underserved populations and those that didn’t have any kind of resources or services,” Rodriguez says.
The program began with two sets of classes, individuals transitioning from male-to-female and from female-to-male, and recently added a third set of classes for the nonbinary community. The program’s graduates feature some of the most well-known leaders in Central Florida’s trans community including Mulan Montrese Williams, Shea Cutliff, Ashley Figueroa, Angela Hunt and Jazell Barbie Royale, just to name a few.
“To see where we are now and to see what is happening in the community, especially by leaders from TRANSformation, it’s just amazing to see,” Rodriguez says.
