Monica Forrester

Monica Forrester (she/they) is a 2Spirit Trans Women of color, activist, community leader, sex worker, and parent. For 27 years she has been working in community services to bring awareness to the lives of racialized and marginalized Trans and 2Spirit folks that may be sex workers, under housed, unemployed, use substances, and are experiencing systemic and societal violence. She works on creating inclusive spaces for Trans/2Spirit people in places of community and employment. Her work is grounded in the belief that supervising and leading outreach teams through a harm reduction approach has better outcomes for community members that may be engaging in sex work, using substances and/or are under housed. Her current goal is to create opportunities for Trans/2Spirit people to use their life experiences and training in harm reduction to create employment opportunities to transition individuals into the workforce. Creating pathways to employment allows Trans/2Spirit people with no work experience or education to build skills to work in community services to support others in the community that may share the same life experiences. As part of the residency, Forrester will create training modules that support marginalized and racialized trans people through harm reduction and peer outreach employment methods and approaches as they apply to work.