Over the past decade, trans people have received an unprecedented amount of mainstream media attention. This increased cultural awareness of what it means to be trans has led to a more widespread understanding of self-determination, gender as a spectrum, and bodily autonomy. But transgender communities are now facing an intense backlash as right-wing organizations have redoubled their efforts to criminalize trans people. 

The federal effort to quash trans rights builds off of a campaign that’s been underway in the U.S. since 2019, and gained momentum during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. What started as a concerted movement to target transgender and nonbinary people in many state and local governments has taken hold nationally with the re-election of President Donald Trump. Republicans’ marching orders under the new Trump administration started with a day-one declaration of an intent to delete recognitions of trans existence from public life. This agenda, outlined clearly in Project 2025, has expanded to restrict trans people from living openly and safely in schools, workplaces, housing, hospitals, prisons, in transit between states and countries, and in public spaces writ large. 

Over 200 laws designed to bar trans participation in society have passed in recent years, with the number of proposed state and federal bills expanding from 701 in 2024 to 940 in the first six months of 2025. Less than two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered an opinion (United States v. Skrmetti) that allows states to deny access to gender-affirming care for people under the age of 18. These measures criminalize trans people and our allies and accomplices in every area of public life. Looming threats of harassment, violence, and arrest appear ever more pointed as fearmongering over our bodies, identities, and expressions increases.

Across this spectrum of grief and joy, trans people in the U.S. are thinking about health care access, personal safety, migration and home, and economic survival. If authoritarian and anti-trans policies become acceptable norms, trans people with enough money and resources might look to leave the country entirely. Others without those resources will lay low and limit the amount of time they spend in public. Many will go back to getting health care through underground markets, or forgo it altogether to avoid emergency rooms and institutions in general. The death toll for trans people will likely rise. Some trans people will move to more populous corners of the country to survive by finding each other; others will stay in their remote corners and fight to figure it out, by necessity or by choice.

While the reality we face today is not a single reality, there is a shared theme of precarity. This country is increasingly dangerous and hostile, and no one knows what’s to come. There is also a shared sentiment of solidarity. Trans people have each other’s backs, and our communities are strong, bolstered by generations of experience with near-total marginalization.

Our lives continue amid the political turmoil: trans people will raise children, tend animals, make gardens, party relentlessly, fall in love, go to grad school, make art, create collectives, get hired, get fired, fight for housing, walk streets, shock people in bathrooms, generously explain things, angrily explain things, raise money for each other’s surgeries and bail funds and rent, be embraced or rejected by family, be lonely, stick together.

The following stories cover a range of identities and geographies — individuals, collectives, and couples. They reflect an uncertain future: a daily struggle for safety, and an awareness of the constant possibility of joy. 

Table of Contents

Morgan Peterson: Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Joselyn Mendoza: Queens and Brooklyn, New York

Wilson and Miss B Haven: Durham, North Carolina

Willy Wilkinson: Oakland, California

Vera Verbel: DeKalb, Illinois

Morgan Peterson: Safety and Support in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

On a Wednesday night in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a group of kids gathered around a raised fire pit to set their given names — also known as deadnames — ablaze.

“It was 18 middle-schoolers and an open flame,” Morgan Peterson says, laughing. “It was a very loud event…it was really cathartic for them.”

The Phoenix Festival, as they called this event, is one of the near nightly happenings at the Prism Community Center, an LGBTQ2S+ community center opened in 2024 by the Transformation Project — a support and advocacy organization for transgender people and their families. On Tuesday, they held a casual hangout for trans adults, and on Friday is a moth-themed, goth-hosted art show called Metamorphosis. 

Peterson, a 26-year-old administrative assistant and youth support worker at the Transformation Project, gives an enthusiastic walk-through of the center. “Do you know what the P in Marsha P. Johnson stands for?” Peterson asks, beginning our tour with the massive posters of Harvey Milk and Marsha P. Johnson just inside the entrance. “Pay it no mind!” 

We view two rooms deemed “Marty’s Closet,” where trans people can try on and take home gender-affirming clothes with the help of a volunteer stylist. People come to the center throughout the week to find support and concrete resources, all of which are particularly popular with youth. During the summers, Peterson says, they often have dozens of young people at their events and hangouts. It’s also welcoming to more than just trans-identified people: While it’s trans-centered, this is also the only LGBTQ2S+ space in all of South Dakota. Many travel across the state and even across state lines to access this community. 

These services are desperately needed: A 2024 survey of LGBTQ+ youth by the Trevor Project found that 44% of trans and nonbinary youth in South Dakota had seriously considered suicide, and nearly 1 in 12 had attempted it. A quarter of LGBTQ youth in the state said they were physically threatened or harmed in the last year based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and more than half reported experiencing discrimination.

In the main space of the Prism Center, there’s a snack table, an art table, event fliers on the walls, a free queer library, magazines with the stories of trans people in South Dakota, and, near the entrance, one of my favorite features: the framed Kristi Noem apology.  

When Noem (now the deportation-happy Secretary of Homeland Security) was still governor of South Dakota, she and her health secretary pulled nearly $100,000 of funding from the young organization after a social media troll targeted Noem for allocating federal funds to a transgender community health worker. The Transformation Project sued Kristi Noem for discrimination in 2023, and got a $300,000 settlement from Noem’s government. They also received a formal apology signed by her health secretary, now displayed prominently by the coffee machine for all to see. 

Peterson has theories about Noem’s personality. Their therapist once saw her in a local café and noticed that she kept her head down and avoided making eye contact with people. Peterson’s analysis: “She is intimidated by people like us, because we’ve worked past all of these institutional horrors and our own personal horrors, and we’ve said, ‘No, I’m going to be authentic. I’m going to look people in the eye and tell them who I am.’ I pity her but I also hate her, because she’s committing atrocities right now.”

After six years of Noem’s leadership, South Dakota checks a lot of the anti-trans boxes that have become a focus for Republican governors and legislatures. In 2023, the state became the sixth in the country to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. In March of this year, the new governor of South Dakota signed HB1259 into law, making it illegal for trans people to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity in schools and government buildings. Legislators pushing for the bill said they would rather trans people in South Dakota prisons be put in permanent solitary confinement than share restroom facilities.  

But South Dakota, and particularly Sioux Falls, is also a hub for grassroots responses. “We’ve created a network of safety,” Peterson says. The Transformation Project has health care providers, trans-affirming contacts in therapy, teachers, and even school therapists they can call on to support youth. They hold weekly hangouts for middle and high school students and help them advocate for themselves in school, or refer them to resources for mental health support. “Most of the time they’re not even talking about their gender or sexuality [when they’re here] — they’re just being kids and that’s all they really need right now.” 

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Peterson grew up in a 700-person farming town called Viborg, 45 minutes south of Sioux Falls, and left near the end of high school to study classical music at a boarding school before heading to college in Chicago.

“I have so much love for that town,” they tell me. “That is where I learned what community engagement is, what it means to prioritize the community over the individual.” 

The downside: conformity. “Like, you would get made fun of if you wore the wrong brand of Ugg boot in my high school. It was really harmful. And it’s also a very Christian conservative town.” 

Peterson had barely heard of being gay, queer, or nonbinary until they left the state — and when they did, they say, “it was all over.” 

When they returned fully-formed and identifying as a nonbinary lesbian, they came to understand their experience of South Dakota in less black-and-white terms. They can envision the way their life might have turned out if they had never left Viborg, and never connected with another queer or trans person.

“I think there’s a version of me out there that’s still closeted, and [is] just a band director in a small town somewhere, married to a man,” they say. Still, what they have now is better: “I’ve cultivated this wonderful community for myself.” 

The day after our tour, we do some bird-watching in the park and go to the butterfly house that Peterson grew up visiting — two of their happy places. South Dakota’s prairies and wetlands are a haven for creatures, and Peterson can spend hours outside, hammocking and identifying birds with the Merlin app. I’m struck by their midwestern sweetness, their ease in nature. There’s a toughness to it, too. 

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

“I love woodpeckers. That’s my favorite bird. They have a protective membrane in their skull to keep them from getting concussed when they jam their beaks into the side of a tree trunk,” they say.

After the park, we go to Peterson’s apartment, which they call their “Hobbit House” — a quiet cove with knitted blankets, a comfy couch, a cuddly cat.

“There’s this part of me that’s just, like, the scared kid that wants to be safe,” they say. But overall, they’re not afraid right now. They think the future is bright. 

“I dig deeper and I listen to my gut, which I’m getting better at listening to. That’s a completely different set of feelings, and those feelings are calm. Those feelings are reassured. Those are the feelings of all of my trans elders who have come before me, who are saying, ‘No, we’re not going anywhere, and we’ve been fighting, so you can keep fighting.’”

Joselyn Mendoza: Cooperative Economics in Queens and Brooklyn, New York 

Interpretation provided by Gloria Delgadillo

Interpretation and additional reporting by Ale Pedraza Buenahora

Joselyn Mendoza is a busy woman — classic New York.

“I’m always rushing. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even have time for myself,” she says, showing up to meet our team between her part-time job and a political lobbying event. 

Mendoza wears jeans and a jacket — denim on denim — when we meet in a Williamsburg park. Her family has lived in the neighborhood for the last two decades, through the area’s aggressive gentrification. Mendoza, 52, lives upstairs with her husband, nephew, sister, and brother-in-law. Her brother and his wife live downstairs with their three kids. After her stepfather died due to cancer and a lack of access to medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic, family became even more of a priority. 

“Nothing really makes me happier than to be with my family,” she says. 

Mendoza’s close with her mom, but it took years for her to accept her transition, she says. Even a couple years ago, when she went to get breast implants, “She really didn’t believe me when I told her that I wanted to go do this… I got my surgery, she didn’t even want to look at me.”

Her mom, who was an advocate for immigrants when she first came to the U.S. from Mexico, has given Mendoza more credit as her own organizing work has begun to bear fruit. 

Mendoza is the director of Mirror Beauty Cooperative, which started as an effort by a group of Latina trans women to build economic independence through learning and teaching cosmetology skills.

Ale Pedraza Buenahora (they/elle)

Ale Pedraza Buenahora (they/elle)

“This city is very, very expensive,” she says, gesturing toward Williamsburg — land of high rents and $20 cocktails. “This is why many people actually engage in sex work.” For trans women who are migrants, employment options can be extremely limited.

For Mendoza, “doing makeup really came out of a need, because I left school and I needed to do something. But I am more theoretical rather than practical.” She has a cosmetology license, but her role in the cooperative is mainly obtaining funds, organizing workshops, and giving advice on makeup artistry.

The cooperative’s main offering is workshops, which happen two or three times a week in a windowless room inside non-profit offices in Queens. A smattering of Latinx folks of different identities show up and practice makeup, lashes, and hairstyling, with Mendoza at the helm. The group unloads donated makeup, mirrors, and other beauty supplies on a conference room table, and everyone gets to work — they’re familiar and comfortable with each other.

Mendoza is a natural leader, but she’s constantly crediting her team. “We need to work collectively, we need more than just opportunities, we need to come together,” she repeats. “We need our own physical space to open up a beauty shop, and someone to finance it.” Volunteers like Dani, a skilled eyelash technician, and Suleyka, a makeup artist, help out and fill in when she’s away. 

Dani has only been in the country for a month and a half. At our meetup in the park, he’s visibly shy, but excited, too. Mirror, he says, “opened up a lot of doors for me …I immigrated to the United States and I joined Joselyn’s group. Because I know that beauty’s always going to be trending, right?”

He loves that, even as a person who is so new to the country, he can share knowledge with others in the queer community. “No one can take away the knowledge that we’ve gained.”

Ale Pedraza Buenahora (they/elle)

Ale Pedraza Buenahora (they/elle)

Lately, attendance at the workshops has been low. People are afraid to travel — even within New York City — because of ramped-up immigration enforcement. Still, Mendoza points out that the risk of deportations is nothing new.

“One of things that Trump has done is like, he’s really shown, he’s really reflected what the United States actually is. This country is racist. The United States is homophobic even despite the laws that exist,” she says. Her community worried about deportations under Presidents Biden and Obama, too. “I am scared,” she says.

“But like, what else is the alternative? It’s just like, are we gonna go back to hiding? Are we going to go back to living in the shadows without any freedom?”

She envisions an event where all the people they’ve trained can advertise their skills to families planning quinceañeras and other special events. “If we have to do it right here in this park, we will,” she says. In the long run, she hopes to create economic stability for herself and other trans women with a shop that belongs to the community. 

“I don’t want admiration,” she says, “I want a legacy.”

Wilson and Miss B Haven: T4T Love and Nightlife in Durham, North Carolina

Wilson and Miss B Haven sit at a queer-friendly bar in downtown Durham, sipping the hair of the dog. They have just pulled an all-nighter, partying with a friend for a birthday.

“It was pretty chill,” Wilson says, “but we did see the sun rise.”

The following week, at an airy coffee shop in north Durham, Wilson has on a red dad cap that says, “Black Coochie Matters,” and they’re fresh off an “all-day-er” — Miss B had three drag performances in different parts of the Triangle the day prior. “I don’t even remember falling asleep last night,” Wilson tells me.

This unconventional and unpredictable schedule represents their relationship well: “I’m attuned to the divine timeline,” says Miss B Haven, 28, an artist, drag performer, and “overall good time.” 

Wilson, 32, is a journalist, photographer, organizer, and the Type A in the relationship when it comes to planning. “I have gotten used to never knowing what’s going to happen with her,” they say. “We have very different relationships to time.”

When talking about their first meeting at a dance party last summer, Wilson says, “She comes up to me and I ask her how she’s doing and she’s like, ‘Better now!’ And I ran to my friends and was like, ‘Y’all, this girl so fine…I don’t know what to do. I’m, like, freakin’ out.’ And then one of my friends was like, ‘Just go ask her to dance!’”

“Then we started dancing,” Wilson says, “And we’ve been dancing ever since.”

Miss B adds, “You actually can find the love of your life out in the club.”

Jaylan Rhea (they/them)

Jaylan Rhea (they/them)

Jaylan Rhea (they/them)

The second time the pair hung out, their night ended at Miss B’s house, where Wilson watched as she did her hormone injection.

“There was something very sweet and very magical about just being there, witnessing her,” Wilson says.  

After a casual summer, they made their relationship official near Halloween, when they attended a party dressed as Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit — “a really great T4T couples costume,” says Miss B. 

“I always told all my friends, yo, I just know the moment that I really get into my T4T s**t — just know y’all better get me while you can,” she continues. “[Because] the schedule of people that I will be making time for in my day will be limited.”

Wilson and Miss B describe an ease and a sense of intuitive understanding in dating another trans person. Both say their relationship helps them feel safe and grounded.

“Being in a T4T relationship is very healing and…so affirming. When the world is out to get us…we can just be with each other and be with our community,” Wilson says.

Jaylan Rhea (they/them)

Jaylan Rhea (they/them)

Jaylan Rhea (they/them)

Miss B says she’s from a “cowboy-esque” part of Texas. She moved to Durham for college and stayed because she loved the community. Wilson moved around the Midwest as a kid and took up residence in the Raleigh area at 14. Both came out as trans in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and see Durham as something of a safe haven for trans people.

“Durham feels specifically like a Black trans mecca,” Wilson says. “Just last month, there was a Black trans film festival here, and it was so magical having Black trans people here.”

