This year’s Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31 comes amid numerous attacks on the community from President Trump and his congressional allies advancing sports bans, restricting affirming healthcare, and gutting federal funding of nonprofits that provide life-saving resources for the trans community. 

One such organization operating in Baltimore and D.C. is Safe Haven, which runs shelters in both cities for trans people experiencing homelessness along with a variety of other services for the broader LGBTQ community, including HIV prevention.

Iya Dammons, who serves as executive director of both Safe Haven groups and operates the shelters, spoke to the Blade about the challenges of doing this work in the current political environment.

Dammons said federal funding for Safe Haven Baltimore and D.C. has been frozen by the Trump administration as part of its sweeping policy of opposing government support for transgender-related programs. But she said the mayor’s offices in Baltimore and D.C., including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have provided local funding to make up for the loss of federal funds.

“Things are looking dire, but we have to continue our services,” she said. “So, we’re continuing to do the services in Washington, D.C. In Baltimore City we’re also being told that at the end of the day we can keep doing services and the city of Baltimore stands with us,” she said by providing financial support.

In addition to providing transitional housing for transgender people and others in the LGBTQ community experiencing homelessness, under Dammons’s leadership, Safe Haven provides a wide range of supportive services for LGBTQ people in need, with a special outreach to Black trans women “navigating survival mode” living, according to its website.

“Through compassionate harm reduction and upward mobility services, advocacy support, and community engagement, we foster a respectful, non-judgmental environment that empowers individuals,” a website statement says. “Our programs encompass community outreach, a drop-in center providing HIV testing, harm reduction, PrEP, medical linkage, case management, and assistance in accessing housing services,” it says.

Dammons says she and her associates at Safe Haven are responding to the hostile environment brought about by the Trump administration, among other things, by promoting a theme of “We Will Not Be Erased,” which will be highlighted in a Baltimore street mural.

As a follow-up to another street mural initiated by Dammons on Charles Street in Baltimore in July 2020 called “Black Trans Lives Matter,”  the new “We Will Not Be Erased” mural is scheduled to be painted on a two-block section of Charles Street on March 29.

“So, this year, because of what is happening with the Trump administration, that he is trying to erase our population, this is going to say we won’t be erased,” Dammons told the Blade. “And it’s going to reflect our Black Trans Lives Matter mural,” she said.

Dammons said she is disappointed by Mayor Bowser’s seeming acquiescence to the Trump administration’s demand that she remove the D.C. Black Lives Matter street mural located on 16th Street, N.W. opposite the White House that Bowser had installed during Trump’s first term as president.

“She was likely to lose funding, so I understand,” Dammons said, referring to threats by Trump and Republican members of Congress to cut millions of dollars from the D.C. budget if the mayor did not remove the Black Lives Matter mural.

But Dammons said she does not think Bowser has spoken out forcefully enough about Trump’s actions toward the trans community.

Dammons, who founded Safe Haven Baltimore, which is also known as Safe Haven Maryland, in 2018, is credited with playing the lead role in its growth with a current budget of $3.8 million. She founded Safe Haven D.C. in 2023 at the time the trans supportive D.C. LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby shut down. The D.C. Safe Haven is located at 331 H St., N.E.

In recognition of her work and contribution to the community, the Baltimore mayor and City Council in June of 2024 named a Baltimore street where the Safe Haven offices are located as Iya Dammons Way in her honor.

Dammons said she was highly honored by the street name designation and has pointed out that with the purchase of a second building to house its offices and services scheduled to open in Baltimore in June, Safe Haven has emerged as one of the nation’s largest trans-led LGBTQ nonprofit service organizations.

“It may be the largest trans-led organization by a Black trans woman of color,” she said. “It’s the largest one on the East Coast led by a Black trans woman of color.”

Regarding Trump and the anti-transgender actions by his administration, Dammons said that as a Black trans woman, “Everything that they have removed from my clients and the people I serve, he has removed from me.”

“And we have no other choice at the end of the day than to stand up and fight back and know that we won’t be erased,” she said. “There is no other choice than to stand up and fight back because, for them, this is a lifestyle. But to us, this is us. So, it’s a whole different ballgame when you look at the people we serve.”

Trans Day of Visibility events

• Trans Day of Vision picnic and rally, March 30, 1-5 p.m., Malcolm X Park. For more information, visit the DC Center’s website.

• Trans Day of Visibility rally and reception in Montgomery County, March 31, 4-7 p.m., 4805 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda, Md. RSVP at liveinyourtruth.org.

• ‘Building Power and Solidarity Across Generations’ webinar featuring trans leaders, March 31, 7 p.m. EST, RSVP via GLAAD’s website.

• Rally featuring members of Congress, March 31, 4 p.m., National Mall between 3^rd Street and 4^th Street, D.C.