![\"Meryl](\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/29570063_web1_Chew-JUE-220625-Chew_3.jpg\")
<\/a>Meryl Connelly-Chew is being awarded the Southeast Alaska LGBTQ+ Alliance’s Mildred Boesser Equal Rights Award on Sunday. (Courtesy photo \/ Meryl Connelly-Chew)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
“Meryl is a joy to work with. They are just a strong and steady support to all of these projects, and really determined to make these projects come to fruition, said Ty Shae, the ZGYC’s program coordinator, in a phone interview. “They’re diligent and determined and organized. They’ve really been a driving force for a lot of projects in town that people have been thinking and dreaming about.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Partnerships, such as with Shae at the ZGYC, Chloey Cavanaugh for Spectrum, and David Abad at AWARE are essential to the mission, Connelly-Chew said. Growing up in Tenakee Springs, Connelly-Chew said the work they’re doing is to help support the youth and the community as a whole.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“For me, community-based work is what interests me. Queer community building is what matters most to me,” Connelly-Chew said. “In terms of my identity, I grew up in a really rural place. I didn’t know any queer people growing up. I didn’t know I was queer growing up.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Connelly-Chew said they became involved in Spectrum while working in Bellingham, Washington, and brought it up to Juneau when they moved back in 2020. Connelly-Chew said they co-facilitate the group with Cavanaugh.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Spectrum is a free, confidential, 12-week support group for anyone who falls under the LGBTQ2+ umbrella and has experienced trauma, whether recently or in the past,” Connelly-Chew said in an email. “Facilitating Spectrum has been incredibly healing for me, as a queer person who has experienced sexual trauma. Being with other people who have had similar experiences to me, and are on a healing journey, has helped me feel so much less alone.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Connelly-Chew said they’re also working with the ZGYC for both the scholarship and for a workshop in August for trans youth heading back to school.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“We’re working together to have a scholarship for gender-affirming items for trans youth,” Shae said. “We’re also working on a trans self-advocacy workshop specifically around schools.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The workshop is scheduled for Aug. 6 from 3-5 p.m., with more information being available on the ZGYC and NAMI Juneau social media, Connelly-Chew said. The scholarship, on the other hand, will be an ongoing project, Connelly-Chew said— people can donate through namijuneau.com, Connelly-Chew said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“We started a scholarship fund to provide gender-affirming items for Juneau youth,” Connelly-Chew said. “It’s a really low-barrier way for youth to access gender affirming items. That can be lifesaving.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The annual award is named after Mildred Boesser, a longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in Juneau who died in 2015. The award will be presented at the Pride Picnic at Sandy Beach, which runs from 12-4 p.m. on Sunday.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Being a queer person and doing queer work can be really overwhelming sometimes. It can be challenging,” Shae said. “I think it’s very well-deserved.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at (757) 621-1197 or mlockett@juneauempire.com.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Community-based work is their focus and their calling. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":87551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[548,75,627],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-87550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-lgbtq","tag-local-news","tag-pride"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87550"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=87550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}