But, they add, microaggressions and outright violence can pop up anywhere.

“I feel like anti-Blackness and transphobia go hand in hand… No place is absolved from that.”

Miss B has recently had some explicit run-ins with gender harassment. Just a few months ago in downtown Durham, a right-wing extremist went to several bars, harassing people and spewing homophobic language — a story the couple followed closely (and recounted on the TransLash podcast), because downtown Durham’s bar scene is generally queer- and trans-friendly. 

“You can feel that Durham is really like a safe bubble,” Miss B says. “I think that reality can quickly be bursted, unfortunately.”

She’s ready to get a gun for self-defense, but needs to deal with her nails first.

“I’ve decided to go a little bit short because my friends told me… ‘If you’re going to learn how to shoot a gun, maybe you should learn first without nails. And then once you are a little bit more familiar, then it’s like, go off, do what you want.’”

Miss B is playful, not inclined toward fear, but she’s concerned about losing access to hormone replacement therapy in the future. She also paused her own legal name change process after Trump came back into office. Some of her family members are trying to become naturalized citizens, and she doesn’t want her legal identification to be an issue if she needs to provide documentation for their cases.

Wilson, who started doing volunteer trans advocacy in journalism school after writing articles about trans women in prison, is particularly concerned about the incarcerated trans women they work with, because for them, “there is no protection.”

“These are my trans siblings,” Wilson says. “We are as free as our kin.”

North Carolina and many Southern states have historically resisted placing trans people in facilities that align with their gender identities. In state prisons in general, getting health care or getting placed in the right facility can be a huge fight. Currently, a federal executive order is attempting to mandate the same anti-trans treatment in federal prisons, although a judge has blocked the administration from enforcing it for now. 

But fundamentally, the conditions that Republicans are bringing on nationally are not new here.

 “As a Black person who grew up in the ghetto, I’ve always been of the mindset that, like, nothing has really changed for us,” says Wilson. “This just feels like the American experience.”

Miss B says, “In the state of the world right now, it could be really scary and ugly. But…surrounded in our love, a lot of times it’s like, well, we just don’t care. Because we have each other.”

Willy Wilkinson: Community and Creativity in Oakland, California

Willy Wilkinson is just back from a weekend in the woods with a bunch of other transmasculine folks, and he’s glowing.  

“I’ve been to more of these retreats than anyone,” he says. Now in its 10th year, the Transmission retreat brings transmasculine people together for a few days in the Northern California redwoods. Wilkinson says these retreats are healing. “There’s a certain timelessness to these experiences. The world can go to shit, but community is consistent… The joy we have when we relax and play in a safe environment elevates us.”

Wilkinson, a 62-year-old author, speaker, and public health consultant who founded API TransFusion — a summer retreat for Asian and Pacific Islander transmasculine people — regularly gives workshops at these events. He quickly identifies himself as someone who loves to dance, play, and party. 

“People think, ‘Why should I be partying?’ because I’m old. I’m always gonna be partying. I can bust a move.”

He also swims in the San Francisco Bay almost every day. “The pandemic turned me into a sea creature,” he says. “Being in nature reminds you that wherever you’re at, things will evolve and change.”

Jordan Reznick (he/they)

Jordan Reznick (he/they)

Right now, change feels cyclical. “This particular moment, in some ways, feels a lot like the 80s,” he says. “In the 80s, we really didn’t have anything but ourselves. And there was this concept of family. People would say, ‘Are they family?’ Meaning: Are they gay? But it was generally used in reference to the broader LGBTQ community — even though we didn’t really have that term at the time… So we can wink, we can wave, we can connect with folks with a shared experience of the power of self-expression, the joy in the community, and know that we’re not alone.”

The father of three teenagers, Wilkinson also considers trans community his family. “I love being ‘brother’ or ‘uncle.’ I love how so many of our trans sisters are mothers and daughters to one another — Miss Major, Cecilia Chung — elders uplifting and caring for our younger community members. When you’re experiencing transphobic harm, when you’re struggling to survive on multiple fronts, maybe your friends, family, and community turned their backs on you. Those who have survived the most harm don’t do you like that, even if it’s the middle of the night. That’s family — trans family.”

Wilkinson grew up in a San Francisco suburb in the 60s and 70s, where “there was not much consciousness around race or around LGBTQ issues,” he says. “If people were throwing racial epithets on the playground, nobody was saying, ‘Don’t do that.’”

But despite having little context or information about trans identity, he always knew he was male.

“When I was four years old, I asked my dad about the people on the money. I said, ‘Are they all white men?’ And he said, ‘Yes, they’re all former presidents.’ So I decided at age four that I wanted to be a white man, because I figured that was the only way to be president and get anywhere in the world,” he says with a self-effacing grin. “Over time, I did work through my own internalized racism, but the idea of being male never changed.”

He took the name Willy (derived from his last name) at age nine. But even at 18, “there was no route to transitioning to male. There was no visibility of anybody transmasculine.”

By the 1980s, he was living in San Francisco as a butch lesbian, organizing the Asian lesbian community. Working as a community health outreach worker in the Tenderloin district, Wilkinson helped people access resources for HIV prevention and safer drug use. He provided services for transfeminine people working the streets, but he wasn’t always recognized as part of the trans community. He felt like an anomaly.

“I really felt that my gender identity was inextricably linked to my mixed heritage, and that I was a third-gendered person,” he says. “I was considered a weirdo.”

Now, he identifies as a trans man and says he’s loved seeing so many people embrace nonbinary identity, “because there are as many genders as there are people embodying them. There are as many genders as there are stars in the sky.”

Jordan Reznick (he/they)

Jordan Reznick (he/they)

His health care work gradually connected him to other trans people as they built the modern trans movement in the 1990s. “Over time, we developed a concept of trans health,” he says. “Earlier, we didn’t have that language. I started working in HIV prevention, focusing on trans individuals. It was from HIV/AIDS that we really began to look at a broader health picture of trans people… And then we were talking about transition-related care, and later gender-affirming care… It evolved over time.”   

In 1996, the City of San Francisco conducted the first large-scale study of transgender health, with over 500 participants. Then, the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival was launched (then called “Tranny Fest”), and more of the marginalized stories about transmasculine people and trans people of color began to emerge — first through these grassroots events, and later in the media.

“That was exciting, documenting our stories,” he says. Wilkinson was a spoken word performer himself, and appeared in one of the early films Christopher Lee and Elise Hurwitz directed in 1997: “Trappings of Transhood.” At the same time, a growing number of organizations that recognized FTM (female-to-male) identity and community began to pop up, in addition to more studies and news stories on transgender people generally, and transmasculine people specifically.

Wilkinson has celebrated as trans people have gained increasing access to gender-affirming care. “Access to care is truly one of the greatest victories of the transgender movement. I have seen people’s mental health status so elevated because of access to care. In the 90s when we did that large-scale study, one of the biggest findings was that suicidality was directly linked to access to care. Numerous studies since, including the recently released U.S. Trans Survey, with over 92,000 respondents nationwide, corroborate the link between access to culturally competent, gender-affirming care and well-being.”

In 2006, California led the way by banning gender-based discrimination in health insurance, and again by requiring health care plans to remove trans exclusions in 2012. Increasingly, states began to include trans health coverage in their federally funded Medicaid programs, and private insurers removed exclusions for trans health care. Finally, in 2016, the federal government under Obama declared that federally supported health plans cannot discriminate against trans people.

But over the last five years, conservative activists have worked around the clock to reverse these victories, passing laws against gender-affirming care for minors in 24 states and counting.  

Trans health care access has continued to be a messy patchwork. People in rural areas and red states are particularly likely to go without medical care, due to the amount of travel required to find a trans-friendly provider who will prescribe hormones and gender-affirming surgeries. 

“We’ve been really creative about getting care anyway,” Wilkinson says. He’s now a health care consultant, helping medical professionals provide more affirming care for trans folks and people of color. 

“This is a moment, but we will get through it and we will continue to build. …As an eternal optimist, I believe that this is an unfortunate derailment on the quest for trans equality, but it’s not the end — just a roadblock that we’re ultimately going to overcome.”

Vera Verbel: Flight Plans in DeKalb, Illinois

Vera Verbel, always on the move, just made an offer on a house in Belize.

“Worst case scenario, I’ve got a place outside of this country to egress to,” she says later. She sold one of her most prized possessions — a small plane she loved to fly recreationally — to put down the deposit. “Best case scenario, it’s a really nice place to snowbird to.” 

Verbel has traveled and lived all over the world, mostly as a pilot for the U.S. Army, and later as a pilot for a major commercial airline. She now lives a comfortable, semi-retired life and flies her remaining small plane, a PA28-161 Piper Warrior named Charlie, multiple times a week. 

“Quite frankly, I’m afraid,” she says. “There’s definitely an undercurrent in the federal government to eradicate transgender people in this country, and that, to me, is scary.”

Verbel picks me up from the train station in a huge, boxy van, which she bought for the same reason as the home in Belize — it could be fun for vacation, but it could also transport everything she owns in a pinch. She plans to take me around the pathways of her daily life in the flatlands of suburban Chicago: the orderly development where she lives, the nearby law school where she briefly enrolled, the airfield where she flies Charlie. She has the radio on when I climb in the van. JD Vance is talking about immigration.

“I can listen to him because he can speak cogently and make sense,” she says. “The president, I have a hard time listening to because it’s just adolescent gibberish.”  

We talk politics until we pull up at her home, which is simple and colorful with pale pink walls, an elaborate display of scarves in every shade of the rainbow hanging from the vaulted ceiling in a handmade frame, and numerous photos of herself and her family in her spare room. In the pictures she’s flying planes, captaining catamarans, running races, paragliding.

“I am a very young 71,” she says happily. She used to fly people over the North Pole. “I’ve seen Aurora Borealis looking south. How many people can say that?”

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

I ask if she’s always been so daring.   

“I think it started because it was part of the masculine facade that I had to maintain,” she says.

She first recognized herself as a girl when she was a tiny child, but kept it secret through her difficult upbringing, 29 years of military service, one marriage, two children, and long-term participation in a conservative church.  

“It felt like I was holding my breath for 50 years,” she says matter-of-factly. 

For several decades, the only person in her life who knew her as anything other than a man was her wife, whom she came out to in the Army barracks in Berlin, just before their wedding in the early 1970s. After much hemming and hawing, she says, she told her fiancée, “‘I have the sense that I’m a woman…’ You know, she’s looking at this 6-foot-3, 220-pound Army E-5. And she goes, ‘Okay!’”

Her wife was supportive, so long as they kept it quiet. Verbel would dress in women’s clothing privately at home, and occasionally go out to hotel bars in neighboring suburbs to avoid the possibility of running into anyone they knew. It wasn’t until she’d been deployed as an Army Apache pilot in Afghanistan that things finally broke. 

“I flew 15 combat missions. It scared the bejesus out of me on some occasions, and I got back from that with a new resolve.” She left the Army in 2002, after coming to the realization that if she died, she would “never have lived the life that I know I need to live.”

Verbel and her wife decided she would finally pursue transition.

“I was gonna do a long, slow bake instead of pushing ahead really fast… so everybody in my life could get their head around it,” she says. “Minimize the amount of collateral damage.”

But when her church found out, they asked her to leave. Then her wife left her abruptly, with no explanation. 

It was a rough patch followed by a quick emergence. Freed from the pressures of her church, the military, and her marriage, Verbel hastened her transition. She took a break from flying for a large commercial airline to go to law school, imagining a career shift to legal advocacy, but when her airline offered her an even better deal to come back — now living and passing as a woman — she decided to drop out. Instead of pursuing her degree, she created a scholarship program in her name at Northeastern Illinois University. Embracing Diversity, the scholarship she funds annually, is now in its 11th year, holding steady in the face of federal attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. 

Verbel isn’t shocked by the political environment, in part because she remembers what things were like before trans people had mainstream visibility — when being trans “was just an unknown. It was an enigma.” Now, she says, “there’s a push to villainize, demonize, [and] scapegoat transgender people for political gain. And it’s working, because that’s what an authoritarian government does.”

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Deni Chamberlin (she/her)

Verbel’s been through a lot, but she doesn’t dramatize what’s next. After our interview today, she has an appointment with the doctor who did her breast implants to make sure she’ll be okay if gender-affirming medical care gets outlawed. She’s practical and cautious — just what I would want in a Boeing 787 pilot. 

“I’ve been to Belize three times this year… We stopped over in Miami once, stopped over in Dallas once. I go use the restroom. I’m doing a felony trespass, but I gotta pee. It’d make more commotion if I walked into the men’s room,” she says. “So what do you do? You just go in like you belong and get out, and hope there isn’t a Karen or a Ken around to confront you.”

The post Trans Voices of America appeared first on TransLash Media.

National LGBTQ Health Awareness Week: Promoting Equity and Inclusivity.

National LGBTQ Health Awareness Week was established by the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health, a leading organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community through advocacy, education, and research. 

The roots of this awareness week can be traced back to the LGBTQ health movement of the late 20th century, which aimed to shed light on the unique challenges and barriers faced by the community in obtaining affirming and culturally competent healthcare services. Building on this foundation, the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health launched National LGBTQ Health Awareness Week as a vital part of its mission to raise awareness, educate stakeholders, and advocate for policy changes to improve health outcomes for LGBTQ people across the United States.

Celebrated annually during the third week of March, this initiative aims to bring national attention to the specific health needs and disparities experienced by the LGBTQ population. It provides a platform for healthcare providers, policymakers, community organizations, and allies to engage in dialogue, share resources, and take action toward creating a more inclusive and equitable healthcare landscape for LGBTQ individuals of all ages and backgrounds.

By designating a dedicated week each year, the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health and its partners strive to raise public awareness, promote culturally competent care, and address the systemic barriers that contribute to health inequities for the LGBTQ community. Through a range of events, educational initiatives, and advocacy efforts, National LGBTQ Health Awareness Week aims to foster a healthcare environment that respects and affirms the identities and needs of LGBTQ patients. 

Alarming LGBTQ Statistics

• The LGBTQ community continues to face significant health disparities and challenges compared to their non-LGBTQ counterparts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), LGBTQ individuals are at an increased risk for various mental health issues, substance abuse, and certain chronic conditions.
• Mental Health: LGBTQ individuals are at a significantly higher risk for mental health issues than their heterosexual counterparts. The Trevor Project’s 2024 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that 39% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year — including 46% of transgender and nonbinary young people. This is nearly four times the rate among heterosexual youth. 
• HIV/AIDS: The CDC reports that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are disproportionately affected by HIV, accounting for 71% of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2022. 
• Access to Healthcare: LGBTQ individuals often face barriers to healthcare, including discrimination, lack of culturally competent care, and insurance issues. A 2020 survey by the Center for American Progress found that more than 1 in five LGBTQ adults postponed or avoided medical treatment due to discrimination fears. 
• Substance Use: According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), LGBTQ people are more likely to use alcohol and drugs, have higher rates of substance abuse, and are less likely to abstain from drug use compared to their heterosexual counterparts. 
• Cancer: Lesbian and bisexual women are less likely to get preventive services for cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Gay men are at a higher risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections that can increase the risk of certain cancers like anal cancer.
• Youth Homelessness: LGBTQ youth are disproportionately represented among the homeless population. LGBTQ+ youth are 120% more likely to face homelessness than their peers, while Black youth are 83% and Latine youth are 33% more likely, according to the True Colors United organization. 

