Black trans and Black queer ancestors, scholars, organizers, and artists whose work made this hub possible. We refuse to flatten anyone to the worst day of their life. Lead with what they built.
Black trans woman, activist, co-founder of STAR, Stonewall vet
Marsha P. Johnson co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Sylvia Rivera in 1970, creating STAR House — one of the first shelters specifically for homeless transgender youth in the United States. She was a fierce organizer, AIDS activist, model for Andy Warhol, and performer who spent decades fighting for the people the mainstream movement left behind. The "P" stood for "Pay It No Mind" — her answer to anyone who questioned her identity.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORFOUNDERSTONEWALL
Black trans woman elder, organizer, Stonewall vet, TGIJP director
Miss Major spent over four decades on the front lines of trans liberation — from the Stonewall Rebellion to Attica Prison to leading the Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), which centered incarcerated trans women of color. She organized, nurtured, housed, and fought for communities that other movements abandoned, and she did it with unflinching love and a refusal to wait for permission to exist.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORSTONEWALLORGANIZER
Black trans woman, first prominent Black trans fashion model
Tracey Africa Norman broke into the fashion industry in the 1970s, becoming the first African-American transgender woman to appear on a box of Clairol hair dye and to be published in Essence and Vogue Italia — without the industry knowing she was trans. When she was outed in 1980, her career was abruptly cut short. Decades later, Clairol rehired her with full knowledge of her identity, and her story became a landmark in the history of Black trans visibility in media.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORMODELVISIBILITY
Black trans woman, founder of the House of LaBeija, mother of ballroom
Crystal LaBeija founded the House of LaBeija in 1972 — the first house in New York's ballroom scene — after she was passed over at a major drag pageant in a moment of blatant racial discrimination. She organized the first Annual House of LaBeija Ball in Harlem, creating an independent Black queer space that became the foundation of house/ballroom culture, which later inspired Paris Is Burning and the television series Pose.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORFOUNDERBALLROOM
Black trans woman, ballroom icon, AIDS educator, Paris Is Burning subject
Octavia St. Laurent was a central figure in New York's Black and Latino ballroom community and one of the iconic subjects of Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning. She later became an AIDS educator and community advocate, using her platform to speak frankly about the double stigmas facing trans women of color — including the hypocrisy of celebrities who exploited the community while publicly mocking it.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORBALLROOMAIDS-ACTIVIST
Black trans woman, journalist, blogger, founder of TransGriot
Monica Roberts founded TransGriot in 2006 with a mission she stated clearly: to "chronicle the history of Black trans people." Her writing brought national attention to the epidemic of violence against Black trans women, and she was known for correctly identifying trans murder victims who had been misgendered or erased by police and mainstream media. She won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog and the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award before her death in 2020.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORJOURNALISTBLOGGER
Black trans woman, violinist, mezzo-soprano, first Black trans woman to perform at Carnegie Hall
Tona Brown is a classically trained violinist and mezzo-soprano who made history as the first transgender woman to perform at Carnegie Hall and the first African-American transgender woman to perform for a sitting U.S. president — singing the National Anthem for President Barack Obama at the 2014 LGBTQ Leadership Gala. Her artistry spans opera, classical, and contemporary music, and she continues to break barriers in spaces that were never built to include her.
BLACKTRANSARTISTMUSICIANTRAILBLAZER
Black trans woman, anti-rape activist, believed to be first trans woman to testify before U.S. Congress
Frances Thompson was born into slavery, survived the 1866 Memphis Massacre — in which she was brutally assaulted — and testified before Congress about the violence, becoming what historians believe to be the first transgender woman to give Congressional testimony in U.S. history. She lived as a free Black woman in Memphis, working as a seamstress and washerwoman, until police forcibly exposed her gender in 1876. She died shortly after.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORCIVIL-WAR-ERAABOLITIONIST
Black trans man, hard gospel quartet singer, Spirit of Memphis and Five Blind Boys of Mississippi
Willmer Broadnax was one of the great voices of the Black hard gospel tradition, singing tenor with the Spirit of Memphis Quartet and later with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. He lived as a man throughout his career — across the Jim Crow South, on tour buses and in churches — and was not publicly known to have been assigned female at birth until after his death. His ability to live his truth in that era, in that space, stands as a testament to endurance.
BLACKTRANSANCESTORARTISTMUSICIAN
Biracial Black butch lesbian, Stonewall vet, drag king, 'guardian of lesbians in the Village'
Stormé DeLarverie was a biracial Black butch lesbian who performed as the lone drag king in the Jewel Box Revue — North America's first racially integrated drag revue — and later became a self-appointed protector of LGBTQ people in Greenwich Village. Her presence at and possible role in the Stonewall uprising on June 28, 1969 is documented by multiple eyewitnesses, though the specifics of that night remain contested. She patrolled the Village well into her eighties, refusing to let "ugliness" go unchallenged.
BLACKLESBIANANCESTORSTONEWALLPERFORMER
Black gay man, chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, civil rights and peace strategist
Bayard Rustin was the principal architect of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in U.S. history. A close advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he taught the Southern Christian Leadership Conference the principles of nonviolent resistance. Because of the anti-gay prejudice of the era — including within the civil rights movement — Rustin was often pushed into the background, but in the 1980s he became an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights, declaring that "gay people are the new barometer for social change."
