Growing Our Impact, Facing Greater Threats: TAKE's 2025 Year-in-Review

This Month’s issue of The TAKE-Away shares highlights from all the amazing work supporters like you made possible in 2025. Read on!

• In 2025, TAKE successfully housed 19 trans individuals, ensuring a safe and stable environment for community members who had in some cases faced homelessness, abusive housing situations, violence against them in other shelter environments, living out of their cars, and other harms. TAKE successfully “graduated” a few of the folks we housed in 2025 once they were able to build a stable foundation, helping them step into their next chapters.

• At the end of 2025, TAKE officially finalized the purchase of our new Gloria’s Safe Haven emergency shelter space. This 7-bedroom home will be a place of safety, dignity, and care for Black trans folks in moments of crisis, expanding our capacity to house our people.

• In 2025, we pursued securing even more properties to be used for affordable transitional housing as well as permanent supportive housing for trans folks in Birmingham, AL-coming soon!

  

• In 2025, TAKE’s H.E.L.P. Program improved medical adherence among community members though our incentivized medical adherence program, which included over 1,000 check-in calls logged to make sure our folks were able to access their health appointments and reminded to continue care. TAKE connected 5 individuals to PREP to enhance health and safety through prevention.

• TAKE organized more than 22 special events throughout the year, including 2 educational retreats, informing our people, expanding wellness, and building community. This is in addition to our daily groups, which connect community members on a regular basis around issues like mental health and empowerment. Over 4,000 people participated in one or more of these offerings in 2025.

• TAKE served food during every daily group and special event, with occasional dinner outings on Fridays, ensuring consistent nourishment for our community members. During the government shutdown in 2025, TAKE also launched our new Feed Our Folx program, helping to intervene to alleviate hunger in our communities.

• In 2025, TAKE provided over 200 rides to doctors appointments, over 100 Uber rides so our folks can get around safely, and gave out 25 bus passes so transportation isn’t such a barrier for our communities.

In Houston in May of 2025, TAKE graduated our 5th cohort of Black trans leaders from across the U.S. out of our Monica Roberts Freedom School program. This innovative program, named in honor of the groundbreaking activist, historian, and journalist Monica Roberts, trains Black trans leaders and aspiring organizers from any age bracket and area of the U.S. on a multitude of skills, from civic engagement to direct service, policy work and personal empowerment. We opened applications for our 6th cohort in June of 2025, and received 75 applicants from all over the U.S., from which 25 were chosen to be a part of the program. We are excited to share more and celebrate the graduation of our 5th cohort of leaders in May of 2026!

• Between phone banks and public events like our Rally at the Capitol, we directly had conversations with hundreds of voters across Pennsylvania and Alabama, and reached thousands more with viral social media videos, newsletters, and featured earned media pieces talking about the importance of local elections (and, in PA, the State Supreme Court Retention race.)

• In part due to our organizing efforts to educate the public and increase the salience of Safe & Equal Schools, Pennsylvania saw a huge swing towards pro-equality School Board candidates, who were elected in upsets across many parts of the state, including Hempfield School District, one of the epicenters of attacks on trans kids in recent years.

• TAKE organized partners to release our viral “I Stand With CHOP” sign-on letter advocating for the protection of trans healthcare. 50 partners, including 23 current elected officials, signed the public letter standing with trans kids against illegal attacks from the current administration in Washington.

• TAKE continued to develop our Relational Organizing program, reaching voters through their own networks of trusted family and friends to make sure they know what is at stake, are registered to vote, and show up to the polls.

• TAKE’s policy work continued to expand, from our Safe & Equal Schools bills to ensure trans kids and ALL youth are safe in schools, to name change reforms that offer a route to making legal name changes easier and less expensive for everyone from trans folks to domestic abuse survivors and newlyweds.

TAKE knows that it’s not enough to just shift policy or meet direct needs on the ground; we have to shift the narrative, change hearts and minds, and lead to lasting cultural change. Through our media efforts, TAKE is reaching wide swaths of people with messages of love, acceptance, and political education.

Take a look at some of our media highlights in 2025:

• TAKE’s Founder and Executive Director is profiled in Bold Journey Magazine

• TAKE’s Director of Civic Engagement discusses protecting trans healthcare on the To Your Health! Care Podcast

• Birmingham Times Interview with TAKE responding to anti-trans Executive Orders

• Coverage of TAKE and partners’ Black Queer Visionaries Summit in LGBTQNation

• Beautiful tribute to Miss Major, and lifting up of TAKE’s work, on AL.com

• Great coverage of TAKE’s Trans Day of Visibility Rally at the PA State Capitol on Pennlive

So much work happened across 2025 that we can’t include in-depth breakdowns of everything in this one review, but we’d be remiss not to mention that in Alabama, one of our two main service states, TAKE continues to offer crisis assistance, job readiness services, legal services, particularly name and gender marker changes on documents, and the T Boutique, which has a store of clothing, toiletry items, and other necessities available FREE for our communities in need. Just stop in to the TAKE Resource Center in Birmingham or give us a call at (205) 848-5849 to request assistance from TAKE.

At TAKE, our vision is BOLD, and time and again, we accomplish what many believe is impossible. From building a thriving, Black trans woman–led service organization in the Deep South, to owning our own drop-in center, headquarters, and now a permanent emergency shelter, to offering comprehensive programs that holistically meet our community’s needs, TAKE remains deeply committed to doin’ the work.

None of this would be possible without our donors. For over 12 years, we have stewarded meaningful partnerships with funders and supporters whose values align with our own, cultivating relationships rooted in trust and a shared commitment to helping our communities thrive against all odds.

At the same time, our funding landscape is shifting. Several major funding pools have closed in the past year, requiring us to pivot and build new pathways to bring our bold visions to life. Amid relentless attacks on trans rights and widespread instability across institutional funding, we are especially focused on cultivating grassroots, one-on-one donor relationships. These smaller, individual partnerships—grounded in connection, care, and shared purpose—are what will carry us through this political moment.

2025 Highlights

• January: TAKE staff and Peer Educators attended Creating Change, connecting with donors face-to-face while building skills, networks, and national visibility.

• April: We celebrated our 12th anniversary with a gala co-hosted for the second year by model, activist, and musician Yves Mathieu East and rapper and influencer Dianca Glamour.

• November: We launched our end-of-year fundraising campaign, focused on our vision of securing property for a drop-in emergency shelter, as well as permanent and transitional supportive housing.

• December: We closed on our permanent Gloria’s Safe Haven—a seven-bedroom residence that will serve as an emergency shelter for trans people in Alabama for generations to come. This milestone represents years of dedicated development work, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who helped make it possible.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all of you who have supported TAKE by donating in 2025. If you haven’t had a chance yet, as we move forward together into 2026, support our bold vision of safety, liberation for Black trans communities. Donate here.

“We have entered a new year, yet many of the same challenges still remain for trans folks. Even so, it does not discourage us from doing the work. We continue to fight daily to ensure we can exist in this world, be seen as human beings, and receive the support we deserve. I urge you to learn more about how you can become a monthly sustainer of TAKE’s work. Your contribution helps us continue our life-changing work and create real impact within our community. Because of your support, we are able to keep showing up, building safe spaces, and uplifting our trans community members. Together, we can continue to make a difference.”

-Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd, TAKE’s Founder and Executive Director

Once again, thank you for tuning into The TAKE-Away: TAKE’s FREE Monthly Newsletter, and keep an eye out for our next installment on the 15th of February.

TAKE Care of Yourself,

-The TAKE Team

TAKE

7128 Oporto Madrid Blvd

Birmingham, AL 35206