What is Trans Affirming Healthcare?

Trans-affirming healthcare refers to a comprehensive approach that fully supports and affirms the gender identities of transgender and non-binary individuals. It encompasses two key aspects:

Gender-Affirming Care for Transitioning

Gender-affirming care involves medical interventions to help align an individual’s physical characteristics with their gender identity. This can include:

• Hormone therapy (estrogen or testosterone)
• Surgical procedures like breast augmentation/removal, facial feminization, or genital reconstruction
• Fertility preservation options
• Mental health support and counseling
• The goal is to provide transgender individuals the means to transition and live authentically as their true selves, which can greatly improve mental health and overall wellbeing.

Inclusive Healthcare Environment

Beyond transition-related care, trans affirming healthcare ensures transgender individuals receive respectful, inclusive treatment in any healthcare setting. This means:

• Using correct names and pronouns
• Understanding unique health risks and needs
• Providing bias-free care without discrimination
• Ensuring patients feel safe and respected
• Even for basic services like annual check-ups or flu shots, trans people deserve an affirmation of their identity and gender. No one should face being misgendered or subjected to an unsafe environment simply for seeking medical care.

Creating a truly trans affirming healthcare system requires cultural competency training, inclusive policies, and an organizational commitment to respecting all gender identities and expressions. This allows transgender patients to access comprehensive, high-quality care in an environment of trust and affirmation, regardless of where they are in their gender journey. 

Transgender Healthcare Advocates to Follow

1. Kai Potts

Kai Potts (he/him), known as @ohkairyn on social media, is a dynamic Two-Spirit Nakoda advocate, content creator, and performer from Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation. As a prominent voice for Indigenous LGBTQ+ rights, Kai fearlessly shares his journey and experiences to raise awareness about the unique challenges faced by Two-Spirit individuals. Through his engaging and informative content on TikTok and Instagram, where he has amassed over 500k and 90k followers respectively, Kai educates his audience about the importance of decolonization, cultural preservation, and inclusive healthcare for Indigenous communities. His inspiring advocacy work has earned him recognition as an influential leader in the fight for Two-Spirit visibility and equality. Follow Kai on TikTok @ohkairyn and Instagram @ohkairyn to learn more about Two-Spirit identity, Indigenous rights, and how to support the well-being of Indigenous LGBTQ+ people.

2. Chase Strangio

Chase Strangio is a trailblazing transgender rights lawyer and activist serving as Deputy Director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. He has been lead counsel on groundbreaking Supreme Court cases like EEOC v. Harris Funeral Homes, which secured workplace protections for transgender people, and represented high-profile clients like Chelsea Manning and Gavin Grimm in their fights for civil liberties. Strangio has co-authored guidance on best practices for protecting trans people’s rights in schools, prisons and more. Widely recognized as an expert commentator, he continues using his legal platform and advocacy to blaze trails toward full equity and inclusion for transgender and non-binary individuals. Follow him on Twitter @chasestrangio and Instagram @chase_strangio. 

3. Devin-Norelle

is a Black transgender model, advocate, and writer who has become a powerful voice in the fight for transgender rights and body positivity. As a non-binary individual, Devin-Norelle uses zir platform to raise awareness about gender identity, inclusivity, and self-love. Through thought-provoking posts on social media and features in prominent publications like Vogue and The New York Times, ze educates audiences about issues facing the transgender community, particularly at the intersection of race and gender identity. Devin-Norelle also advocates for equitable access to healthcare and mental health resources for transgender individuals. Follow Devin-Norelle on Instagram @steroidbeyonce to learn more about non-binary identity, transgender rights, and body positivity.

4. Charlie Amáyá Scott

Charlie Amáyá Scott (they/them) is a powerful Diné transgender scholar and advocate dedicated to educating others about Two-Spirit identity, Indigenous rights, and decolonization. As a former Gates Millennium Scholar and current doctoral student in American Indian Studies, Charlie brings a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to their advocacy work. Through engaging content on TikTok and Instagram, they celebrate the rich history and resilience of Two-Spirit individuals while shedding light on the struggles faced by Indigenous LGBTQ+ communities. Charlie incorporates their Navajo heritage into their work, preserving ancestral knowledge and creating a sense of pride and belonging for other Two-Spirit individuals. Their tireless efforts to promote understanding, equality, and justice have made them a respected leader in the fight for social change. Follow Charlie Amáyá Scott on TikTok and Instagram @dineaesthetics to learn more about Two-Spirit identity, Indigenous rights, and the importance of decolonization in achieving true equality for all

5. Ashlee Marie Preston

Ashley Marie Preston is a prominent Black transgender activist, media personality, and journalist who has made significant strides in advocating for transgender rights, racial equality, and HIV/AIDS awareness. As a survivor of sexual assault and homelessness, Ashlee uses her platform to shed light on the intersectional challenges faced by marginalized communities. She made history as the first openly transgender person to run for state office in California and has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. Ashlee’s powerful voice and unwavering commitment to social justice have earned her recognition as one of the most influential LGBTQ+ activists of our time. She continues to inspire and empower others through her work as a public speaker, writer, and host of the podcast “Shook with Ashlee Marie Preston.” Follow Ashlee on Instagram @ashleemariepreston and to stay informed about her ongoing efforts to create positive change and advocate for the rights of transgender individuals and people of color.

6. Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok is a globally renowned gender non-conforming writer, performer, and advocate whose work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition. With a captivating presence both on and off stage, Alok uses poetry, comedy, and fashion to challenge societal norms and inspire others to embrace their authentic selves. Their groundbreaking advocacy has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, National Geographic, and Vogue. As a mixed-race, transgender, and non-binary individual, Alok brings a unique perspective to their activism, highlighting the intersections of gender, race, and identity. They have performed in over 40 countries, using their art as a tool for social change and empowerment. Alok’s bestselling book, “Beyond the Gender Binary,” offers a powerful exploration of gender fluidity and the liberation that comes with living authentically. Through their work, Alok continues to inspire a global movement towards acceptance, self-love, and the celebration of diversity. Follow Alok on Instagram @alokvmenon to experience their transformative art, thought-provoking insights, and ongoing advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community.

7. Tiq Milan

Tiq is a groundbreaking Black transgender activist, writer, and public speaker whose work has been instrumental in advancing transgender equality and raising awareness about issues facing the Black LGBTQ+ community. As a former journalist and media strategist, Tiq has used his platform to amplify the voices of marginalized individuals and advocate for social justice. He has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Root, and EBONY, and has appeared on national television networks such as CNN and MSNBC. Tiq’s powerful storytelling and ability to bridge gaps between communities have made him a sought-after speaker and consultant for organizations seeking to create more inclusive environments. He co-authored the book “What Becomes You,” which explores his journey as a transgender man and the intersections of race, gender, and identity. Through his tireless advocacy, Tiq continues to inspire and empower others to live their truth and fight for equality. Follow Tiq on Instagram @themrmilan to stay informed about his ongoing work to promote transgender rights and racial justice.

8. Chella Man 

Chella is a Deaf, genderqueer, Jewish person of color who has emerged as a powerful voice and representation for the intersections of the transgender, Deaf, and disability communities. An accomplished artist, author, and activist, Chella uses his various creative platforms to share his experiences, raise awareness, and advocate for greater equity and inclusion. His highly-acclaimed book “Continuum” delves into his life as a genderqueer person navigating intersecting identities. Chella’s artwork and social media presence have made him a celebrated figure, particularly inspiring Deaf/Trans youth by boldly living his truth. Through speeches, interviews, and multimedia projects, Chella amplifies the narratives of underrepresented groups while promoting acceptance of diverse gender identities and expressions. Follow Chella’s impactful work on Instagram @chellaman

Recent Anti-LGBTQ Bills

​In recent years, there has been a significant increase in legislation across various states aimed at limiting the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ individuals. These bills, introduced and sometimes enacted into law, encompass a range of issues from healthcare to education and public accommodations, profoundly affecting the lives and well-being of LGBTQ+ people.​

Recent Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills (2024–2025)

The following is a summary of notable anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from 2024 to 2025:

1. Iowa SF 418 (2025 – Passed): Removes gender identity as a protected class under the state’s civil rights act, effectively eliminating anti-discrimination protections for transgender individuals in areas such as housing, employment, and public accommodations.​
   
2. Kentucky HB 495 (2025 – Passed): Protects conversion therapy practices and prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for gender-affirming healthcare for transgender residents.​
   
3. Utah HB 77 (2025 – Passed): Bans the display of Pride flags in state government buildings, limiting the representation of LGBTQ+ symbols in public spaces.​
   
4. Ohio HB SB104 (2024 – Passed): Restricts transgender students from using bathrooms aligning with their gender identity in educational institutions from kindergarten through college.​
   
5. South Carolina S 627 (2024 – Passed): Bans gender-affirming care for minors and requires school staff to inform parents if a student wishes to use a different name or pronouns.​
   
6. New Hampshire HB 619 (2024 – Passed): Prohibits gender-affirming genital surgeries for minors while allowing other forms of gender-affirming care.​
   
7. Kansas SB 63 (2025 – Passed): Bans gender-affirming care for minors, with a requirement to cease existing treatments by December 31, 2025.​
   
8. Texas SB 14 (2024 – Passed): Prohibits gender-affirming medical care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, with penalties for healthcare providers who violate the law.​
   
9. Florida SB 254 (2024 – Passed): Revokes the medical licenses of healthcare providers who administer gender-affirming treatments to transgender patients of any age.​
   
10. Wyoming HB 152 (2024 – Passed): Criminalizes the provision of gender-affirming healthcare to minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.​
    

Implications of Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation

These legislative actions have significant consequences:

• Healthcare Access: Bans on gender-affirming care for minors restrict access to medically necessary treatments endorsed by major medical associations, potentially leading to adverse mental and physical health outcomes.​
  
• Educational Environment: Policies requiring school staff to disclose a student’s transgender status to parents or restricting bathroom access can create unwelcoming and unsafe environments for LGBTQ+ students.​
  
• Civil Rights Protections: Removing gender identity from protected classes under civil rights laws diminishes legal protections against discrimination, affecting various aspects of daily life for transgender individuals.​
  
• Symbolic Representation: Bans on displaying Pride flags in public buildings reduce the visibility and acknowledgment of LGBTQ+ communities, potentially fostering exclusion.​
  

This wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation underscores the importance of awareness and advocacy in protecting the rights and well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Trans-Centered Resource List

Medical and Healthcare Information

• World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH): Provides clinical guidance for health professionals to deliver care to trans and gender-nonconforming individuals, including the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People.
  
• Transgender Care Listings (Transcaresite.org): A directory of healthcare providers experienced in providing gender-affirming medical care to transgender patients.

Mental Health Support

• The Trevor Project: Offers crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth under 25, including a 24/7 crisis hotline, chat, and text service.
  
• Trans Lifeline: A grassroots hotline and microgrants organization offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis.

Legal Assistance and Advocacy

• Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE): Advocates for policy changes that promote the equality and well-being of transgender individuals.

Lambda Legal: a nonprofit organization that focuses on the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people and individuals living with HIV. Founded in 1973, it provides legal advocacy, impact litigation, and public education to fight discrimination and advance equality.

Health Insurance and Financial Assistance

• Healthcare.gov – Transgender Health Care: Offers information about health coverage options for transgender people through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace.
• Jim Collins Foundation: Provides financial assistance to transgender individuals for gender-affirming surgeries.

Peer Support and Community

• MyTransHealth: A resource designed to connect transgender people with qualified and compassionate healthcare providers.
• Gender Spectrum: Provides education, training, and support to help create a gender-inclusive world for all children and youth.

Trans Facilities

• Callen-Lorde Community Health Center: Offers comprehensive healthcare services tailored to New York’s LGBTQ+ community, including transgender health services. 
• TransThrive through San Francisco Community Health Center: Provides comprehensive support and healthcare services for the transgender community in San Francisco. 

The post TransLash’s Guide to National LGBTQ Health Awareness Week appeared first on TransLash Media.

The first National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day took place in 1999, as a grassroots-education effort to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment in communities of Black and BIPOC people.

What we at TransLash believe is that centering the lives, leadership and needs of Black transgender people is the only way to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

While we celebrate the Black LGBTQ+ community, we also acknowledge the reality that HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately affect us.

Despite medical advancements, Black LGBTQ+ individuals – especially Black gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with sex, Black transgender women, and nonbinary folks – face higher rates of HIV, systemic barriers to healthcare, and stigma within society and the healthcare system.

Key HIV/AIDS Statistics

Black communities have made great progress in reducing HIV infection. Yet racism, discrimination, and mistrust in the health care system may affect whether Black people of all genders seek or receive HIV prevention services. These issues may also reduce the likelihood of engaging in HIV treatment and care.

• More than half of Black transgender women are living with HIV.
• Black people represent 2 out of 5 of all people with HIV in the United States.
• In 2022, 57% of Black adults reported having been tested for HIV at least once—a higher percentage than Latino (44%) and White adults (32%), highlighting the community’s proactive approach to health despite ongoing disparities.

These statistics do not live in a vacuum; they represent real lives.

HIV doesn’t spread because of identity, it spreads due to barriers created by racism, homophobia, transphobia, and healthcare discrimination.

Anti-Black and transphobic systems of oppression create barriers for Black trans & TGNC people from getting tested, as well as prevent many Black transgender & TGNC people living with HIV/AIDS from getting the critical care they need. Black LGBTQ+ people often face higher rates of economic and housing insecurity, which makes it harder to prioritize healthcare.

Celebrating Black Trans HIV Advocates

The fight against HIV/AIDS has been marked by the tireless efforts of countless advocates. Among these, Black trans advocates have played a crucial role, not only in raising awareness but also in shaping policies and providing support to communities disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.

Their work, deeply rooted in personal experience and a profound commitment to justice, offers invaluable lessons and inspiration. This section honors the contributions of notable Black trans HIV advocates, emphasizing their impact and the ongoing need for inclusive, intersectional advocacy.

Notable Advocates

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy: A pioneering figure, Miss Major’s advocacy spans decades, focusing on the rights and health of trans women of color. Her leadership in the struggle against HIV/AIDS has been instrumental in fostering a more inclusive approach to healthcare and support services.

Dee Dee Ngozi Chamblee: As the founder of LaGender Inc., Chamblee has dedicated her life to the empowerment of the trans community, with a special focus on HIV/AIDS education and prevention. Her work is a testament to the power of community-led initiatives in addressing health disparities.

Cecilia Chung: Chung’s advocacy work, particularly with the Transgender Law Center, has significantly contributed to improving access to healthcare for trans people living with HIV. Her efforts underscore the importance of legal and policy frameworks that respect and protect the rights of all individuals.

Tori Cooper: As a leading voice in the Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, Cooper’s work in HIV health and advocacy showcases the importance of representation and leadership from within the community to effect meaningful change.

Toni Newman: A Case Study in Leadership and Advocacy

Toni Newman stands out for her exceptional contributions to HIV advocacy and her dedication to justice for the Black trans community. As a former acting Executive Director of the Black AIDS Institute and the director of NMAC’s Coalition for Justice and Equality Across Movements, Newman’s leadership has been pivotal in bringing attention to the intersectional nature of HIV/AIDS challenges.

Her autobiography, “I Rise–The Transformation of Toni Newman,” not only narrates her personal journey of transformation but also serves as a rallying call for empathy, understanding, and action in the fight against HIV/AIDS​​​​.

