How RI Startup "Transgender Zone" Builds Community, Resilience Amidst Anti-Trans Laws

Building Community and Support for Transgender Individuals: The Story of Transgender Zone

In this episode, Victoria St. Germain shares her inspiring journey from navigating a challenging transition in Rhode Island to founding Transgender Zone — a digital platform transforming how trans people connect, find support, and access vital resources. Her insights highlight the importance of community, resilience, and scaled support systems in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights and safety.

Key Topics:

• Victoria's experience growing up and transitioning in Rhode Island, including the legal and social challenges faced
• How Rhode Island's unique demographic impacts the trans community’s support network
• The creation and impact of Transgender Zone: resources, community building, and scaling opportunities
• The role of digital communities in providing safety, education, and connection during a global health crisis
• The importance of advocacy, visibility, and platforming trans voices in a hostile legal environment
• Challenges faced as a startup in a mission-driven social enterprise, including funding and growth hurdles
• The urgent need for supportive platforms amid increasing anti-trans legislation and attacks
• Practical advice for allies: how to support and amplify trans voices

Timestamps:

00:00 — Introduction to Victoria St. Germain and her work with Transgender Zone
 02:08 — Victoria’s personal experience growing up as a trans person in Rhode Island
 04:00 — Unique advantages and disadvantages of transitioning in Rhode Island
 04:56 — The motivation behind creating Transgender Zone and its early development
 06:03 — Features of Transgender Zone: community, live coaching, educational modules
 06:32 — How the platform fosters a diverse, supportive trans community
 07:27 — Scaling plans and ambitions for Transgender Zone to reach more trans individuals globally
 08:41 — The importance of digital spaces in post-COVID support and healthcare access
 09:53 — Challenges faced in starting and growing the platform amid legal and political threats
 11:19 — The resilience of the trans community and passing down vital safety and transition knowledge
 13:21 — The current legislative landscape and the fight against anti-trans laws
 14:25 — A call to action for allies: support, platform, and advocate for trans communities

Resources & Links:

• Transgender Zone
• Social Enterprise Greenhouse

Connect with Victoria St. Germain:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Transcript

Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Welcome into Bartholomewtown. Our guest today, Victoria St. Germain. We're going to talk about Transgender Zone, which is a community platform and learning space created by and for the transgender community. It's designed to offer guided, compassionate support for individuals navigating every stage of their transition. Victoria, welcome to Bartholomewtown. Thanks for the time.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Thanks so much for having me, Bill.

Bill Bartholomew 0:21

Let's talk about your Rhode Island roots here to set the table before anything else, because, you know, it's uh it's a particular badge to have. What's your what's your what's your background story in that regard?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Well, I'm I'm born and raised in Rhode Island. I went to Cherihou High School, middle school, and I grew up in Richmond, Rhode Island in a small farming town. And I am currently still residing in Rhode Island. I have loved it from the moment I step foot in the soil. Uh and you know, being a, we will get into this, but being a trans person openly in Rhode Island uh comes with its own unique uh advantages and disadvantages.

Bill Bartholomew 1:00

Yeah, I'm really interested in in that in detail before we go further, though. I have to remark, I am also a Cherhoe alum, and I've often talked about it here on the podcast, that the wild, the region, the regional district being comprised of dramatically different areas in terms of just you can look at it from a political breakdown, just look at election results. You can look at it from an agricultural versus suburban versus coastal community type of situation. So there's so much to it. So I'm I'm really interested before we go any further. Well, you what was your experience like in Cherhoe?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Well, I always describe it as sort of the opposite of what you often hear uh blue dot and a red state. And Cherhoe is a little bit more of a red dot in a blue state, at least that was my experience of it, where you there are a lot of supportive people, but there were also uh a lot uh there was a lot of opposition. So I actually set legal precedence in Rhode Island for trans folks to be able to use the correct facilities in schools and locker rooms, bathrooms. Um, I'm sure since then there has been further litigation uh on that. But there, I I started my transition at the age of 14. And throughout that entire journey, I my parents were by my side helping me fight the school administration to make sure that I was able to use the right facilities. So on one hand, I had a lot of support from some of the administration, a lot of the student body. But on the other hand, I also grew up getting spit on and having trash thrown at me. And there was uh can I language check on this?

Bill Bartholomew 2:34

Um you can use any language you'd like. If it's not suitable for FCC, we'll love to I'll just beep it. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

There was there was a student made but school endorsed scavenger hunt where one of the items on the list was get a picture with the tranny. And that was me. Uh and so people came rushing up to me taking photos, and I was like, it's all happening. But it was, it was, it was for a uh school scavenger hunt. But all of that to say, I had uh not the best experience in Cherhoe, but I wouldn't change it for anything. And um, I'm I'm trying to use the platform that I have now to make the world a a safer and better place.

