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➡️ Trans Cookout
➡️Southern Healers Fellowship
➡️ Virtual Wellness Toolkit
➡️ Meeting the Moment Wellness Workshops
➡️ Wellness Webinars
➡️ Indigenous Wisdom from the Mountains
➡️ The Latest from Healing & Resilience
➡️ Healing & Resilience Past Work
Undergirding every area of our work at the Campaign for Southern Equality is a recognition that pushing forward on lived and legal equality for LGBTQ+ Southerners has an impact on activists’ fundamental health and wellness. Through our Healing & Resilience program, we focus on equipping the CSE community – including staff, partners, and advocates – with the necessary tools to care for ourselves and one another, while doing the work to secure justice and equality for LGBTQ+ Southerners. Learn about our current and past projects below.
Trans Cookout
Trans Cookout: A Listening Series, is led by our Director of Healing & Resilience, Holiday Simmons. This series will focus on issues affecting trans communities, and strategies for resilience and liberation during a chaotic and turbulent time. Holiday will speak with guests about their lives, including their perspectives on trans liberation, resilience, and wellness. You Can listen to Trans Cookout on Spotify here, and Apple Podcast here.
Southern Healers Fellowship
Since 2021, Campaign for Southern Equality’s Healing & Resilience Program has been honored to offer micro grants to BIPOC wellness practitioners living in the South, who dedicate their services to LGBTQ+ people. In that time we have awarded and connected with approximately 60 groups and individuals doing incredible work. In 2025, we deepened our partnerships and strengthened the support to local practitioners with the Southern Healer’s Fellowship, for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color), LGBTQ+, Southern healers. Read about the 2024 Southern Healers Grant round below, and to see information about previous grant rounds, check out our archive of past Healing & Resilience Projects.
Meet Our 2024 Southern Healers Grant Recipients
We are so excited to share the work of the twenty recipients of the 2024 Southern Healers grant round! These grants are dedicated to so many of the innovative healing efforts led by LGBTQI Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) Southerners. We define healers broadly to include therapists, counselors, social workers, healers, addiction specialists, life coaches, body workers, yoga instructors, reiki masters, energy healers and other wellness practitioners who are working to improve their clients’ lives.
Access A Virtual Wellness Toolkit for LGBTQ+ Youth
This digital zine for LGBTQ+ youth in the South and beyond is focused on healing, resilience, and wellness. The toolkit features:
- Centering practice
- Quotes of support
- Links to helpful resources
We hope you check out the toolkit, and share with your people! Be well 🩷
Meeting the Moment Wellness Workshops
In the Fall of 2022, the Campaign for Southern Equality launched “Meeting the Moment Wellness Workshops,” a series of conversations geared toward shared community and collective resilience. These Healing & Resilience Community Workshops will be hosted by Campaign for Southern Equality’s Director of Healing & Resilience Holiday Simmons, joined by special guests.
Healing & Resilience Webinars
Strategies for Getting Grounded and Staying Principled in Uncertain Times
In this webinar, hosted in March 2020 just as the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States, Holiday Simmons shares tips and strategies for reducing panic and stagnation, and increasing compassion and community.
Stretches and Cranial Massages for Stress Relief and Centering
In this webinar, hosted in April 2020, Holiday Simmons teaches introductory cranial massages that can be done on yourself or someone else, including children. These practices have been known to calm the nervous system, relieve tension and headaches, and support vitality.
Indigenous Wisdom from the Mountains
In 2020 the Campaign for Southern Equality was honored to be in relationship with members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians on the Qualla Boundary of Cherokee, North Carolina.
‘The Front Porch’ Webinar – Indigenous Wisdom from the Mountains
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Holiday Simmons moderated a panel featuring members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians from the Qualla Boundary in Cherokee, North Carolina. The panelists shared their thoughts, experiences, and practices on social, emotional, and resource management during the pandemic.
Video Series from CSE Staff Visit to Cherokee, NC
In October 2020, staffers from the Campaign for Southern Equality traveled to the Qualla Boundary of Cherokee, North Carolina to meet with members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Throughout a full day of programming, CSE staff members listened to powerful presentations from Indigenous people in Western North Carolina about what matters most to them. This video series captures snippets of what we learned.
The Latest from Healing & Resilience
Strategies for Getting Grounded and Staying Principled in Uncertain Times: Post Election Tips
In the wake of the 2024 election, we share strategies for getting grounded and staying principled in uncertain times.
Healing & Resilience: Building Communities Where LGBTQ Southerners Can Thrive
Holiday Simmons shares a bit about CSE’s commitment to Healing & Resilience strategies, which we are weaving into the elements of the work that we do each day as we strive toward lived and legal equality for LGBTQ Southerners.
‘What to the ____ is the 4th of July?’ Interview Series
In an homage to the epic and groundbreaking Frederick Douglass speech, “What To the Slave is the 4th of July,” CSE staffers interviewed community members for short conversational interviews with our supporters on the question of “What to the _______ Is the Fourth of July?” filling in the blank with, for example, “Black person,” or “Indigenous person,” or “lesbian,” or the “person with a disability,” etc.
Interviews with Black Lives Matter SEF Grant Recipients
In June 2020 CSE hosted a special #BlackLivesMatter grant round for Black LGBTQ Southerners doing righteous work in their communities, supported by a generous donation from East Fork Pottery. Grantees included groups that do birthwork and doula services, media arts and filmmaking for Black trans people, a GED program for trans people and sex workers, support groups, and rural drop-in centers. Our staff did a series of interviews with recipients.
‘Queering Disability Justice’ Series
Sunday, July 26 marked the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and July is also Disability Pride Month. At the Campaign for Southern Equality, we marked the important anniversary with a series of interviews with LGBTQ Southerners who also live with and are impacted by disability.
Old Southern Ways: A Pilot Project on LGBTQ Healing Justice in the South
In this blog post Holiday Simmons provides an introduction to Healing & Resilience work, charts an organizational road to wellness, and recaps the first year of work with the Campaign for Southern Equality team.
Healing & Resilience Past Work
Visit an archive of the Healing & Resilience Program’s past projects, workshops, and grant rounds.