The stories of these advocates are not just tales of individual bravery and resilience; they are powerful reminders of the ongoing fight for health equity and the critical role of advocacy in achieving it.

Black trans HIV advocates have shown that change is possible when communities come together to demand justice, care, and respect for all. Their legacy is a beacon of hope and a call to action for future generations to continue the fight against HIV/AIDS with compassion, courage, and unwavering commitment to equality.

The good news is that we can end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The National HIV/AIDS Strategy (2022-2025) prioritizes efforts to reduce disparities and improve HIV outcomes among LGBTQIA men who have sex with men; Black cisgender women; transgender women; youth aged 13–24 years; and people who inject drugs.

Tori Cooper, appointed by President Biden, is the only Black trans woman on the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and helps guide this strategy.

Together, when we work to overcome structural & transphobic barriers to HIV testing, prevention, and treatment and to stop HIV stigma, we help reduce HIV-related disparities and health inequities in Black communities of all genders.

Trans-Affirming HIV/AIDS Resources

Follow these Black trans & LGBTQIA-led orgs on Instagram. They provide access to HIV/AIDS testing and antiretroviral therapy, and related lifesaving support services & community outreach for trans people.

• Baltimore Safe Haven: Baltimore’s only trans-led drop-in wellness center.

• BEAM (Black Emotional & Mental Health): A movement dedicated to creating a world where there are no barriers to Black healing.

• Black AIDS Institute: Mission: End HIV in Black communities.

• Black & Pink National: National org fighting alongside incarcerated LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS for #prison #abolition.

• Brave Space Alliance: Brave Space Alliance is the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ Center working on the South Side of Chicago.

• Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC): HIV/AIDS organization that offers a diverse roster of services for all individuals. @gmhc

• NY Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG): A Black trans-led nonprofit that fights for inclusive TGNC policies in NY State, and provides TGNC trainings and events for the community.

• Solutions NOT Punishment Collaborative (SNaP Co.): A Black trans and queer-led org based in Atlanta. @snap4freedom

• St. James Infirmary: A peer-based occupational health clinic for sex workers. Unfortunately, they closed their clinic in 2023.

• TAJA’s Coalition: The Transgender Advocates for Justice and Accountability (TAJAs) Coalition was founded in response to the brutal murder of Taja DeJesus. TAJA’s program activities include Service Connection Workshops, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Training, and Service Linkage (performs weekly check-ins with its enrolled participants). The Coalition has established formal partnerships with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing Services (the largest community housing agency in San Francisco) in order to increase access for trans people and to train their 1000+ housing team.

• TAKE Birmingham: TAKE (Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable Empowering) provide supportive services for trans women of color to help improve their quality of life.

• Thrive SS: Building support networks for people living with HIV across the country.

• Trans Housing Coalition: A trans-led and founded organization that helps Atlanta’s chronically homeless trans & GNC population move from the streets into housing.

Federal & Other HIV/AIDS Resources (United States)

Recently, many HIV-related pages and resources that were once available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been quietly removed or significantly reduced. These pages provided essential information on:

• Where to get free or low-cost HIV testing
• How to access PrEP (a daily pill that prevents HIV)
• HIV treatment options and U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) facts
• Data on how HIV impacts marginalized communities, including Black LGBTQ+ people

Without these resources, people looking for lifesaving information—especially those most at risk—are left in the dark.

We encourage our community use Black-led and LGBTQ+ HIV resources (listed above and below) instead of relying on government sites.

• Learn about the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

• Check out the Ready Set PrEP program offering free PrEP to eligible patients.

• POZ Magazine: POZ is an award-winning print and online brand for people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Its website, POZ.com, has daily HIV/AIDS news, treatment information, forums, blogs, and personals. Follow on Instagram: @pozmagazine

• History of Black Trans Women in the HIV/AIDS Narrative, African American AIDS History Project

• TransLash Guide: HIV Vaccine Awareness Day 

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation.

The post TransLash Guide to National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day appeared first on TransLash Media.

Too often, conversations about Black history center on cisgender men while leaving out the women, queer folks, and trans people who built movements and redefined what liberation looks like. Black trans people are Black history, and this month, we make sure that truth is undeniable.

This guide isn’t just a celebration. It’s a reclamation. Let’s get into it.

Black History Month’s ‘Negro History Week’ Origins (1926)

In 1926, historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) announced the second week of February to be “Negro History Week”. This week was chosen because it coincided with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12th and that of Frederick Douglass on February 14th, dates which Black communities had celebrated since the late 19th century. 

At the time of Negro History Week’s launch, Woodson emphasized that the teaching of Black History was essential to ensure the physical and intellectual survival of the race within broader society:

“If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”

Negro History Week grew in popularity throughout the following decades, with mayors across the United States endorsing it as a holiday.

Black History Month: Brought to you by Black Scholars

By the 1960s, Negro History Week had expanded into what we now celebrate as Black History Month, thanks to Black educators and the Black United Students at Kent State University, who initiated the first Black History Month in February 1970. In 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized it, urging Americans to honor the “too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans.”

In the Black community, Black History Month prompted the creation of Black history clubs, an increase in interest among teachers, and interest from non-Black allies.

On February 21, 2016, 106-year Washington, D.C., resident and school volunteer Virginia McLaurin visited the White House as part of Black History Month.

When asked by President Barack Obama why she was there, McLaurin said: “A Black president. A Black wife. And I’m here to celebrate Black history. That’s what I’m here for.”

Black Trans People and African Gender Traditions

Before Western colonization, many African societies had fluid understandings of gender identity. While the term “two-spirit” is specific to Indigenous North American cultures, Black trans and gender-diverse identities have existed for centuries. 

• Woman-to-Woman Marriages: Documented in over 40 African societies, these marriages allowed a woman to take on the role of a husband, challenging the binary gender norms. This practice was prevalent across various cultures, indicating a different approach to gender and marital roles compared to Western norms.
• The Chibados and Quimbanda: In Angola, male diviners known as Chibados or Quimbanda were believed to carry female spirits, demonstrating the existence of gender-variant roles in African spiritual practices.
• Queen Nzingha Mbande (Angola): Ruled in the 1600s, she exhibited gender fluidity, being referred to as “King” and taking on roles traditionally assigned to men, such as leading troops in battle.
• King Mwanga II (Uganda): Openly gay or bisexual, he resisted British colonial influence and exemplified pre-colonial acceptance of diverse sexual orientations.
• Area Scatter (Nigeria): A gender non-conforming musician in the 1970s, she challenged gender norms through her artistic expression and performance.
• Simon Nkoli (South Africa): A prominent anti-apartheid and gay rights activist, he played a significant role in advancing LGBTQ+ rights in Africa.

The Impact of Colonialism on Black Trans and Queer Identities

Despite colonial narratives that paint queerness and transness as “un-African”, these histories prove otherwise. It was colonization that imposed transphobia and homophobia, not African culture itself. 

In pre-colonial Africa, gender was not always a primary organizing principle. For instance, among the Yoruba people, gender roles were not strictly defined, and women held positions of prominence and power in society. Women were involved in politics and trade and were key decision-makers in their communities. In Ghana, queen mothers in the Asante culture were part of a dual-gender system of leadership, holding significant authority alongside tribal chiefs. Similarly, Yoruba women were central figures in long-distance trade and could hold the chieftaincy title of “iyalode,” signifying considerable power and privilege​

The arrival of colonial powers in Africa introduced patriarchal structures and binary gender norms that significantly devalued the roles and contributions of women, leading to a dramatic reshaping of family structures and gender relationships. This imposition of European norms drastically reduced women’s influence and power, especially in public and political spheres, relegating them to subordinate roles and causing a significant loss of their earlier societal status. 

Additionally, European colonizers, influenced by their own cultural biases, often condemned and criminalized non-heteronormative sexualities and gender expressions. Historical accounts, such as those of Francisco Manicongo from Central Africa, highlight the oppressive colonial attitudes towards gender and sexual diversity. 

These interventions not only suppressed but also pathologized diverse gender expressions and sexual orientations, leading to the ironic import of homophobia and transphobia into African cultures, contrary to the pre-colonial acceptance of gender and sexual diversity​

Black Transgender History & Trancestry

The term “trancestry” was coined by Black trans activist CeCe McDonald. It describes the practice of telling transgender peoples’ stories to honor their historical significance.

Frances Thompson is an example of a transcestor; a Black trans woman living openly, according to her own gender identity, long before the existence of Black History Month. CeCe, who fought for her rights in a very public legal battle, stands on the shoulders of Frances Thompson.

Black Transgender & Queer Historical Figures

While we cannot definitively label historical figures as transgender using modern terms, we can glean insights from the ways they defied and navigated gender norms of their time. Many such individuals exhibited behaviors and traits that resonate with what we now understand as transgender identities. Their lives and actions provide valuable context for understanding the evolving nature of gender expression and identity. By examining these historical nuances, we gain a deeper appreciation for the diversity of gender expressions throughout history and their connections to contemporary transgender experiences.

Mary Jones (1836-1853):

Mary Jones, born a free African-American, lived her life as a Black sex worker defying the rigid gender norms of her time. Her arrest in 1836 was not only for ‘cross-dressing’ but also involved other charges,  marking one of the earliest recorded instances of a Black transgender person in American history. 

Despite the legal and societal challenges she faced, Mary Jones’s story is a story of death-defying class jumping, colorful creative indulgences, and the sensual existence of Black trans women long before the term itself was coined.

Frances Thompson

In 1866, Frances Thompson was the first out Black trans woman, the first Black woman, and the first out transgender person to testify during a hearing held by the US Congress about being sexually assaulted by white men. She spoke on behalf of herself and a cisgender woman who was also assaulted. 

Ten years later in 1876, after a decade of being targeted for speaking out, Thompson was arrested for “being a man dressed in women’s clothing”, and died that same year. Even behind bars, Thompson never lost her fight, answering rude questions about her gender with “none of your damn business.”

Today, The Transgender Education Foundation (formerly The Frances Thompson Education Foundation) facilitates Black transgender and non-binary scholarship and advancement, through direct financial, written, and oral scholarship.

Frances Thompson is Black History, and she stood on the shoulders of Sojourner Truth, a Black cisgender woman, who in 1851, in front of a crowd of mostly white cisgender women, demanded body autonomy & rights for Black women in her legendary speech “Aint I A Woman?” at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio.

Both Frances Thompson and Sojourner Truth fought for Black women long before the white feminist movement even considered Black women worthy of equal rights. While white women in the United States earned the right to vote in 1920, Black women and many women of color had to wait nearly five more decades to exercise that right.

Sir Lady Java (1943-2024):

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1943, Sir Lady Java, also known simply as Lady Java, emerged as a pioneering figure in the transgender community and the entertainment industry. She embraced her identity from an early age, transitioning with the support of her mother.

Java’s career spanned across various domains – she was a talented exotic dancer, singer, comedian, and actress. In the 1960s, Java faced discrimination due to Rule Number 9, a Los Angeles law that restricted drag performance. Her fight against this law marked her as a transgender rights activist and a pioneer in the struggle for equality. She was one of the first transgender individuals to be defended by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In June 2016, she was honored at the 18th annual Trans Pride L.A. festival alongside CeCe McDonald. 

For Black cisgender and transgender people, representation in media has helped to shift public perception of Black lives and Black achievements and to inspire action. Today in 2023, there is still a long way to go in our fight for equality and equity, but we are inspired by Black trans and cisgender legacies that continue to make an impact today.

Black Cisgender & Transgender Representation in Media

The world’s first television stations first started appearing in America in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and Ethel Waters, a cisgender Black woman, was the first Black performer seen on television. Her one-night variety special, The Ethel Waters Show, aired on NBC in 1939, and paved the way for many Black entertainers. Ethel Waters is Black History.

By the 1950s, nuanced representations of Black people in media were still lacking; many white people were accustomed to strictly seeing Black people on television primarily as sources of entertainment: singers, dancers, athletes — and in news footage as targets of police brutality, as the civil rights movement gained more screen time in homes across America.

In 1955, Black and non-Black people could turn on their televisions and see footage from protests such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and then change the channel and see Black entertainers on The Nat King Cole Show. For many Black people of all genders during this era, Black representation in media felt like a double-edged sword. Racist tropes abounded. For some Black viewers, Martin Luther King Jr.‘s brilliance and charisma on their flickering TV sets emboldened them to keep fighting for their rights.

But despite more visibility for Black actors in the 50s and 60s, white network and studio heads, directors, writers and actors continued to perpetuate anti-Black notions about who Black people are and what they deserve.

Black trans entertainers were featured even less on stages and screens during this era, but we existed; our trancestor Sir Lady Java was an entertainer and activist who successfully fought against an anti-crossdressing ordinance in Los Angeles in the late 1960s.

In 1976, Java portrayed herself in the Dolemite sequel The Human Tornado. In 1978, Java performed with Lena Horne at a birthday party for nightclub owner and columnist Gertrude Gipson. Since the 1980s, Java has kept a lower public profile. After retiring from performance and recovering from a stroke, she made a limited return to public life, appearing locally in southern California and giving interviews. In June 2016, she was a guest of honor at the 18th annual Trans Pride L.A. festival alongside CeCe McDonald. Lady Java is Black History.

Willmer Broadnax (1916-1992) , also known as “Little Axe,” “Wilbur,” “Willie,” and “Wilmer,” was a Black trans man who moved to Southern California from Houston, Texas, in the 1930s with his brother to join the Southern Gospel Singers. He and his brother later formed their own group called “Little Axe and the Golden Echoes.” Eventually the brothers parted ways and joined various other groups throughout their musical careers. In retirement, Broadnax continued to record new material occasionally with the Blind Boys into the 1970s and 1980s.

As Black trans blogger, writer, and transgender rights advocate Monica Roberts documented, there is a dispute as to when Broadnax actually died.  Various sources claim it was 1994, but the Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project website asserts that he met his untimely demise in Philadelphia in 1992. He and his girlfriend Lavinia Richardson were arguing when she stabbed him on May 23, 1992, and he subsequently died on June 1, 1992. It was on the autopsy table that Willmer Broadnax was ultimately revealed to be a trans man. Little Axe is Black History.

Prismatic Blackness: A Threat to White America

Respectability politics rooted in anti-Blackness and homophobia dictated how Black people of all genders were judged in white and Black-led media. Malcolm X, a Black cisgender man who was vocal advocate for Black empowerment, did not receive the same reception as Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X was even featured in a 1959 New York City television broadcast about the Nation of Islam, The Hate That Hate Produced.

Reactions to Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965 were varied. But in a telegram to Betty Shabazz, Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his sadness at “the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband.” He said: While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.

For many white people, witnessing Black people fighting for their rights felt like a threat to their power.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

– James Baldwin

Interracial relationships on TV and in film were especially controversial. It wasn’t until 1967 that American audiences saw a nuanced film about the topic: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, starred the legend Sidney Poitier (February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022).

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was one of the few films of the time to depict an interracial marriage in a positive light, as interracial marriage historically had been illegal in many states of the United States. It was still illegal in 17 states, until June 12, 1967, six months before the film was released and scenes were filmed just before anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia.

The first Black-White kiss on American network television didn’t even take place until November 22, 1968, and is credited to the Star Trek episode, “Plato’s Stepchildren.” In this episode, the Platonians used their telekinetic powers to force Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, a white actor, and Lieutenant Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols (1932-present), a Black cisgender actress, to kiss. 

