Dancefloor to Lifeline is a panel discussion and audiovisual presentation exploring queer nightlife as a vital site of care, survival, and resource-sharing in transgender communities.
Bringing together queer nightlife scholars, transgender healthcare professionals, and community organizers, the program traces a history of grassroots fundraising, from mutual aid parties during the AIDS crisis to today’s GoFundMe campaigns and “fundrager” events supporting gender-affirming care.
The program expands on Tara Blossom’s 2025 Los Angeles Reporting Collective Reporting Fellowship project, including excerpts from their LAist-aired story, “Fundraging for Trans Healthcare,” which follows Long Beach resident Eliaz Chavez as he raises money for top surgery through a series of fundraising parties.
Through archival imagery, audio, interviews, and conversation, Dancefloor to Lifeline asks: How have trans and queer communities created pathways to healthcare when institutions have failed them? What happens when fundraising moves from physical community spaces to digital platforms? And what can the history of mutual aid teach us about building networks of care today?
Featuring trans director and organizer Silas Howard (By Hook or By Crook, Transparent), Eliaz Chavez, and queer nightlife organizers, the program connects personal stories with a broader history of grassroots care and community resilience.
Join us for an evening of storytelling, history, and conversation about the communities that continue to make care possible.
Participant Bios
Silas Howard is an American film and television director, writer, and actor, and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow with an MFA from UCLA. He co-directed By Hook or by Crook (2001), a trans masc feature film, and is recognized for directing multiple episodes of Amazon’s Transparent as its first trans-identifying director, also serving as a consulting producer. Howard has directed for series including The Fosters, This Is Us, Pose, and Dickinson. He was also a founding member of the 1990s queer punk band Tribe 8 and co-founded Red Dora’s Bearded Lady.
Elíaz Chavez is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in the South Bay of Los Angeles. They can be found vending at art markets, teaching sewing workshops, hosting community events, and spreading general splendor. In 2025, Elíaz raised money for their top surgery by hosting a series of fundraising parties, turning queer nightlife into a space for community care, and mutual aid. Elíazis also 1/3 of the Brown Sugar Collective organizing team, a self-directed, community effort to increase BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) visibility of TGI (transgender, gender-expansive, intersex) folks in Los Angeles. Its goal is to create free or low-cost events, with no one turned away for lack of funds.
Dancefloor to Lifeline: Fundraging for Trans Healthcare, Then and Now is organized by Tara Blossom as a part of the 2026 Circa: Queer Histories Festival, presented by One Institute.
Scribble is a nonprofit counseling center and community events venue located in Highland Park, Los Angeles.
Our counseling center is located at 5531 York Blvd and provides sliding scale mental health services for individuals, couples, families and groups.
Our venue is located at 5541 York Blvd and hosts all-ages shows, talks, classes, and workshops with an emphasis on community building.