Bell hosted a queer death cafe at Finn’s Place, a trans and gender-diverse community center in Fort Worth, Texas, in May 2026.
Participants discussed navigating their identities with aging family members.
“The benefit of telling them, the possible repercussions and also the repercussions of not telling them and then they die,” Bell said.
“How might they feel if they never shared that with them?”
Bell was inspired to pursue the profession after witnessing her mother, Vicki, curate her own comfortable death experience at home under hospice care in 2013.
“She just really did the thing,” said Bell. “This isn’t a death march; this is a final hurrah.
I was like: ‘Oh! This is what it could be like.’”
Overmier was similarly inspired by her father's solitary passing without an end-of-life plan, leaving her retail management job to offer death doula services in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, including sitting vigil with individuals.
“Not everybody wants someone by them when they die,” she said, “but there’s a good chunk of people who do, and sometimes they don’t have anybody.
I feel like it’s an honor to be able to do that.”
According to Overmier, affinity groups provide a unique sense of belonging and safety for marginalized people to discuss these topics openly.
“If you’re in a group that isn’t just your community, then you’re thinking about whether what you’re saying is going to land right, or if the person next to you is side-eyeing you in a dangerous way.”
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“In affinity groups like this where we can come together … it just allows for this freedom.”