Sidney Poitier and Nichelle Nichols stand on the shoulders & brilliance of James Baldwin, a gay Black writer and thought leader who in 1956, published Giovanni’s Room, one of the first American novels to deal with the topic of homosexuality. Baldwin spoke truth to power in ways that compelled many people of all backgrounds to examine the systemic harm of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and homophobia. Poitier, Nichols, and Baldwin are Black History.

Black Trans Media Representation: An Evolving Legacy

It wasn’t until decades later that the first-ever Black-White cisgender-transgender/TGNC “romance” would take place on the big screen: in The Crying Game (1992), actor Jaye Davidson, a Black mixed cisgender gay man, plays transgender woman Dil. This film doubled down on the on-screen transphobic trope of the deceptive trans woman who tricks the cisgender man, and what followed was relentless transphobic and anti-Black “jokes” on TV about this film for years to come (learn more about this in the documentary film DISCLOSURE).

Audiences wouldn’t see a Black transgender woman consistently & authentically playing a Black trans woman character on any mainstream network or streaming platform until over a decade later, in Orange Is the New Black (2012-2019). OITNB star Laverne Cox’s big breakthrough happened after years in the industry, when she was cast as Sophia Burset on the Netflix television drama. Cox’s character Burset, a transgender woman, is in prison trying to get hormone treatments.

For her performance, Cox was nominated for a Primetime Emmy in 2014, 2017, and 2019. After the show ended in 2019, Cox continued to take on acting roles in movies and on television. Her later credits included the films Charlie’s Angels (2019), Promising Young Woman (2020), and Jolt (2021).

A year after Laverne Cox appeared in the first season of Orange Is the New Black, Sasha Alexander founded Black Trans Media & #blacktranseverything in 2013, which addresses the intersections of racism and transphobia by reframing the value & worth of Black trans people.

Sasha stands on the shoulders of Laverne Cox and Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler, who directed the independent film STILL BLACK: a Portrait of Black Transmen (2008); a collection of six short black-and-white films conceived during the years Ziegler was a doctoral student in the department of African-American studies at Northwestern University. The film explores the theme of FTM transition in the Black community. Upon release to the queer film festival circuit, STILL BLACK: a Portrait of Black Transmen became one of the most sought-after and talked about films representing the Black trans man experience, showing to sold-out crowds in cities such as Los Angeles, Toronto, Seattle, Chicago, and Tel-Aviv.

Ziegler, Alexander, and Cox all stand on the shoulders of Janet Mock, a Black trans woman who began her transition as a freshman in high school and funded her medical transition by earning money as a sex worker in her teens. Mock earned a Master of Arts in Journalism from New York University in 2006. Her career in journalism shifted from editor to media advocate when she came out publicly as a trans woman in a 2011 Marie Claire article.

Mock’s memoir about her teenage years, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, was released in February 2014. It is the first book written by a trans person who transitioned as a young person, and made The New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction.

Another 2014 breakthrough: Angelica Ross, a Black trans actress, businesswoman, and transgender rights advocate (and self-taught computer programmer), founded TransTech Social Enterprises, a firm that helps employ transgender people in the tech industry. Ross then began her acting career in the web series Her Story (2016), after which she received critical acclaim for her starring roles in the drama series Pose (2018–2021) and the anthology horror series American Horror Story (2019–present). Ross is the first trans person to star in two season regular roles, consecutively.

Over 100 years later, Black trans people continue to fulfill Carter G. Woodson‘s vision for preserving Black history for future generations — all Black history.

In 2017, three Black trans women founded Compton’s Transgender Cultural District in San Francisco, CA; the first legally recognized transgender district in the world. Originally named after the first documented uprising of transgender and queer people in United States history, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots of 1966, the district encompasses 6 blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin and crosses over Market Street to include two blocks of 6th street. In 2016, the City of San Francisco renamed portions of Turk and Taylor to commemorate the historic contributions of transgender people, renaming them “Compton’s Cafeteria Way” and “Vikki Mar Lane” respectively. January 31, 2022, marked Compton’s Transgender Cultural District‘s five year anniversary.

A year after the launch of Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, TransLash Media founder Imara Jones, a Black trans woman, released the first in a series of Black trans-affirming short documentary films entitled TransLash Episode 1: Transitioning Genders in Trump’s America (2018). The documentary series was the catalyst for Jones’ platform TransLash Media (2019-present), a nonprofit organization that tells trans stories to save trans lives, all while documenting trans lives through a Black trans lens.

In 2020, TransLash honored Monica Roberts (May 4, 1962 – October 5, 2020), a Black trans blogger, writer, and transgender rights advocate. She was the founding editor of TransGriot, a blog focusing on issues pertaining to trans women, particularly Black and other women of color. Roberts’ coverage of transgender homicide victims in the United States is credited for bringing national attention to the issue.

TransLash Media stands on the shoulders of Monica Roberts, and we at TransLash continue to honor Roberts’ legacy through our Commemorations Project.

In 2021, two Black-trans led orgs focused on technology overlapped in a beautiful way: TransTech Social Enterprises and TransLash Media were beneficiaries of Pride Live‘s  Stonewall Day 2021 fundraising initiative. Folks could text REBEL to 243725 to donate funds to TransLash Media and TransTech Social Enterprises during Pride Month (watch the livestream replay here). Black Trans History is Black History.

Black Trans Representation: 2023 and Beyond

Today, Black transgender people can see themselves onscreen more than ever before, with one seminal series continuing to make waves: POSE (2018 –2021). Set during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, the groundbreaking series depicts NYC Ball culture in the late ’80s, early ’90s. The television series premiered on June 3, 2018, on FX. Janet Mock was a writer, director, and producer on the show, and was the first Black trans woman hired as a writer for a TV series in history.

POSE boasts multiple Black & Afro-Latinx transgender/TGNC actors, including MJ Rodriguez (Blanca Rodriguez-Evangelista), Indya Moore (Angel Evangelista), Dominique Jackson (Elektra Abundance), and Angelica Ross (Candy Abundance/Ferocity). On July 13, 2021, MJ Rodriguez made Emmy history by becoming the first trans lead ever nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series.

While we still have a long way to go to attain expansive, prismatic representations of Black cisgender and transgender people in media, things are changing.

Black trans people have innovated and set trends in almost every industry, including the fashion world. Tracey “Africa” Norman, aka Tracey Africa, is an American fashion model, and the first Black trans woman model to achieve prominence in the fashion industry.

Originally from Newark, New Jersey, Norman has modeled and been photographed for such publications as Essence, Vogue Italia and Harper’s Bazaar India. Whether she knew it or not back in the 1970s, Norman paved the way for Black trans models today such as Jari Jones and Aaron Rose Philip. Tracey Africa, along with every Black trans & cis person mentioned in this article, is Black History

Other achievements by the community include:

• Hope Giselle and Peppermint Speak at March on Washington Anniversary (August 2023): Hope Giselle and Peppermint became the first Black trans women to represent their community at the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
• Miss Major Griffin-Gracy’s Memoir Wins Lambda Literary Award (June 2024): Miss Major’s memoir, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary, received the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, recognizing her lifelong activism and contributions to the Black trans community.
• Zaya Wade Recognized as a Groundbreaker (December 2023): Zaya Wade, daughter of Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union, was honored as a groundbreaker at the Out100 event for her advocacy within the LGBTQ+ community.
• Imara Jones Wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 2023): Imara Jones, founder of TransLash Media, won a Pulitzer Prize for her journalism focused on Black trans lives, becoming one of the few trans people ever to receive the honor.

Black Trans Reading List

These are some Black trans & Black LGBTQIA-affirming books to add to your collection during Black History Month and beyond. Did we miss anything? Let us know and we’ll update the list!

• The Echoing Ida Collection (2021) by Cynthia R. Greenlee (Editor), Kemi Alabi (Editor), Janna A. Zinzi (Editor), Michelle Duster. Founded in 2012, Echoing Ida is a writing collective of Black women and nonbinary writers who—like their foremother Ida B. Wells-Barnett—believe the “way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Their community reporting spans a wide variety of topics: reproductive justice and abortion politics; trans visibility; stigma against Black motherhood; Black mental health; and more. This anthology collects the best of Echoing Ida for the first time, and features a foreword by Michelle Duster, activist and great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Imagining a gender-expansive and liberated future, these essays affirm the powerful combination of #BlackGirlMagic and the unceasing labor of Black people to reimagine the world in which we live.
• Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (2017) by C. Riley Snorton
• Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility (2017) by Reina Gossett (Editor), Eric A. Stanley  (Editor), Johanna Burton (Editor)
• A Finer Specimen of Womanhood: A Transsexual Speaks Out by Sharon Davis (1986). With the publication of A Finer Specimen of Womanhood, Ms. Davis became the first Black trans person to publish a memoir. This unprecedented work is no longer in print and difficult to find, but those interested in her life can find a lovely profile in a 1983 issue of Jet available from the magazine’s online archives.
• FIRE!! a Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists (1926). Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett and John P. Davis created FIRE!!. The publication reads as a love letter to the young queer Black community, replete with poetry, plays and short stories. Only one issue was ever made. Read FIRE!! online for free, thanks to POC Zine Project.
• TransLash Zine (2019-present) is an independent publication that centers Black trans & BIPOC trans voices, along with non-Black trans allies. Purchase hard copies here and read online for free.

Give Them Their Flowers: Black Trans Led-Orgs

Here are a few sources to find Black trans leaders and Black trans-led organizations to support.

• Andrea Jenkins is an American politician, writer, performance artist, poet, and transgender activist. Jenkins made history in 2017 as the first Black openly trans woman to be elected to office in the United States.
• Phillipe Cunningham, a Black trans man and another Democrat on the Minneapolis City Council, lost his bid to represent Ward 4 for a second term in 2022, but his impact continues today.
• Mauree Turner is an American politician and community organizer. A member of the Democratic Party, they have served as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives since 2021. Turner is the first publicly non-binary U.S. state lawmaker and the first Muslim member of the Oklahoma Legislature.
• Stanley Martin, a Democrat who won a city council seat in Rochester, New York, in 2021, joins the shortlist as one of the country’s few Black trans and nonbinary elected officials.
• Miss Major is a trans activist who began much of her work during the Stonewall uprising of 1969. As a teen in the late 1950s, she came out and faced abuse. Major ended up homeless and relied on sex work and other illegal activities as a means of survival for more than 20 years. She became the executive director for the Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project, which advocates for incarcerated trans women. She coordinated one of the earliest needle exchange programs in the San Francisco Bay Area and also served the community through various HIV/AIDS organizations. The documentary Major chronicles her life, including her children, romantic partners and her status as one of the most celebrated Black trans figures of our time.
• This list by Raquel Willis is an evolving, community-sourced list of organizations and initiatives that are led by and/or predominantly serve Black transgender, gender nonbinary (NB), and gender-nonconforming (GNC) people.
• Watch The Future of Trans (2020) to learn about even more Black trans leaders.

Before you click away, the latest episode of TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones is a must-listen!

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation.

The post TransLash Guide to Black History Month appeared first on TransLash Media.

Important Note: The guidelines around federal and state documents for trans people are constantly changing. To stay informed and ensure you’re accessing the most up-to-date information, visit Lambda Legal’s TGNC Rights Checklist for guidance on IDs, passports, and legal protections. Additionally, check Lambda Legal’s social media channels for real-time updates on policy changes that may impact you.

What is Trans Asylum?

Trans asylum refers to the search for refuge, safety, and inclusion for transgender people; whether they are fleeing discrimination or unsafe living conditions. It can take many forms such as moving to a different city within your state, relocating to a relatively trans-friendly state like California, or moving outside of the US to countries that offer guaranteed protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.

In a 2024 interview with The Advocate, “Meet the transgender lawyer leading a bold fight to show Supreme Court justices that trans lives matter”, Chase Strangio discussed the impact of  restrictive state laws:

“We’re now in a situation where half the country bans this evidence-based medical care for transgender adolescents, overriding the decisions of their doctors and their parents to provide this treatment.”

And as of this week, President Donald Trump has signed several executive orders that intensify these concerns for transgender and nonbinary people.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an order that mandates that the federal government recognizes only two genders – male and female – based on biological sex assigned at birth. This policy effectively eliminates federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities. This not only impacts access to gender-affirming care and appropriate facilities, but also the processing of legal documents and anti-discrimination protections for transgender individuals.

He also signed an order that terminates all DEI initiatives within federal agencies, placing employees in these roles on immediate leave. This removes significant support systems and resources previously available to marginalized groups, including the LGBTQ+ community.

Moving Within Your State to a More Trans-Friendly City

Relocating to a city with protective laws and a thriving LGBTQ+ community can be life-changing. Cities like San Francisco, Boston, and Minneapolis consistently rank as some of the most inclusive places for transgender individuals in the U.S. And in the South and Plains regions, Atlanta and Omaha have local non-discrimination ordinances based on gender identity. The metropolitan nature of these cities also lends itself to providing resources for the community. 

Steps to Take:

• Research Trans-Friendly Cities: Use tools like the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index to find cities with strong anti-discrimination laws.
• Tap Into Local LGBTQ+ Centers: Organizations in your local city may provide housing, gender-affirming health services, HIV/AIDS support, and financial coaching.
  
  In the Candler Park neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia Equality has resources for trans folks in areas like legal, mental health, and healthcare. If you’re looking for housing, Trans Housing Atlanta Program (THAP) can assist with housing, utility, grocery, and up to two (2) weeks of hotel payment assistance. Omaha For Us has a gender-affirming closet and offers affirming LGBTQ+ clinical counseling and support groups.
  
  Centers like the San Francisco LGBT Center, TRANScending Barriers and similar organizations offer resources ranging from housing assistance to support groups.
• Evaluate Healthcare Options: Cities with inclusive policies often have trans-friendly medical providers. The GLMA Provider Directory is a great resource to find affirming healthcare near you.

Moving to a Trans Refuge State

Some states, like Illinois, New York, and Colorado, have passed laws to protect trans people from discriminatory policies. These states act as trans refuges, providing comprehensive legal protections and access to gender-affirming care.

Steps to Take:

• Understand Legal Protections: States like Oregon, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland have passed “shield laws” to protect those fleeing anti-trans legislation. Learn more at the Movement Advancement Project.
• Relocation Assistance Programs: Organizations like Trans Lifeline help transgender individuals move to safer states.
• Employment and Housing Help: Platforms like A Place for Marsha can connect you with safe housing and job opportunities.

Moving to a Trans Sanctuary – Everything You Need To Know

Seeking Trans Asylum Internationally

For some, leaving the U.S. altogether may offer the best opportunity for safety and self-expression. Countries like Canada, Argentina, and the Netherlands have progressive policies that provide asylum and support for LGBTQ+ people.  Additionally, other countries such as Spain, Ecuador, Ireland and New Zealand have laws on the books that protect trans people. Depending on your situation either asylum requests or emigration might be an option.

Steps to Take:

• Learn Asylum Laws: Organizations like Rainbow Railroad offer resources for trans individuals fleeing state-enabled violence.
• Prepare Documentation: Update your passport to reflect your gender marker. The National Center for Transgender Equality provides step-by-step guidance.
• Build Networks Abroad: Use platforms like ILGA World to connect with LGBTQ+ expatriates and support networks in your destination country.

