Stonewall Alliance has always been a place for people of the LGBTQ+ community to express themselves, and now they can through a whole new medium: art. To kick off its Trans* Week celebration, Stonewall will be presenting an art exhibit at 1078 Gallery on March 19 through April 4 with art about the trans experience.

“For the last four years or so we’ve been seeing a huge need to help support the trans community and do more education and provide more trans-related resources than existed,” said Thomas Kelem, executive director of Stonewall Alliance.

The idea of doing a whole week to celebrate and recognize the trans community grew out of the desire to train therapists, doctors and people of the community about the needs of a trans person, regarding counseling and hormones. The idea to have an art show was a seemingly obvious addition to the celebration.

“From the very beginning I wanted to include an art show, because I felt like that was a whole other aspect to get people into the trans world through art that is by them or depicts them,” said Kelem. “Art is more of an emotional impact, not just intellectual and heady.”

The art show has been in the works for a year.

“I tried to get them for last year and they were busy and they said it was available this year so I booked it. … Now we’re booked at 1078 for two years just to make sure we have a place,” Kelem said. “That gave me the impetus and the goal, like, ‘Okay, I got the space I have to make it happen.’”

Kelem hopes that people will take away a better understanding of the trans experience after the show.

“We talk about people and groups of people and labels and it tends to feel like a very thin representation of people,” he said. “I want people to get a broader sense of trans people and the trans experience and just kind of shift their thinking.”

Stonewall Alliance is taking submissions for the show online and the information can be found on its Facebook event. The deadline for submission is March 13 and the reception for the show is 6 p.m. March 19.

Greta Gordon can be reached at [email protected] or @hakunagretata on Twitter.