When Chase Glenn, the new executive director of GenderCool, talks about the power of storytelling, he’s speaking from experience.
The longtime LGBTQ+ advocate recently moved from South Carolina to the Chicago area to lead GenderCool, a national organization that helps trans and nonbinary youth tell their own stories and counter the misinformation surrounding their lives.
As he settles into his new role, Glenn is preparing to introduce GenderCool to its Chicago community through a Nov. 12 fundraiser that will showcase the organization’s “Champions”—the young people at the heart of its mission—and raise support for its programs.
Founded by parents of a trans daughter, GenderCool began as a campaign to highlight young people thriving as their authentic selves.
Only a small fraction of Americans personally know a trans person, Glenn noted, and GenderCool’s work helps bridge that distance.
“It’s about putting a face and a name to the trans experience,” Glenn said. “We’re not scary. We’re just regular people living our lives.”
Glenn joined GenderCool in May after leading the Alliance for Full Acceptance, a statewide LGBTQ+ group in South Carolina. In that role, he found that facts and figures rarely persuaded skeptics—but stories did.
“I’d sit with conservative legislators who had probably never met a trans person,” he recalled. “Once they heard from parents who just wanted their kids to thrive, it opened a path for conversation that hadn’t been there before.”
That approach now drives his vision for GenderCool, which he calls “more relevant than ever” as trans people continue to be used as political pawns. The group’s mission, he said, is to humanize and connect.
Glenn, who grew up in Mount Vernon, Illinois, returned to his home state with his wife and two young children this summer.
Since arriving, Glenn has begun meeting local LGBTQ+ leaders and hopes to launch a listening tour to learn from Chicago’s trans-led organizations. He envisions GenderCool deepening its Chicago roots while continuing to influence conversations nationwide.
“We’re open to any kind of partnership,” he said. “For me, leadership starts with listening.”
At the center of GenderCool’s work are its “Champions,” young people who speak in classrooms, workplaces and media interviews about their lives. Glenn said those stories offer a rare sense of joy and hope in a time when trans youth are often depicted only as targets or victims.
“There are so many people talking about us without us,” he said. “Lifting up positive stories of trans youth empowers them and changes people in ways that other approaches can’t.”
That optimism comes from the young people themselves, Glenn added.
“They’re up against so much, but they show up with joy and courage every day,” he said. “They give me hope.”
For Glenn, leading GenderCool is a full-circle moment. Growing up as a trans kid in a small, conservative Illinois town, he never saw anyone like himself reflected in the world around him.
“If an organization like GenderCool had existed when I was a kid,” he said, “I think it could’ve changed everything.”