Watch Rainbow Railroad’s Asylum Guide on YouTube for an in-depth explanation of the process.

Additional Resources for Trans Asylum

• Asylum Connect: A resource database for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, providing information on safe housing, legal services, and healthcare globally.
• Immigration Equality: Offers free legal support and advocacy for LGBTQ+ individuals and families navigating immigration or seeking asylum.
• Human Rights Campaign (HRC): Provides information on emergency relocation funds and advocacy for LGBTQ+ families in crisis.
• LGBTQ+ Map: Interactive maps showcasing global legal protections for transgender individuals, including healthcare access and anti-discrimination laws.
• Trans Lifeline: A peer support hotline and microgrants program assisting trans people with identity documents, including those seeking asylum.
• Rainbow Refugee: Canadian organization supporting LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and refugees with sponsorship programs and community connections.
• OutRight Action International: Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights globally and provides resources for those navigating emigration and asylum.
• ILGA World: International LGBTQ+ association offering reports and advocacy tools on trans rights and emigration options worldwide.
• National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE): Provides resources on updating legal documents before emigration and guidance on navigating global trans rights.
• WPATH Global Directory: A directory of trans-friendly healthcare providers worldwide, essential for continuing gender-affirming care after relocation.

Videos

Transgender Asylum Seekers Find Hope Through San Francisco’s LGBT Asylum Project
This video highlights the journey of transgender individuals fleeing persecution and finding support through San Francisco’s LGBT Asylum Project. It showcases personal stories and the organization’s efforts to provide legal assistance and community support.

Seeking Asylum in the US to Escape Trans Discrimination
Produced by VICE Asia, this documentary explores the harrowing experiences of transgender Latinx individuals escaping violence and discrimination in their home countries, seeking refuge in the United States. It sheds light on the complexities of the asylum process and the challenges faced upon arrival.

From Tijuana to NYC, Transgender Asylum Seekers Turn to Their Community
This video documents the journey of transgender asylum seekers from Tijuana to New York City, highlighting the support networks that assist them along the way. It emphasizes the importance of community in navigating the asylum process.

Transgender Migrants Seek Asylum in the US
This Voice of America segment covers the arrival of transgender migrants at the U.S. border, detailing their reasons for seeking asylum and the obstacles they encounter. It provides a glimpse into their determination to find safety.

Country Divided: The Emergence of Transgender Refuge States
This video discusses the political landscape in the U.S. concerning transgender rights, focusing on states that have become refuges for transgender individuals. It features insights from activist Erin Reed on the importance of these safe havens.

These videos offer diverse perspectives on the pursuit of safety and acceptance by transgender asylum seekers, both within the United States and internationally.

The post Trans Relocation Guide: Finding Trans Asylum and Safe Havens appeared first on TransLash Media.

Access Queer and Trans-Identified Mental Health Professionals

• National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network 
• QTPOC Mental Health Practitioner Directory
• Therapy for Queer People of Color (QPoC)
• Black Virtual Therapist Network

Resources for accessing other Mental Health Professionals

• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Suicide Bereavement Support Group Finder
• Psychology Today: Therapists, Psychiatrists, Treatment Centers, and Support Groups Search Engine
• SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration): Mental Health Services Locator
• Open Path Psychotherapy Collective provides middle and lower-income level individuals, couples, families, and children with access to affordable psychotherapy and mental health education services. 
• Suicide Prevention Therapist Finder

Support Groups, Guides, and Apps

• HOPE for Bereaved, a non-profit that dedicates itself to helping grieving children, teens and adults by providing free support groups and counseling, as well as offering a help line (315-475-HOPE). They have an LGBT support group in partnership with SAGE: Advocacy & Services for LGBT Elders, and are having hybrid in-person and Zoom support group meetings during COVID.
• LGBT Mental Health and Aging Support Guide, Each Mind Matters 
• LGBTQ+ Mental Health Peer Support Group: The LOFT, based in White Plains, NY, hosts this 18+ group (currently over Zoom) the 1st & 3rd Thursdays of each month from 7:30pm to 9:00pm ET
• Programs and Services for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer or Questioning People with Mental Health and/or Substance Use Disorders, Connecticut State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
• The Tribe has an LGBTQIA Support Group focused on centering conversation towards mental health while finding community online. They also have groups focused on anxiety, marriage/family, addiction, depression, HIV/AIDS, OCD, and teens.
• QTPoC Mental Health: founded in March 2015, QTPoC Mental Health is a grassroots trans-led org that creates online and offline spaces for trans & queer people of color to practice being our whole selves.
• Calm app offers more than 100 meditation sessions to help you regain control of your thoughts, reduce anxiety, and lower your stress levels.
• We Are More app is geared toward patients with chronic health conditions. The platform offers inspirational content, and helps equip individuals with the skills they need to cope with life’s ups and downs.

Studies, Reports, and Key Findings 

• Trans People With Access to Gender-Affirming Surgery Have Better Mental Health, Them
• Affirming Care for Transgender Older Adults with Loree Cook-Daniels, Dr. Regina Koepp (podcast episode)
• Addressing the Wellness of LGBTQIA Older Adults, Family & Children Services of Silicon Valley
• Behavioral Healthcare for Transgender Adults, National LGBT Health Education Center, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers 
• Caring for the Older LGBTQIA Adult, The Fenway Institute
• Friendship a pillar of survival for LGBTQIA elders, AgingToday
• ‘I’m going to live my life for me’: trans ageing, care, and older trans and gender non-conforming adults’ expectations of and concerns for later life, Cambridge University Press
• Politicians should follow the science on gender-affirmation treatments, The Hill 
• Promoting the Behavioral Health of LGBTQIA Older Adults, Fenway Health
• San Francisco’s Transgender mental health resource page
• Social Network Types and Mental Health Among LGBTQIA Older Adults, The Gerontological Society of America
• Special Considerations in the Mental Health Evaluation of LGBTQIA Elders, The American Journal of Psychiatry: Residents’ Journal
• The Manifestation of Multilevel Stigma in the Lived Experiences of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults, American Journal of Othropsychiatry
• The Trevor Project National Survey 2020
• Trans Students Often Struggle With Mental Health, Inside Higher Ed
• Trans Youth With Access to Early Medical Care Have Better Mental Health Outcomes, Very Well Mind

The post Trans-affirming Mental Health Resources for Mental Health Awareness Month appeared first on TransLash Media.

With the Democratic National Convention in full swing, the party has released its full platform for the next four years should Kamala Harris be elected president. The initiatives included demonstrate the stark difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, particularly in how they relate to the queer community.

The DNC’s platform features policies across education, health care, the judicial system, and beyond that would directly benefit LGBTQ+ people not just in the United States, but around the world. Here’s a look at all the LGBTQ+ initiatives included, and just what they would mean for the community.

Equality Act

The Democratic platform vows to enact the Equality Act, which would “at last outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in housing, public accommodations, access to credit, education, jury service, and federal programs.”

“Democrats applaud this year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that made clear that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity violates the law, but we know we still have work to do to ensure LGBTQ+ people are treated equally under the law and in our society,” it states.

Health care discrimination

The Democratic Party has vowed to reverse the Trump Administration’s “discriminatory actions against the LGBTQ+ community, including the dangerous and unethical regulations allowing doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies to discriminate against patients based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.” It also promises to “restore nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS in health insurance.”

“We believe that a person’s health should always come first,” it states. “Democrats will protect the rights of all people to make personal health care decisions, and will reject the Trump Administration’s use of broad exemptions to allow medical providers, employers, and others to discriminate.”

Health care coverage

Under the DNC, health insurance would be required to cover “all medically necessary care for gender transition.” Federal health plans would also be mandated to “provide coverage for HIV/AIDS testing and treatment and HIV prevention medications like PrEP and PEP, gender confirmation surgery, and hormone therapy.”

“We will also take action to guarantee that LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV/AIDS have full access to needed health care and resources, including by requiring that federal health plans provide coverage for HIV/AIDS testing and treatment and HIV prevention medications like PrEP and PEP,” the platform reads.

On top of that, Democrats said they will “ensure federally funded programs for older adults are inclusive for LGBTQ+ seniors.”

HIV/AIDS

Democrats will take a number of actions to “end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which disproportionately affects communities of color and the LGBTQ+ community.” First and foremost, they have vowed to “recommit the federal government to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2025.”

Other actions include “supporting critical investments under the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund” as well as “supporting increased community HIV prevention and testing programs which target Latino, Black, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Native American, and other at-risk communities to address the increases of HIV.”

Blood donations

After the Obama-Biden Administration lifted the “discriminatory” lifetime ban on blood donations by healthy gay and bisexual Americans, the 2024 DNC says it “will work to ensure blood donation regulations are based on science, not fiction or stigma and that no American, when seeking to donate blood, will face more stringent limitations than any other simply because of who they are.”

Family planning

The DNC has promised to protect access to “the full range of family planning services are all essential to ensuring that people can decide if, when, and how to start a family.” Specific tools, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), are not explicitly mentioned, though the party said it will also “work to ensure LGBTQ+ people are not discriminated against when seeking to adopt or foster children.”

Contraception

The Democratic Party has continued to uphold the Affordable Care Act, which “prohibits discrimination in health care on the basis of sex and requires insurers to cover prescription contraceptives at no cost.” This has “significantly reduced teen and unintended pregnancies by making it easier to decide whether, when, and how to have a child.”

Its 2024 platform also bolsters sex education, as it maintains that “quality, affordable, comprehensive health care” as well as “medically accurate, LGBTQ+ inclusive, age-appropriate sex education” also reduce unwanted pregnancies.

Abortion

The Democratic Party still believes “unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.”

Beyond that, the 2024 platform promises to “repeal the Title X domestic gag rule and restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides vital preventive and reproductive health care for millions of people, especially low-income people, and people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, including in underserved areas.”

“Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice,” it states.

Transgender rights

Beyond the DNC’s healthcare protections, which would “require that federal health plans provide coverage for gender confirmation surgery, and hormone therapy,” Democrats also vow to enact other policies making legal services more accessible for transgender people, including “guaranteeing transgender students’ access to facilities based on their gender identity.”

“We will ensure that all transgender and non-binary people can procure official government identification documents that accurately reflect their gender identity,” the platform states. “We will stop employment discrimination in the federal government, and will restore full implementation of President Obama’s executive order prohibiting discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Hate crimes

The DNC’s transgender protections extend to hate crime investigations and data-keeping. The party says it “will fight to end violence against transgender Americans and particularly against Black transgender women, who are disproportionately victims of assault and homicide.” It will also “prioritize the investigation of hate crimes against transgender and nonbinary people.”

Domestic violence

Democrats are also “committed to ending sexual assault, domestic abuse, and other violence against women.” They vow to “overcome Republican obstructionism” to reauthorize and expand the Violence Against Women Act, which would “better protect Native American women, women with disabilities, children and young women, transgender women and other LGBTQ+ people, and other groups who are disproportionately affected by sexual assault and domestic abuse.”

These efforts include “expanding access to housing, legal assistance, and victim advocate services” as well as “danger assessment and lethality training for law enforcement officers and community partners to help curb domestic violence homicides.”

Sex workers

The DNC’s platform explicitly recognizes sex workers, who are “disproportionately women of color and transgender women,” and “face especially high rates of sexual assault and violence.” It has promised to “work with states and localities to protect the lives of sex workers.”

Homelessness

The DNC’s 2024 platform also explicitly addresses LGBTQ+ homelessness, stating that “Democrats are committed to ending the homelessness crisis, including among LGBTQ+ youth.” It will also take initiatives to “protect LGBTQ+ children from bullying and assault.”

Mental health

The DNC’s platform recognizes that “LGBTQ+ youth and adults suffer from significant health disparities, including mental health and substance use disorders.” Democrats therefore promise to “expand mental health and suicide prevention services,” and including banning the “harmful” practice of so-called “conversion therapy.”

In the military

Democrats promise to “reverse the Trump Administration’s hateful transgender ban, discriminatory exclusions in military health care, and policies that stigmatize and discriminate against people living with HIV and AIDS, and ensure that LGBTQ+ service members and families enjoy equal respect, benefits, and care.”

Immigration and asylum

The DNC aims to “protect and expand the existing asylum system and other humanitarian protections,” including by reversing Trump Administration policies that “prevent victims of gang and domestic violence, as well as LGBTQ+ people who are unsafe in their home countries, from being eligible to apply for asylum.”

“We will ensure that our immigration policies account for the needs of LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers,” it states.

Around the world

The DNC doesn’t just want to expand LGBTQ+ rights in the United States — it also wants to be a leader around the world. The party promises to “use the full slate of human rights promotion and accountability tools to defend the universal rights of LGBTQ+ people.”

This includes by “restoring the United States’ position of leadership on LGBTQ+ issues” by passing the GLOBE Act and “appointing senior leaders directly responsible for driving and coordinating LGBTQ+ issues at the State Department, USAID, and the National Security Council.”

“We will amplify the voices of LGBTQ+ persons around the world and counter violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons wherever it appears,” it states.

The post Here’s what Democrats promise to do for LGBTQ+ people in their 2024 platform appeared first on TransLash Media.

Jamie Diaz is an artist who just wants to be seen for her work. The 66-year-old Mexican-American trans woman has been drawing and painting since she was 15. She uses vivid colors, surrealism, and self-portraits to tell complex stories about queerness, love, and human suffering throughout her work. And much of that work has been created behind prison walls, with paint brushes constructed from donated human hair.

Diaz spent the last 29 years incarcerated in men’s prisons. In the new short film “Love, Jamie” from director Karla Murthy, we get to know Diaz, her artwork, and her story through letters and phone calls shared with Gabriel Joffe, a trans person on the outside who has become her closest companion over the past 10 years. Joffe first started corresponding with Diaz in 2013 when they received a letter from her while working with Black & Pink, the prison abolitionist organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ people and folks living with HIV/AIDS who are impacted by the prison industrial complex. Murthy’s poignant film — which is now streaming on PBS — traces Joffe and Diaz’s decade-plus friendship through letters and shared art, aiming to tell a story not about an incarcerated trans woman, but one about a trans artist.

“You know what I want people to feel when they see my art?” Diaz says over the phone to Joffe in the film. “I want them to know that we’re good people.” That “we” can be read as many things — trans people, incarcerated individuals, and especially trans women of color affected by the U.S. prison system.

TransLash caught up with Joffe and “Love, Jamie” producer and director of photography Andrew Fredericks over a Zoom call to talk about the new short documentary film. The two reflected on the significance of chosen family and trans elders, what they learned about the experiences of trans women impacted by the carceral system, and shared an update on Diaz, who is now finally free after being granted parole at the end of May. 

Note: This video is only available to view within the United States.

TransLash: So good to meet you both. I just watched the film this week and admittedly cried the whole way through. It was just so powerful and so meaningful. To me as a trans person, to watch this felt really, really amazing and important. So thank you both for your work.

Andrew Fredericks: Thank you.

TransLash: Andrew, I’d love to start with you and ask, as the producer and the DP, what was it really that drew you to telling this story?

Andrew Fredericks: Well, the first thing that drew me to it was when I saw Jamie’s art. Dan Cooney pulled out a drawer. I was at his gallery filming for a different project, and then I said, well, what shows do you have coming up? Because Dan always has great shows, people, unknown artists, but really great ones. And he opened up this drawer and started pulling out these paintings and drawings. And I was like, wow! And then he started telling me Jamie’s story, that she was incarcerated in Texas and what Jamie, what Dan knew about her. So that was initially what drew me.

