Martha Knox remembers the summer her older child came home from overnight camp and said, “I don’t want to go a year before I feel normal again.”

Harmony Wieland, 16, had just returned from Camp Lilac in Ohio, a one-week experience for trans and genderdiverse youth. For Harmony, who came out as pansexual at age 11 and now identifies as genderqueer, the camp was a rare glimpse of liberation and community.

“It changed the way I saw myself and how I saw my future,” Harmony said. “It made me feel like I could fit into the world without having to change who I am.”

Knox and Wieland thought, “Why not try to replicate that experience here in Philadelphia?” Together, the pair dreamed up Club Chrysalis, a casual monthly meetup where genderdiverse youth could connect, feel affirmed, and make new friends.

They landed on the ideal spot: Natural Creativity in Germantown, a self-directed-education hub where Harmony and their younger sibling, Bebe, have gone for four years.

The first Club Chrysalis meetup will be Saturday, Sept. 13 from 10 a.m. to noon.

Both mother and child envision a space where, with adult facilitators on hand, youth from northwest Philadelphia and the surrounding area can participate in art projects, share clothing in wardrobe swaps, make collages, and find refuge, joy and, community.

“I’m hoping that Club Chrysalis can be a diverse space for transgender teenagers — diverse in race, in gender, in sexuality — a community of acceptance and love and just a good place to be,” Harmony said.

Bebe, 13, will be stationed in the library with the family’s mini bernedoodle, Burt. “It’s an icebreaker: Come pet the dog,” Knox said. “Hopefully as [kids] are doing things, they’ll get into some casual conversations with peers.”

Natural Creativity Executive Director Krystal Dillard said the center is a perfect venue for Club Chrysalis. Since its founding in 2015 as a resource center for home-schooled youth to pursue their passions and interests with no mandatory curriculum, it’s also been an arena that welcomes every form of difference.

“It’s a space that really identifies with the idea of this being a multigender world,” Dillard said. It’s a perspective that plays out in the pronoun buttons available to everyone who enters and in the diverse range of fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels in the library.

“I want this space to be a safe space not just for home-schoolers, but for other young people in our community who want a place where they can feel seen, heard, and valued,” Dillard said. “I’m very excited about Club Chrysalis being here.”

For Harmony, Natural Creativity has been “very helpful for my social life and overall, good for me.” But that wasn’t always their experience in school. Even in preschool, Knox recalled, Harmony came home upset about the ways boys and girls were treated differently.

“Harmony would say, ‘They wouldn’t let this boy have a pink cup.’ The boys they were friends with would gravitate away.”

“I remember having severe meltdowns in the morning, crying because I knew I wasn’t like other kids,” Harmony said. “And I always had problems with how I was being taught, maybe because I’m autistic and have some special needs.”

Knox decided to homeschool both Harmony and Bebe, who began using they/them pronouns at age eight and identifies as nonbinary. For a while, the siblings attended a different learning center, but it collapsed after the pandemic. That’s when Knox learned about Natural Creativity. She values being in “an environment where staff and leadership is very firmly supportive of my children’s identity and where the approach to handling conflict is so healthy.”

This summer was Harmony’s fourth year at Camp Lilac; they say the experience has helped clarify who they are. They explained, “After meeting tons of children and adults who are comfortable with themselves, it gave me a better understanding of gender and that I didn’t necessarily have to choose a label.”

A highlight of this summer was performing “Man or Muppet,” a song from the 2011 film “The Muppets,” in Camp Lilac’s variety show. Harmony and a friend dressed in drag for the performance. “It’s about two characters trying to figure out if they are the man or the Muppet. It was incredible singing onstage, having it come together, and getting all the compliments,” Harmony said.

At home and at Natural Creativity, Harmony gravitates toward art, a passion influenced by their mom. Knox is an artist and educator who teaches at Community Partnership School in Brewerytown and works part-time at Outlaw Arts, a collaborative clay studio in Mt. Airy.

While Natural Creativity is the right place for Club Chrysalis, both Knox and Dillard noted that an increasingly hostile atmosphere for trans and genderdiverse people also makes this the optimum time for such a meetup.

Knox said, with a U.S. president who has openly derided transgender people, and states imposing restrictions or bans on gender-affirming medical care, “at least one friend is telling us we should try to get out of the country. I say no, we need to stay here and form communities. We need to be here for people who are more at risk. It needs to be our role to help, to do what we can.”

Dillard agreed. “We know that trans and nonbinary people are experiencing an actual attack on their identity and their rights. It means a lot to us that young people have a space where they can be safe.”

Harmony said they feel comfortable as a genderqueer person in northwest Philadelphia. “My neighborhood is very queer-positive; you can’t drive a block without seeing a Pride flag.” But that’s not the case when they visit their grandparents in Ohio. “There are more and more Trump flags and conservative flags, which have made me scared … for my friends who live there,” Harmony said.

Club Chrysalis, they hope, will be a monthly respite from those fears. Harmony and their mom have spread the word through PFLAG (formerly Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) groups, local businesses, and libraries. They’re hoping for a cohort that will grow over the months.

“People are going back in the closet. People are scared,” Knox said. “We’re going for queer joy. To feel relief and a little bit of safety. You’ve got to have pockets of that.”

Club Chrysalis meets Saturday, Sept. 13 (also Oct. 11, Nov. 8 and Dec. 6) from 10 a.m.-noon at Natural Creativity, 5534 Pulaski Ave., Suite 302. For information, visit instagram.com/club.chrysalis