Rose’s volunteering story

Rose volunteers at our shop in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. She started volunteering when the shop opened in 2023, and shares her story with us.

“As a shop we try to be as inclusive as possible, and as welcoming as possible for everybody, whether you’re straight, gay, bi, trans, asexual, agender – whoever you are really.”

“I’m Rose, I’ve been with Willow for three and a bit years now. My favourite thing about volunteering for Willow is the community, within the shop but also in Biggleswade as well. I just like interacting with people.

“I’m quite visibly transgender, so it kind of attracts my crowd of people. I’ve had a fair few men in hushed tones approach me about being a ‘cross-dresser’, and two of them now have realised that they are transgender. I like to think it’s through speaking with me, but who knows – it’s very nice to see.

“Willow in Biggleswade is run by a man who is gay, and obviously I’m transgender, so we’re trying to be an inclusive space within Biggleswade. We think there’s a small but thriving community in Biggleswade, and it’s nice to be a visible part of that within Willow. Everything here is multi-gender use. There’s a fair few trans people come in that I know, that I speak to regularly. As a shop we try to be as inclusive as possible, and as welcoming as possible for everybody, whether you’re straight, gay, bi, trans, asexual, agender – whoever you are really.

“I came from another charity shop, where I came out about five or six years ago now, and my experience there was good. But it turned sour, as a lot of trans people kind of experience in workplaces and volunteering roles when they first come out. I think the statistic is something like 80% of trans people lose or leave their job within the first year of coming out. I’m part of that statistic, that 80%. I decided to leave that place and was having a bit of a tough time, and then I saw that the Willow shop was opening three and a half years ago now, and I joined up.

“I wasn’t sure about joining to start off with, but I did in the end, and I found a group of people who were very welcoming, didn’t view me as anything other than a person, didn’t try to use who I was to their own advantage, generally just a good bunch of people who understood that I was human first. And I think that’s very important within a place to be treated as a human first, which sounds strange, but I’m sure other trans people will understand that sentence.

“Through my time here, I’ve met a lot of different people who are LGBT+, including a young person who sees themselves as non-binary, pre-teen kind of age, who was getting bullied in town. They came into the shop very sad with their parents, and I spoke to them for a while and gave them some kind words, kind of the things that I would like to hear in that situation. And later that day, I found a Facebook post thanking me, which was very nice. So I hope that I have done something for the community here, and I understand I’ve done stuff for Willow here too. I hope I’ve been a positive for the charity.”

Want to join Rose and become a Willow volunteer? Visit our webpage to find out more about the volunteering opportunities available.