I said, this is a great story. This really needs to be told. And at the time, I was very busy with a couple other projects and I thought, I don’t really have time, but I really want to get this story told. And that’s when I reached out to my longtime friend and colleague, Karla Murthy, who’s the director and editor of the film. So I kind of passed just the basics onto Karla. And then she started digging into it, and she was drawn to it too.

And if I can speak for her, because I heard her talk about this is, then what really cemented it, the story was good. Her art was good. It had an interesting angle of an incarcerated trans woman. But Dan Cooney shared a letter that Jamie wrote to him. And that letter was just so honest and so revealing and so full of compassion and love and understanding and honesty. And then that’s when Karla called me and she said, this, I know what to do now. And so then, then I said, well, I’m all in. If you’re all in, I’m all in. And then we contacted Gabriel and were properly vetted by Gabriel. And then with the blessing of Gabriel and Jamie talked about it, and I guess trusted us, Karla and I, enough to tell their story. And it really is to me, it’s not just the story of a trans woman incarcerated, an artist. It is about art. But to me what’s under it —it’s a story of love and friendship and what can happen if you just give yourself to someone else, wholly. So I would say that’s what drew me to do it.

TransLash: And that relationship Gabriel, I mean, to have a decade of sharing letters with someone is so profound. Can you tell me a bit about what that was like, especially for you as a trans person on the outside to be communicating with a trans person on the inside?

Gabriel Joffe: I think it was really a beautiful experience for me to just have an older trans person in my life. You know, it’s not every day you meet trans elders. It was nice to have someone who had such wisdom about life and lessons to impart on me. You know, she’s really serves as that figure in my life of a trans person [who] has gone before. And obviously our life experiences are so different, but just being able to talk about things and just hear her perspective. I think that’s something that is rare. Just even the larger LGBT community,  to have elders. 

And it’s kind of wild because until last week I just had all of Jamie’s letters, this 10 years of letters and correspondence. But she walked out of prison with all my letters, and we kind of, that first night, sat down and she showed me scrapbooks she had made with pictures I had sent her. And she had in the first page, the very first letter she had received from me. It was also this wild chronicle of like the past 10 years of my life. I have shoe boxes of her letters, she had these, and she wanted me to bring them back to Denver with me for safekeeping. So now I have kind of the second half of the collection. It’s wild to see 10 years of letters I wrote. So it just feels nice to kind of now be in like a new chapter of our relationship.

TransLash: That’s wonderful to have it so completed, your letters and her letters together.

Andrew Fredericks: You have to collatehem now, so it’s back and forth.

Gabriel Joffe: Oh my gosh. That’s a project for another day.

TransLash: Gabriel, you received so much art from her over the years. Were there any particular pieces of Jamie’s work that really stood out to you and spoke to you the most over that decade?

Gabriel Joffe: I mean, really immediately, I think of Worlds Within Worlds. That was the first large scale piece. You know, I had received the illustrated letters, but that was in 2013. And I have a picture of myself holding it up. And that was one that I don’t think I’ll ever part with. It was the first piece she sent me. And just the colors, that’s when I really realized how Jamie’s use of color and how incredible it is and depth.

And it is her more abstract piece. But I felt like there was so much captured. It’s one of the deepest pieces I feel, to me, of her work. And so, yeah, Worlds Within Worlds. I think I’ll always remember receiving that and just being blown away and I think fully understanding her capabilities as an artist.

TransLash: Andrew, I’m curious, as the DP and producer, it must have been an incredible challenge to make this film where you can’t access one of your leads, right? You can’t actually get footage of her. Can you talk a bit about what that process was like and how it challenged you visually? Was that a hindrance or did that sort of give you more artistic license to get creative?

Andrew Fredericks: Well, I think at first, because you think about the obvious ways to make something first and you think, well, we have to try and interview Jamie. And we started going down that road a little bit. We started making contact with TDCJ [Texas Department of Criminal Justice]. But then at a certain point — and we were working on that, we’re gonna do it — but Karla started editing some, and we really realized that the film wasn’t about incarceration. Jamie was an incarcerated person. But we didn’t want the film to be about incarceration. And if you saw Jamie incarcerated in prison, that would be the image one would have of Jamie. And we didn’t want that. Because that’s what Jamie wanted, to be seen for who she was, not where she lived. And that meant getting to know Jamie through her words and through her art.

So then we consciously decided we’re not going to try and show Jamie incarcerated. And that would’ve been the only way to show her, would [be]  to get an interview in some kind of visitation room or through the glass. So it was kind of fortuitous that it was a little bit of trouble because it made us realize too.

So as far as the challenges, we still needed visuals and Jamie’s art provided a lot of the storytelling. But there was also, we wanted to show the isolation of being incarcerated. So we needed some visuals. And luckily, I spent a year in Texas working on a film, another film at the same time. And I came across this abandoned Texas prison facility. And so I just started, whenever I had a chance, I would go down there and just make images. I imagined myself being inside of there and looking out at the world outside. So I tried to create imagery from that prison facility that showed what Jamie might see, you know, I could only imagine it. And sometimes there’s flowers just beyond the fence. So I tried to show something that’s right there, but just out of reach, just on the other side of the fence. 

And then Karla and I talked a lot about the visuals. There’s a section [of the film] where Jamie talks about being young and feeling almost trapped by her queerness and being afraid to come out at first. And so when we’re in Houston, we tried to shoot things from behind fences and behind, so it wasn’t direct. So there was this idea. And then once it got to New York and there was the gallery show, everything was out in the open. There was no more behind anything. There was a shot even of Gabriel talking about some of their early trouble and [I] shot from behind this fence where we saw Gabriel. So we tried to make the visuals kind of [gestures with hands pushing inwardly] and then open up at the end. And then with the birds in the sky at the very end [of the film] representing total freedom. What’s freer than a bird. So just to wrap back around, yes. Not showing Jamie, at first we thought it was gonna be a problem, but it ended up really being liberating.

TransLash: Yeah, that shot at the end of the birds flying is so beautiful. And for you both, I’m curious — I know Gabriel you worked with Black and Pink and probably had some sort of insight into what the experiences are like for incarcerated trans folks. But I’m curious if through making this film, and Gabriel through your communications and relationship with Jamie, were there things that you learned about the particular experiences of particularly trans women in men’s prisons that you hadn’t known? What did this experience open your eyes to that you didn’t know of before?

Gabriel Joffe: Yeah. As someone who has never been impacted by that system personally, I think my motivation to join as an organizer with Black and Pink back in 2012 was conversations I would be having with other queer activists or books. It was mostly through books I was reading, primarily “Queer (In)Justice [The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States]” was a really important text for me. 

So it was books, but then what really I think the biggest learning was as I joined Black and Pink and volunteered during their weekly mail processing and read hundreds of letters from all sorts of LGBTQ folks that are incarcerated across the country — those individuals and their experiences, I just started to learn so much more. And then when I connected with Jamie — and I didn’t know it’d be a 10 plus year, I didn’t know what it’d become. Because I feel like you never know what a relationship will turn into. But through her specifically of just what she would share, from mundane things — like she would describe in extreme detail what her cell looked like, and she’d say, I have a toilet over here and then I have the floor here and I lay out my paintbrush. She would just in such detail, especially if she moved, got transferred, she would say exactly what her cell looked like, what she was eating to things like commissary. 

Even in staying in touch with her, that changed from letters to then the electronic messaging system and you have to kind of buy digital stamps. So I got to learn the kind of ins and outs of the apparatus surrounding the prison, different companies you have to interact with, whether you want to write or visit. And even now in the film you see just a decade of letters and, about six months before Jamie was released, Texas moved to a digital mail system.

So there’s no letters going in anymore. The technology has changed. So Jamie would no longer, if she was still inside and up until her release, she was no longer able to receive physical mail from me. So I learned a lot about that, just the whole apparatus as well as Jamie’s personal experiences.

TransLash: Andrew, how about you? Is there anything that opened your eyes that you hadn’t known before in the process of making this?

Andrew Fredericks: Oh, so much. I mean, I grew up around, I guess you could call it criminal justice. My mother used to run, when I was a kid, ran halfway houses for men at that time, only, getting out of prison and transitioning in. So I had a basis from my mom about the troubles of reentry and also about treating everyone, even if they’re incarcerated, they’re human beings and they have their own problems. So I had a little bit of background, but as far as, like Gabriel says, the actual apparatus of prison, of being incarcerated, is just byzantine. And then there’s people always, companies looking to profit off of it, whether they’re the people you have to buy the stamps from or if you want to make a phone call.

But through Jamie, because once we made Jamie’s acquaintance, I started exchanging mail also with Jamie and doing calls. And I just got an inside view of what it was like to be incarcerated. And it really opened my eyes to what that experience was like from someone who was telling me about it. And it made me appreciate, number one, my own privilege and my own freedom. And how much just the tiniest things one takes for granted if you’re not incarcerated.

I’ll never forget the day when — and this happened to both Karla and I, we had a similar experience. — I was on the phone with Jamie and I was on my front porch and I live in the country. And I was complaining about how much it was raining. “Oh, Jamie, it’s been raining.” But Jamie said, “when I get outta here, the first thing I want to do is go out and stand in the rain.” And it just made me realize just the simplest thing like that, that she couldn’t do. And so that, and as a filmmaker, I hope to always create empathy for other people. I’d rather create empathy, then knowledge. And so if that made me open my empathy up, I’m hoping that the film does the same for all incarcerated people. 

But then Jamie shared the added being trans, you know, and the troubles that that brought to her sometimes within the system. It’s a dehumanizing place and it’s a macho place. So Jamie had to overcome even that. And it also brought me into a world of people who I didn’t know, a world of trans people. And it’s such a beautiful community. It’s such a beautiful, welcoming community and it’s so under attack. And so that’s the other thing we wanted to do, is be an ally. You know, I’ll never fully understand the inner, what it means to be trans. But I understand human feelings, and so we hope that the film opens up people’s empathy for people who are incarcerated, but also Jamie’s hope, to understand “we’re good, loving people.” So that’s what I learned.

TransLash: Gabriel, what do you hope audiences take away from this  story and from your relationship with Jamie?

Gabriel Joffe: You know, I think that’s changed over the past year of the film being out. But I think presently just, first of all, the incredible art that Jamie creates. She’s an artist. She wants to be known for her art. So just more people seeing her art, and I think there’s so much creativity and talent of folks that are incarcerated that we just miss out on in society. And so I think Jamie’s art stands on its own. She’s an incredible artist. And I think there’s other people whose talent we’re not able to see. So I’m just glad that the film gives Jamie’s art a platform. I think also just especially, I hope this film is an uplifting to the queer community, that they see that there are elder trans folks in the community and there’s love and connection and that chosen family is beautiful.

TransLash: Mmm. Definitely. I think we have time for one more question. Gabriel, I know that you had met Jamie when she was released last week. I read about it in a story from them. Can you talk a bit about what that experience was like to be there to receive her?

Gabriel Joffe: You know, my dear friend Spinney was there, who’s been part of this

journey from the beginning, lived with me when I received those first letters from Jamie. And so it was great to have them there. Because we were there waiting for about an hour and a half and I was kind of going through many stages of emotion. You know, at one point I was trying not to cry. And then another point I was like, thinking of all the things I forgot to bring. And then was just kind of cycling through all the emotions. And it was down pouring, thunder. But I think even up until even we left the entire compound, the apparatus of the prison was very present. We had to stay in the parking lot. There was even at one point when I saw her, I just started walking forward and they yelled at me to step back. You know, the apparatus was very present. It was an incredible moment. And it was clear we needed to — we didn’t have time or space to kind of linger. It was kind of, first order business was just leaving the property.

But one of the first things — Jamie sat in the front seat and I was able to hand her the copy of her comic book that recently was published and she saw it for the first time and held it. And just seeing her flip through the pages and see her art in that form within the first hour of her, the first 20 minutes of her release. That was just super meaningful for me to witness her just hold her art and see it and see evidence that it’s out in the world.

TransLash: That’s so wonderful that she got to receive that from you. Thank you both so much. It was such a pleasure chatting with you.

Andrew Fredericks: I just wanna add that as part of my education and my understanding about trans issues and stories, early on somehow I came across TransLash and it’s been one of my regular reads now. I love when I get the newsletter. It’s really been something. I feel so glad that we’re gonna be a part of TransLash because it’s been like, my link besides, you know, Jamie and Gabriel to understanding the stories and of that community. So thank you.

TransLash: Oh, that’s so wonderful to hear. Thank you!

“Love, Jamie” is now streaming and available to watch on all PBS platforms including PBS.org, the PBS app, and the PBS American Masters YouTube.

To view Jamie Diaz’s published art and support her re-entry through her Solidarity Fund and through purchasing her artwork, check out her website JamieDiazArt.com.

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Did we miss anything? Let us know!

The post The Powerful Story of an Incarcerated Trans Artist: A Q&A With ‘Love, Jamie’ Film Star and Producer appeared first on TransLash Media.

By Cobbie Cobb and Daniela “Dani” Capistrano for TransLash Media

“Fighting for liberation — dismantling systems of oppression — matters most in my life and influences how I show up for my people and for myself in very intentional ways. Freedom, release, joy, peace, and contentment are things that we as Black folks have been robbed of for so many years, so focusing on liberation has become my life’s work.” – Dominique Morgan

There are many resources that exist about the history and legacy of Juneteenth, but very few of them center Black trans lives. And while we at TransLash declare that there would be no Pride Month without Juneteenth, we are certainly not the first people to say it:

Dominique Morgan, a Black trans woman and award-winning artist, activist, and TEDx speaker, wrote about her experiences of incarceration and why intersectionality and liberation of all Black people are crucial aspects of commemorating June 19.

Additionally, back in 2023, Karen Hewitt (Ze/Hir/She/Her), a Black queer and genderfluid musician, poet, and activist, shared that “June is about Civil Rights…Pride month could not exist as we know it if Juneteenth did not happen. It all comes together as we recognize that the most vulnerable of any group is generally the Black, Indigenous, and other members of color of this group.” 

Inspired by Morgan and Hewitt, we created this guide to center Black trans voices during Pride Month, while we explain why there would be no Pride Month without Juneteenth. 

Ready? Let’s get into it:

What Is Juneteenth?

According to The Greenlining Institute, Juneteenth is a time to remember that our collective liberation must be intersectional. On Juneteenth National Independence Day, we celebrate Black people’s ongoing freedom from enslavement, and our evolving vision of freedom that White America could not see for us. 

Juneteenth is not a victory celebration, but a recognition of the diverse, multi-ethnic and multicultural Black communities all around the country who are descendants of enslaved people, and the legacies of their ancestors.

As Debra Gore-Mann (she/her/hers), President & CEO of The Greenlining Institute, so eloquently put it: when America only saw Black people as slaves, Black people made unseen things come true. This is what Juneteenth represents: a day of delayed emancipation a full two years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had “freed” all enslaved people.

The National Museum of African American History & Culture has documented that on “Freedom’s Eve,” the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free Black people gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. 
At the stroke of midnight, all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were Black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States.

But only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States. Additionally, not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free; even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be realistically implemented in places still under Confederate control. 

