About Us

The Amplify Facilitator Training Project was founded in 2019 by Reid Allen, inspired by his own struggle with gender identity. His story began at age 8 with questioning his gender, and continued into his teen years with struggles around his sexuality. For 10 years – from age 20 to 30 – Reid identified as a lesbian, until he found the courage to come to terms with his own need to come out, again, as a transgender man.

For the last four years Reid has become increasingly involved in the transgender community, facilitating transmasculine support groups, becoming specializing in supporting transgender individuals and their loved ones as a certified life coach.

After witnessing firsthand the challenges within the transgender support community, the idea for AFT was born. These challenges include lack of training, burnout among volunteer facilitators when they feel unsupported or underappreciated, low group retention rates, and difficulty in finding and providing resources.

Reid took it upon himself to address these challenges, and find a way to fill the gaps for the volunteers who give so much of themselves in support of the community. Since COVID-19, AFT has shifted from in-person community visioning and training into being an online platform that aims to provide this training to people worldwide.

In alignment with his purpose, Reid has made it his mission to see that AFT will always remain 100% free to the valued volunteer facilitators in the LGBTQIA+ community.