"If I'm dreaming, I don't want to wake up," Lorrainne Sade Baskerville said from the offices recently acquired by her agency, TransGenesis. "I've been planning for five years to have an independent transgender safe space."
It has been about a month since Baskerville signed the lease for two offices at 4556 N. Broadway, and since then she has been busy making the space her own. Posters of prominent African-Americans adorn her office wall, and cozy velour sofas dot the sunny drop-in space.
Securing a home for TransGenesis has been a long, hard road. After spending years getting the needed funds and support, Baskerville and her agency were turned down by four building managers before she signed on at Broadway and Wilson in Uptown. The manager there was so supportive that she thought something must be wrong. But within days she signed the lease, and the rest, she said, is history.
"TransGenesis made history," she said. "I want to make a safe space for this population nobody wants to address."
The agency occupies two offices on the third floor, literally within a stone's throw of the Red Line "L" train. Baskerville said she and her staff and clients will just have to get used to the noise, which intensifies at rush hour as trains rumble past every few minutes.
One office belongs to Baskerville, while the other will house programs and the agency's staff.
She hopes to have six full-time staffers by the end of the year, and she has three prospective peer educators on hand. The educators have to go through training and certification through the Department of Public Health.
"I'm trying to empower them," Baskerville said of her staff.
The educators will run TransGenesis' group programs, while Baskerville will hold one-on-one counseling sessions and bloodless HIV testing called OraSure. She was recently certified to conduct the testing, and she plans to offer it from 2 to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Group programs began last week, with a new peer discussion group, All True Divas Stay Focused, on Thursday from 6 to 8, and drop-in on Friday from 5 to 9.
An open house for the whole community is scheduled for June, Pride month.
She quickly rattles off the programs she hopes to offer in the future: GED classes, Tai-Bo sessions, poetry workshops, classes on the history of the trans movement, a literary club and a newsletter/newspaper.
The office's first event was held last week, a last-minute reception for Pebbles, who was in town for the trials of two men who killed her friend and left her for dead in a 1999 shooting ( see story page 6 ) .
It is with obvious pride that Baskerville shows off her office space, pointing to the places where new equipment and adornments will eventually go.
"This is my dream," she said, adding, "This is just the tip of the iceberg. I want to expand ... . There's so much I want to do."