“Freedom” finally came on June 19, 1865, when approximately 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free, by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed Black people in Texas. 

Juneteenth Didn’t Mean Immediate ‘Freedom’ for Black People

In many ways, Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day, but the fight for Black liberation, reparations, justice, and equity continues in 2024. 

Due to systemic anti-Blackness, white supremacy, the Prison Industrial Complex, homophobia and transphobia, ableism, and other barriers, Black people in America still don’t have the same freedoms as their white and non-Black counterparts.
The post-emancipation period known as Reconstruction (1865-1877) did bring about some change, but it has been inconsistent and often backwards.

In the first years of Reconstruction, many formerly enslaved Black people immediately sought to reunify with their families who were still alive, to establish schools, run for political office, and to push radical legislation––even suing slaveholders for compensation. After 200+ years of enslavement, not even a generation out of slavery, many newly freed Black people and their children were highly motivated to transform their lives and their country; for themselves and future generations. 

But all “free” Black people and their descendants had significant challenges to overcome…

In the decades that followed June 19, 1865, many anti-Black laws were passed to stack all the odds against Black communities to keep them from thriving and to uphold white supremacy: everything from where Black people could live, work, access healthcare, launch businesses and cultivate generational wealth, to even how they could express themselves academically, athletically, and in the arts. 

Many Black entertainers, writers, athletes, and other thought leaders left the United States to avoid anti-Black violence and to seek freedom and opportunity in other countries: James Baldwin and Josephine Baker are examples, just to name a few.

“One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States… A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn’t stand it anymore… I felt liberated in Paris.” – Josephine Baker

How free is a country that drives its most talented Black citizens to flee for their own safety? And why is this still happening in 2024? Let’s unpack this together:

We All Get Free When Black Trans People Are Free

There has never been an equal playing field in America for Black people, a reality felt most deeply by our Black queer and trans siblings.

At TransLash we believe that no one is free until Black trans people are free, in that a country’s actual level of freedom for all can be discerned by the way it treats its most marginalized of the marginalized. 

Through that lens, Black people and all people in America are far from free, which is why Juneteenth isn’t actually a celebration of freedom: it’s a reminder of the ongoing fight to liberate all Black people from all forms of systemic oppression, and to celebrate Black brilliance and resourcefulness despite the crushing forces of white supremacy.

Juneteenth, America’s youngest federal holiday, started to receive more visibility in mainstream media in 2020, in partial recognition of the horrific murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many other Black people who have died at the hands of anti-Black law enforcement.

Among Black people, Black trans people are the most marginalized in every way: from access to employment, housing, healthcare, and in the disproportionate volume of violence that Black trans people face from cisgender people of all races, including Black cis people.

We cannot talk about Juneteenth without also talking about how centering and liberating Black trans people must be the focus during Pride Month and every month, whether you are Black or not.

There Would Be No Pride Month Without Juneteenth

Still not clear on why Pride Month stands on the shoulders of Juneteenth? We’re here to help, referencing Black trans-authored scholarship and activist resources:

In Black on Both Sides (2017), Dr. C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between Blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-Black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials, Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable.

Listen to Dr. Snorton on the “Talking Trans History with Trans Scholars” episode of TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones:

Black trans people have always been here, and Black trans women and femmes functioned as the first LGBTQ+ activists in America centuries before the Stonewall Riots. Here’s one example:

Frances Thompson was a Black trans woman, an anti-rape activist, and former slave whose remarkable courage and testimony before Congress marked a pivotal moment in the tumultuous aftermath of the Civil War.

During the deadly Memphis Riots of 1866 (one year after the first Juneteenth), Thompson’s experience and subsequent testimony shed light on the brutal realities faced by African Americans, particularly highlighting the vulnerabilities of Black trans people during this era.

Thomspon’s bravery also provided one of the earliest documented instances of transgender existence, intersecting with racial and post-emancipation struggles in the United States. 

Long before the Stonewall riots, and despite facing immense personal risk, Thompson’s willingness to publicly share her story contributed to the broader understanding of the intersectional challenges faced by Black and transgender communities, making her a significant figure in both the history of civil rights and transgender advocacy in the 19th century. 

Frances Thompson, a Black trans woman, leveraged the few freedoms she had in the aftermath of Juneteenth to fight for her own life and for others. She was bold enough to live in her truth, and her bravery to be out as trans before the language even existed to describe her, planted the seeds for modern LGBTQ+ activism today.“Juneteenth is a time to honor and continue fighting for this birthright. But it’s also a day to acknowledge the intersectionality of Black experiences,” wrote Dominique Morgan.

The Stonewall Riots and Pride Month stand on the shoulders of all Black people, in particular Black trans people, who continue to fight for their freedom on Juneteenth and beyond. 

There would be no Pride Month without Juneteenth.

Trans-Affirming Juneteenth Resources

Looking for more Juneteenth resources during Pride Month that center Black trans voices? We’ve compiled a bunch of great information for you below!

• Black Trans-Affirming Content on TransLash.org
  • TransLash Guide to Black History Month
  • Women’s History Month: Black Trans Women to Follow and Support
  • Mary Jones: 19th Century Black Trans Women
  • Coretta Scott King and Black Femme Invisible Labor
  • Sir Lady Java: Black Trans Woman and Icon
  • Black Trans Podcasts
  • Black, Incarcerated, and Trans
  • Black Trans and Cis Women Deserve Equal Pay
  • Q&A with B. Pagels-Minor, founder of DVRGNT Ventures, the first Black trans-led VC Fund
  • Seeking Mavis Beacon: a Black queer and trans film about healing tech and chosen family
  • 5 Black Musicians That Remind Me Of My Power
  • Worthy animated short film
  • Black Trans Women Tell Their Stories in Sundance Breakout Kokomo City
  • Black Trans Femmes in the Arts: Artistic Legacies Screening Q&A – REPLAY
  • TransLash Media’s ‘Artistic Legacies’ series now available on Advocate Channel, Fire TV
  • Tone It Down: Poetry By A Black Trans Femme
  • How Salvador da Bahia liberated this Black trans woman
  • Confronting Black men’s roles in the murders of Black transgender women may be the only way to save our lives
  • #LivesAtStake: A Conversation Between Black Straight Men & Black Trans Women
  • L Morgan Lee Makes Tony History in A Strange Loop
  • Searching for Black, Queer, and Trans Community
  • TransLash Guide to National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
  • A New Black Trans Civil Rights Agenda
  • Black Trans History and Futures

• Black Trans-Led Organizations
  • Marsha P. Johnson Institute 
  • National Queer and Trans Therapist of Color Network
  • Black Visions 
  • The Black Sex Workers Collective
  • For the Gworls
  • The Transgender District
  • My Sistah’s House
  • The Black LGBTQIA Migrant Project
  • The Okra Project
  • SnapCo
  • Lavender Rights Project
  • The National Black Justice Coalition
  • Black And Pink 
  • Brave Space Alliance 

• Events
  • Link’d Up: Pride Edition 
  • Queer Black Women Boat Party
  • Dallas Southern Pride
    • Dallas Southern Pride (DSP) is the official annual celebration for Black Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ) individuals to come together and celebrate who and what we are.
  • Shades of Pride Month 
  • Nashville Juneteenth and Pride kick off celebration
  • San Fran International LGBTQ+ Film Festival: FREE Castro Street Block Party
  • Prideteenth in Atlanta
  • Juneteenth/Pride party 

• Funding & Other Resources for Black Trans People
  • ResolveMD
  • Illuminations Grant
    • The Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists is an annual $10,000 grant awarded to provide critical support to Black trans women whose work has often been under-recognized in the visual art field
  • BEAM
    • Our mission is to remove the barriers that Black people experience getting access to or staying connected with emotional health care and healing through education, training, advocacy, and the creative arts.
  • Bridges 4 Life
    • Bridges4Life is an organization built on helping the Transgender Non-Conforming Community; by providing services to children in the foster care system, young adults, and surviving sex workers.
  • Black Trans Alliance
    • BTA is a black queer and trans led non-profit organization that supports black trans and non-binary people in London and the wider community.  BTA’s mission is to support, protect and amplify the voice of black transgender persons in London and the wider community; through advocacy, education, visibility and empowerment.
  • Black TransMen Inc
    • Top Surgery grant, black trans men, connects folks to additional resources.
  • Call BlackLine
    • Call BlackLine provides a space for peer support, counseling, reporting of mistreatment, witnessing and affirming the lived experiences for folxs who are most impacted by systematic oppression with an LGBTQ+ Black Femme Lens. 
  • Zepp Wellness
    • Founded in 2019 by Raquel Savage, a Black queer sex worker and therapist, that centers the mental health and healing needs of Black queer folks, survivors and sex workers. 
    • All services are free to the community and online—Zepp currently provides mental health coaching, a monthly sex worker support group, a fund for Black trans women sex workers, and a monthly sex worker therapist support group through our program the Equitable Care Certification, an AASECT-approved certification program for mental health professionals to provide unbiased care to their marginalized clients.
  • Black Trans Travel Funds
    • Grassroots, Black Trans led Collective providing Black transgender women with the financial and material resources needed to remove barriers to self-determining and accessing safer travel options.
  • Black Trans Nation
    • Black Trans Nation is a grass-roots organization, community created and therefore accountable to the community it serves. To serve our community, we advocate for our constituents- this advocacy is rooted in diversity, equity, inclusiveness, and equality.
  • National Black Trans Advocacy 
    • Black Trans Advocacy Coalition’s mission is to improve the black transhuman experience by overcoming violence and injustice through the power, value, and love of all people.
  • Black Trans Femmes Artists
    • Our mission is to create spaces for producing and preserving BLACK trans art and culture by building a community with BLACK trans femme artists and providing them with the resources and support necessary to thrive.
  • Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project
    • Offers support network to queer black immigrants and refugees
  • The Transgender District 
    • Helps trans folks start and build business in San Fran, CA
  • For the Gworls
    • a Black, trans-led collective that curates parties to fundraise money to help Black transgender people pay for their rent, gender-affirming surgeries, smaller co-pays for medicines/doctor’s visits, and travel assistance.

Did you find this trans-affirming Juneteenth resource helpful? Consider supporting our work today with a tax-deductible donation.

The post Trans-Affirming Juneteenth: A TransLash Guide appeared first on TransLash Media.

By Daniela “Dani” Capistrano for TransLash Media

What is National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day?

According to POZ, nearly half of young people living with HIV don’t know their status.

National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD), held annually on April 10th, is a day to educate the public about the impact of HIV and AIDS on young people. The day also highlights the HIV prevention, treatment, and care campaigns led by young people in the U.S. Advocates for Youth, a national nonprofit, leads NYHAAD and works to empower young people to protect themselves against HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and unintended pregnancy.

Why is NYHAAD important?

Today’s young people are the first generation who have never known a world without HIV and AIDS.

The CDC reports that in 2020, youth aged 13 to 24 made up 21% of the new HIV diagnoses in the United States. Young people living with HIV are the least likely of any age group to be retained in care and have a suppressed viral load. Addressing the impact of HIV on young people requires they have access to affirming, culturally-competent, and medically accurate resources and tools.

What is the NYHAAD Collective?

The National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) Collective is comprised of youth activists leading HIV prevention, treatment, and care campaigns in their communities.

Their campaigns highlight the challenges faced by young people living with and impacted by HIV, offer insight on how they combat stigma and discrimination on local, state, and federal levels, and enhance the awareness among physicians, policymakers, and youth-serving organization staff, etc. about the existing disparities.

In addition to HIV & AIDS education and resources, Advocates for Youth also shares trans-affirming education about gender. The two-minute animated video below was created in partnership between the Human Rights Campaign Foundations’ Welcoming Schools program and Advocates for Youth.

“What is Gender?” helps early learners understand the complexities of gender, gender identity, gender expression and gender stereotypes in a developmentally appropriate way.

Understanding gender helps children develop healthy identities and supports an environment of respect and belonging for all.

#ProtectTransKids

HIV/AIDS is an important health issue for people of all genders, including cis and trans men. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevent (CDC) reports that in 2020, gay and bisexual men (and men who have sex with men) accounted for 70 percent of new HIV infections in the U.S. It is estimated that 3% of transgender men in the United States have HIV.

As HRC explained, despite several years of research on HIV/AIDS and the populations it affects, we still know very little about transgender people and HIV.

We know even less about trans youth with HIV. One study found that transgender youth were more likely to miss HIV care appointments if they were treated negatively because of their gender identity.

What are the NYHAAD Campaign Demands?

➤ Increasing empathy and reducing stigma about HIV and its impact on young people on campus and in communities

➤ Affirming policies around HIV care, treatment, and prevention on campus and in communities

➤ Decriminalizing HIV

➤ Accessing HIV services, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), on-campus and in communities without parental consent

➤ Updating sex education curricula, which includes medically accurate information about HIV

Support the National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) Collective

Follow @Advocatesforyouth and @MyStoryOutLoud on Instagram.

You can also follow them on X: @NYHAAD @AdvocatesTweets @MyStoryOutLoud

Take Action Today

Raise awareness on April 10th about #NYHAAD and Let’s Stop HIV Together by sharing Let’s Stop HIV Together infographics on social media. Access the social media toolkit here and be sure to include the hashtag #NYHAAD in each post.

Let’s Stop HIV Together Campaign: The Together Campaign is a part of the CDC’s national Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative. Together messaging promotes testing access, treatment, prevention, and ending HIV stigma.

More HIV & AIDS Resources

WATCH ON-DEMAND: Healthcare Professionals, Youth, and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP)

In partnership with Clinical Care Options (CCO), Advocates for Youth is sharing a medical education series for healthcare professionals, Paths Forward in PrEP: Overcoming Barriers to PrEP Engagement in Adolescents.

➤ TransLash Guide to National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

➤ Transgender Law Center’s Positively Trans (T+) program: transgenderlawcenter.org

➤ TLDEF’s Know Your Rights Guide: transequality.org

➤ UCSF’s Center of Excellence for Transgender Health: prevention.ucsf.edu/transhealth

➤ Southern AIDS Coalition: southernaidscoalition.org

➤ TransLash Guide to National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

➤ HIV Vaccine Awareness Day Resources

➤ TRANSCRIPT: TransLash Podcast Episode 58, ‘Trans World AIDS Day‘

➤ Learn more about how HIV affects gay and bisexual men by reading HIV and All Gay and Bisexual Men and HIV and African American Gay and Bisexual Men.

➤ Visit the HIV.gov Basics section and CDC’s HIV basics page to learn about HIV prevention, testing, and living with HIV.

➤ Use the HIV Testing Sites & Care Services Locator. The Locator now includes PrEP and STI services and is more user friendly. Read about how the new Locator can help you serve your community.

➤ Visit gettested.cdc.gov.

➤ Read, share and subscribe to the HIV.gov blog.

➤ The CDC’s Let’s Stop HIV Together campaign materials includes posters, graphics, videos and more.

➤ HRSA’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program is dedicated to improving health outcomes.

➤ ESCALATEExit Disclaimer (Ending Stigma through Collaboration and Lifting All To Empowerment) is an initiative that supports training designed to address HIV-related stigma, as well as additional efforts that provide resources and toolkits for engaging MSM at high risk in HIV care.

➤ Sign up for the RWHAP listserv for HIV/AIDS news, updates, and education and training opportunities.

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation.

The post TransLash Guide to National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day appeared first on TransLash Media.