Organizers cancel Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference, replacing it with year-round programming. Some community members are skeptical.

The Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference — a decades-long annual event considered the world’s largest transgender wellness conference — will not return in 2025. At least not in its traditional format.

Organizers announced Friday that the 21-year-old conference will change drastically, moving away from a singular event. Instead, it will pivot to year-round programming.

The news comes as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to target the LGBTQ+ community, sowing turmoil for local queer-serving organizations.

“Recognizing the challenging landscape that our trans community is facing today, we believe that the current environment calls for a necessary shift from a single, concentrated event to year-round programming,” organizers said in a statement. “In order to better serve the community and provide an ongoing support structure, we will be shifting to a series of programs that will be occurring throughout the year.”

» READ MORE: Philadelphia hosts world’s largest trans wellness conference, attempts to flip the narrative on trans mental health

And with a format change also comes a new name: Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference will become the Charlene Arcila Trans Wellness Collective, honoring the group’s founder, a transgender woman and LGBTQ+ activist who worked with the Philadelphia AIDS Consortium for 20 years.

In a news release from the Mazzoni Center — Philly’s largest LBGTQ health agency, which hosts the Trans Wellness Collective and the former conference review committee — organizers said the new series would enable the group to “best serve the community.”

But members of the local queer community aren’t so sure that’s the case.

The group’s announcement, which was published across the conference’s social media platforms, was met with criticism.

“I feel like this would be hurting our community more,” one Instagram user wrote. “This is wrong,” said another on Facebook.

Patrick Walden, a Philly-based therapist who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, said the annual conference played a big role in why he moved to Philadelphia.

“I fell in love with the city as a byproduct of attending the conference,” said Walden, who runs a local practice called Philadelphia EMDR. “I’m in my 40s and have been attending the Trans Wellness Conference since my 20s.”

Walden likened the event to attending a high school reunion.

“You carpooled with at least three friends, drove for hours ... full of anticipation. Then you’d show up to see hundreds of other trans people filling up and spilling out of the convention center,” he said.

Walden said over the years, he’s seen the conference depart from its initial identity, becoming more academia-focused, which he says created an entry barrier for a conference formerly positioned as free for anyone to attend.

“What mattered more was for us all to be with each other in sacred community. That’s what the conference has lost sight of,” he said.

Other critics of the news cited concerns with trans visibility, losing the chance for a large group to gather in shared experience, travel logistics, and accessibility.

“It is already so hard for those that travel once a year to attend and have access to the information and services offered,” one Facebook user wrote. “It would have been better to keep the conference and add additional programming. This seems like taking away a necessary resource.”

The Mazzoni Center and Trans Wellness Collective have asked community members to take their feedback to an ongoing survey. Community members must sign up for the collective’s free newsletter in order to receive access to the survey. Organizers say this is to assure safety and quality responses. The conference has been subject to anti-trans targeting in the past.

» READ MORE: Conservative media got ahold of videos from a 2021 Philly trans conference. Harassment followed.

Regarding some of those initial concerns aired on social media, Mazzoni Center spokesperson David Weisberg told The Inquirer that decisions about the events’ scale, content, and how they are platformed won’t be made until they’ve received survey feedback. But they anticipate a mix of in-person and virtual events.

Transgender and LGBTQ+ rights remain under threat nationwide. The Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S., citing dangerous spikes in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, which has been on the rise in recent years.

Lawmakers in Republican-led states have pushed for restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, background access, representation in books, drag shows, and the makeup of sports teams, to name a few.

Since Trump’s inauguration, GLAAD’s Trump Tracker has reported two dozen anti-LGBTQ+ moves from him and his administration, including implementing executive orders banning transgender women from sports, impinging on the right to have passports that accurately reflect trans and nonbinary people’s gender identities, and removing the phrase transgender from the Stonewall National Monument website.

Pennsylvania is no exception. Last month, the White House said it was freezing $175 million of federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater, because of the school’s policies on transgender athletes. And last year, the William Way Community Center became the center of a media firestorm when U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey requested to pull $1 million in federal funding because of kink parties hosted at the space.

Weisberg added that moving from a single conference to year-round programming doesn’t alleviate concerns about targeting. Rather, “it only shifts them. And we will continue to be vigilant in taking whatever precautions are necessary to protect our staff, clients, and participants.”

The Mazzoni Center emphasizes that moving away from a traditional conference format is a positive development and will best address issues the trans community faces today.

“If we made our decisions based out of fear, the simple — but completely inappropriate — response would be to provide no programming, and no services, for our community whatsoever," Weisberg said. “Our organization was created in response to the LGBTQ community being vulnerable and marginalized, and Mazzoni Center and its programs and services continue and will continue, as we know they are as necessary now than ever.”

Still, community members remain saddened by the thought of losing a conference that once centered around uniting a community in one place.

A leader with the D.C. Area Transmasculine Society who did not return a request for comment wrote on Instagram, “I understand the shift but I will mourn the loss of the conference.”

He added, “There was no other event in the world where you could be surrounded by thousands of trans people in shared experience of learning and building community. It’s an experience all trans people would cherish and I hope those who never attended get the opportunity one day. Unfortunately, it won’t be in Philadelphia.”

Weisberg said he understands there’s some sadness tied to Friday’s announcement.

“We love the conference, and we are as sad as anyone not to be having [it] this year. We also know, as an organization with finite resources — including limited staffing — that having the conference AND year-round programming is simply not an option that we are able to offer," he said. “And, specifically because of the political climate, we made the difficult but, we believe, correct choice that providing a continuum of programs throughout the year is the prudent and appropriate decision to best serve our community.”

He added, “This isn’t stepping back; it’s stepping forward in a moment of need.”

No dates have been announced for initial Trans Wellness Collective events. Weisberg said the Mazzoni Center anticipates the first event will be announced “within the coming weeks.”

Additional details, including how to sign up for the feedback survey, are available by visiting transphl.org.