Bill Bartholomew 3:12

Well, I'm so sorry you experienced that. And um, that's just uh that's unbelievable. You know, on a on a different level, I would say the same the si very same thing, you know. So it's I think it's it's really important context here for people to hear. I wonder what years, what what about approximately what you what years we're talking here? Is this like you know, for listeners out there. Yeah. So this is contemporary. We're not talking about 1971 or something.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Correct. Yeah, just just recently.

Bill Bartholomew 3:38

Wow. What a what a what a what a shaping experience. So I want to take that into you mentioned advantages and disadvantages writ large in Rhode Island to being a person going through transition or being a person who is transgender. I'd love to hear more about that from your perspective.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah, so Rhode Island is largely a very blue state. And so the advantages come with we have great healthcare. We have generally a lot of really, really great people. We have great uh trans and LGBTQ resources, but on the other side of things, it is a pretty small town. So for a few, and I say town, knowing it's a state because we we're all, we tend to all know each other. So word travels fast. When I first came out and started my transition, it was maybe within a week of me telling people that I was coming out, that even at away or like uh home or away football games, there would be people coming up and being like, you're the trans person, right? Where it's it is immediately communicated. Uh and it's it's especially difficult to find other trans folks, especially in a smaller part of Rhode Island. So that's kind of what led me to create transgender zone. Because when I was starting out at 14, I would sit all alone at home in my basement, scouring the internet to try and find any reliable transition information, any connection to surgeons, to hormones, therapists, things like that. And I just never did. And more than that, I was looking for somebody who was going through a similar experience. And until I got to college, where I only met one other openly trans person, I didn't meet anybody and I felt so alone. So I knew that being in such an open state in Rhode Island, I'm most certainly not the only one that's experiencing that.

Bill Bartholomew 5:24

What's been your experience since you founded Transgender Zone in terms of what have you heard from people and from your own experience in terms of connecting with more people?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Oh my God, it is so great. So, on just for some context on Transgender Zone, uh, we try to promote the ideas of confidence, confidence, and community and all aspects of transition. So we offer a few different unique uh resources on Transgender Zone. So, first of all, we have live group coaching where members can come and practice gender-affirming skills like vocal training or makeup. We have protected online forums as well as self as well as self-paced educational modules on every single aspect of transition. So, within that, we have a lot of different activity. And maybe my favorite part of being a member, not just the founder, but a member on Transgender Zone, is the lack of uniqueness in the best way possible. Because being trans, we're about 1% of the population, right? And when you finally meet another trans person, we're not a monolith. So you're likely going to meet someone completely different from you, which is great. But let's say you uh just came out to your wife and you're in a custody battle and you lost your job. That's a really unique situation. But we'll see someone make a post on transgender zone. And within 24 hours, their comments are filled with people that are either sympathetic or are currently going through the same thing or went through it and know that it's going to be okay. So seeing people often in crisis, sometimes we'll have people posting or joining a live session that don't know if they can continue on, whether it's with transition or in general. And they found a community of people to rely on. These people join our four live sessions every single week to have a community. And even for me, I feel so validated by being in a room full of trans people when that had never happened for me before.

Bill Bartholomew 7:17

Yeah. What's what's your ambition in terms of scale, in terms of taking this to a larger or making it available to more folks?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Well, really, it's it's getting the word out. So the social enterprise greenhouse in Providence has helped so much in the development of transgender zone. Early on, for anyone who doesn't know, social enterprise greenhouse is sort of the entrepreneurial hub for anyone looking to make a social impact. They took us under their wing and they have when you're starting a business, you don't know what you don't know. And so we, my husband is uh the co-founder as uh alongside with me. So the two of us took their accelerator course and learned so much about what it takes to scale and uh reasonable expectations of growth. So trans folks, there are around 600 million English-speaking trans folks around the world. And we would love to expand beyond just English. But if we could get just a fraction of that demographic, we can grow the platform to a spot where we can bring on more coaches, we can have more live events, we can have our own bespoke app, we can have live uh conferences, we can have people fly in, uh table at WPath events, a lot of different options there. But really, we want to make sure that we get on the table in front of a lot of people. I feel that most people just don't know we're here.

