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A new resource center has just opened to serve the LGBTQ+ community in southern Oregon. Rogue Trans, the organization that opened the new space in Ashland, focuses on supporting and centering trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse community members as it pushes back hard in the face of a federal crackdown on trans rights.
“It started out of frustration at a lack of resources in the Rogue Valley for the transgender community,” Maeve Woulfe, Rogue Trans’s executive director, said. Rogue Trans is a Facebook support group turned non-profit organization turned brick-and-mortar resource center. Woulfe has led the project since the Facebook group launched in July 2024. After that group had grown to over a hundred members and Rogue Trans incorporated as a non-profit last year, it received grant support for the new resource center. It opened its doors in early May with a reception studded with local stars — Southern Oregon University Provost Casey Shillam and President Rick Bailey, Ashland Mayor Tonya Graham, and local State Representative Pam Marsh
“It grew into being a Facebook group, then we started doing events, and at these events I would listen to people and listen to what they wanted, and I heard things like they wanted places where we could go and just be, support for finding work, things like that — and that’s really where the vision for Rogue Trans started,” Woulfe said.
The new resource center is in Ashland, and it serves the larger Rogue Valley. Ashland is home to Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, institutions whose programs draw students, artists, academics, and tourists from around the nation and the world. The town prides itself on providing a welcoming and inclusive environment.
But parts of the Rogue Valley also have a far-right tilt. The majority of voters in Medford, the area’s largest city, about a 20-minute drive from Ashland, tends to cast ballots for Republican representatives, and thanks in large part to Medford’s population, over 51% of the county’s voters cast ballots for Trump in the last general election. The small city’s Pride Month and No Kings events bump up against Make Oregon Great Again and other pro-Trump rallies.
It was on a trip to Lake of the Woods, about an hour drive from Ashland, with over twenty members of the local trans community, that Woulfe realized the power of having a dedicated space where members of the trans community could gather and feel free to be themselves. She committed to opening a resource center soon after. “We had a whole picnic. People were playing in the lake. People brought up guitars, games, coloring books, and people were able to come out, be themselves, and not worry about the judgment from other people because we had our own group going,” Woulfe said of the day trip last summer.
Opening Rogue Trans has also been a personal journey for Woulfe, who grew up in southern Oregon and told me coming out in the Rogue Valley was a mixed bag. “People are going to be supportive, and people are going to be haters,” she said. “I do my best to focus on the people that care, the people that are supporting because no matter what, the only thing that keeps us pushing forward is hope and love.”
The new Rogue Trans resource center is meant to foster that sense of community and belonging, while offering programs and gathering spaces at a time when being trans can feel dangerously isolating. The 2,400 square-foot space has a computer room, a community closet for free clothes swaps, a dance studio, and additional space for hosting events. The center also offers a body-doubling room, a space where two people can work alongside one another — a trick that tends to help neurodivergent people get tasks done. Woulfe told me there is a big overlap between the neurodivergent and trans communities in the Rogue Valley. “This is stuff that I heard from the community that would be supportive,” she said.
A grant from Myer Memorial Trust will sustain the organization for the next two years. Rogue Trans has also received support from the Oregon Community Foundation, the Trans Justice Funding Project, and the Ashland Community Health Foundation (ACHF).
“Some of the things that we look for in projects are access to care, access to behavioral health services, and also community building,” said Stephanie Roland, ACHF’s executive director. “Rogue Trans is a new organization, and it’s bringing a new service to support a diverse population. That made it an appealing project [to support].”
Woulfe said every dollar makes a difference for capacity building and expanding the resource center’s hours to ensure it will be there when community members need it. Since the center first opened in May, it has operated on a limited schedule of only two half days and one full day per week. The goal is to eventually be open a full five days per week. As the center grows, Woulfe said she also plans to hire peer support specialists.
Though it is operating on a limited schedule, Woulfe said that has not stifled the community’s excitement. “The response has been phenomenal,” she said. “It shows that people care about us, and people really see us, and hear us, and support us.”