Bill Bartholomew 8:40

Yeah. Well, it's a convergence of a of a critical issue that you've just identified, but then also uh something that there's it's a space that requires a lot more thought, which is nuanced post-COVID in the sense of what public health and people pay attention to public health, learned about the value of creating digital community or digital, whether it's telemedicine or legitimate digital spaces that can then scale out into the real world, whether that's brick and mortar healthcare in vulnerable neighborhoods, for example, or that means live events or podcasts or whatever it may be that you're talking about. So there's this natural thing that kind of hits on a hits to a lot of different bases right now that's really important for us, um, I think as a as a country at minimum to sort of focus on if we've learned anything.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Exactly. And at at Transgender Zone, we make a scale, uh, a world stage difference where we have members in Singapore, we have members in South Africa, as well as members right here in Rhode Island, besides just me. Um, so it's really great to see that because in in Rhode Island, we're facing our own challenges, but on a national scale, on in the UN United States, we are as a community so viciously under attack. And we've never been exactly celebrated in a lot of ways. Um, but right now, especially, people are losing their jobs. We have members that are in the military, we have members who have to leave their state because they can no longer get care. And that's incredibly difficult. So in to have a community of people to reach out to is unbelievably important. A lot of these people have been disowned by their families. Maybe they're their birth families, they're they're uh created families and are looking for some kind of community and and they can find it there. Um, it something that makes me smile when I think of all the information that we like to pass on, whether it's through our lessons or our curriculum, is the trans community has always kind of had to fend for itself. We've always passed on information, safety information, um, transition information from one doll, we say, or one trans person to another. And so the, for example, I teach makeup lessons on transgender zone. And those makeup tips, yes, I've modified it to be my own, but those are passed down to me from other trans folks, from drag queens, from makeup artists. And so this information, no matter how hard the federal government tries to shut it down, tries to keep us quiet. We're always going to be here and we're always going to support one another. And that is just like the best thing that I've gotten out of transgender zone to see that no matter what happens, we are all here to support one another.

Bill Bartholomew 11:24

Beautiful. I wonder on the the actual platform itself, from from that standpoint, you mentioned um so social enterprise greenhouse. I just wonder, like right now in 2026, what's it like from this is ostensibly a startup or you know, a user interface type oriented project. So as a developer of something that is it's off the ground and running and it's growing, um, but what has that been experience been like specifically in terms of making it happen in Rhode Island?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Well, challenging, certainly, early on. Uh, my husband and I both uh we tackled this full time, where we were both building this app and living on whatever side jobs he could pick up. We had some a little bit of savings and we've really been scrapping over the last about a year and a half. We're getting to a much more stable place now, but a lot of rice and beans early on, as you can imagine. Um, and that's sort of the beauty of social enterprise greenhouse, because we weren't the only ones fighting for our next meal or, you know, fighting to make a social change. Uh when you have a a moment of lacking entrepreneurial resilience and feeling like, can I still do this? Like it would just be so much easier if I got a nine to five job because I wouldn't have to like this, this wouldn't be just me pushing this train. Being in a room full of other entrepreneurs and people that are looking to make a difference really, really lights that that fire under you and keeps you going. Um, and I think it's been we we started right before the 2024 election happened. And we were all chips in for Kamala. We were all so sure that was going to happen. And it things took a big change. And so from there, it's it's been more challenging to create this, but it's been more necessary than ever because right now, over half of our states now have anti-trans laws that directly target and antagonize my community. If I use the women's restroom right now in I think it's I, Iowa, Idaho, um, I could be thrown in jail. And the person that called the police could get a thousand dollar bounty reward for doing so. And human rights organizations around the world are calling what's happening in our country right now a burgeoning genocide. So it matters now more than ever that trans folks have a safe space.

Bill Bartholomew 13:49

Yeah. Absolutely. It is that's that's it is a it is a burgeoning genocide. I think that's a fair assessment. And it requires that kind of urgency and a laxadaisical approach or a a walled-off approach. Like you said, Rhode Island, different situation than Idaho or Iowa, but the urgency never greater. With that being said, as we close here, what's your message to anyone out there that's hearing this? That themselves or someone they love or know or care about, or maybe in the future, could benefit from becoming a participant in the transgender zone community.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Well, I would say certainly check us out at transgenderzone.com. Uh, for the trans individuals, stay strong. We've made it through much worse times than this, and we will make it through this again. You know, it's it's day by day, but by having a community around you, anything is possible. And to those who are loved ones or just allies of the trans community, we hear a lot protect the dolls. And yes, protect the dolls. But also, as you're doing here, Bill, platform the dolls, pay the dolls, hire the dolls, make sure that trans folks are given these opportunities because our community has been uh cornered into things like survival sex work or homelessness for so long. And it's still happening today, uh, particularly amongst black and brown trans women. It's it's it's a large problem um in our country. So platform, pay the dolls, make sure that you are outspoken in your support and remember that the fight never stops.

Bill Bartholomew 15:31

And I think that's