BLACKGAYANCESTORCIVIL-RIGHTSORGANIZER
Black lesbian feminist poet, author of Sister Outsider, theorist of difference and power
Audre Lorde named herself a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" and built her life and work around the insistence that identity cannot be separated — that race, gender, sexuality, and class are all sites of struggle and power. Her essays and poems gave generations of Black queer women a language for their lives, and her 1979 speech "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" remains essential reading. She co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, ensuring that those voices would be published.
BLACKLESBIANANCESTORPOETTHEORIST
Black gender-nonconforming activist, legal scholar, co-founder of NOW, first Black woman ordained Episcopal priest
Pauli Murray was a legal mind who shaped the architecture of both civil rights and gender equality law — Ruth Bader Ginsburg credited Murray's work in her landmark briefs. Murray spent their life navigating the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, requesting hormone therapy from physicians decades before such language existed, and identifying with what we might now call a nonbinary or trans experience. Murray was the first Black person perceived as a woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, in 1977.
BLACKGENDER-NONCONFORMINGANCESTORLAWYERACTIVIST
Black queer writer, essayist, civil rights voice, author of Giovanni's Room and The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin wrote with clarity and fury about race, queerness, and the American lie — navigating an identity the country refused to hold. His 1956 novel Giovanni's Room was among the first American novels to center a queer love story without shame or tragedy as its point, and his essays in The Fire Next Time helped define the moral stakes of the civil rights era. He lived most of his adult life in France, returning to march, testify, and speak for a country that had not yet earned him.
BLACKQUEERANCESTORWRITERCIVIL-RIGHTS
Black lesbian playwright, author of A Raisin in the Sun, racial and gender justice activist
Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway and the youngest person ever to win the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play. Though she never publicly came out, she wrote anonymously to the Daughters of Bilitis magazine in 1957 about lesbian identity and drew explicit connections between the oppression of women, lesbians, and Black Americans. She died of cancer at 34 — a loss still felt in every room where theater and justice meet.
BLACKLESBIANANCESTORPLAYWRIGHTACTIVIST
Black lesbian feminist, co-founder of Combahee River Collective, founder of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press
Barbara Smith co-founded the Combahee River Collective in Boston in 1974 and co-authored its landmark 1977 Statement — one of the founding documents of intersectional Black feminism. She later founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U.S. publisher dedicated to feminist writing by women of color, ensuring that the words of Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, and others reached the world. Her work built the infrastructure that made movement possible.
BLACKLESBIANFOUNDERORGANIZERFEMINIST
Black lesbian feminist poet, activist, health center director
Pat Parker was one of the boldest voices in Black lesbian feminist poetry, writing about her childhood in poverty, her experience of violence, and the full complexity of being Black, queer, and female in America. She co-founded the Women's Press Collective and the Black Women's Revolutionary Council, worked for a decade as director of the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center, and performed her work to women's groups across the country. Her poem "Where Will You Be?" remains a clarion call.
BLACKLESBIANANCESTORPOETACTIVIST
Black gay poet, editor, AIDS activist
Essex Hemphill was one of the most vital Black gay voices of his generation — a poet whose work combined erotic fire with political rage at the AIDS crisis, racism, and the erasure of Black queer men. He edited the landmark anthology Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men (completing the work after co-editor Joseph Beam's death) and appeared in Marlon Riggs's documentary Tongues Untied. He performed and organized until almost the end of his life.
BLACKGAYANCESTORPOETAIDS-ACTIVIST
Black gay filmmaker, educator, poet, AIDS activist
Marlon Riggs made films that changed how America saw itself: Ethnic Notions (1987) dissected the history of anti-Black caricature; Tongues Untied (1989) was the first major documentary to center the voices and lives of Black gay men. He directed and completed much of Black Is… Black Ain't while dying of AIDS complications, determined that the film would exist. His work is inseparable from the struggle to name Black queer life as legitimate, worthy, and beautiful.
BLACKGAYANCESTORFILMMAKERAIDS-ACTIVIST
Black gay editor, writer, founder of Black/Out magazine
Joseph Beam edited In the Life (1986), the first anthology of writing by Black gay men — an act of literary and political insistence at a time when the mainstream gay movement and the Black liberation movement both refused to see them. He was working on the follow-up, Brother to Brother, when he died of AIDS-related illness in 1988, ten days before his 34th birthday. Essex Hemphill and Beam's mother, Dorothy, finished it and had it published in 1991.
BLACKGAYANCESTOREDITORWRITER
Black lesbian feminist poet, essayist, Rutgers administrator, Combahee contributor
Cheryl Clarke's poetry and criticism have made Black lesbian life visible and defiant for more than four decades. Her essay "Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance" (published in This Bridge Called My Back, 1981) argued that Black lesbian feminism was not peripheral to liberation but central to it. She served as editor of the lesbian literary journal Conditions and built programs at Rutgers University that created institutional space for LGBTQ communities of color.
BLACKLESBIANPOETESSAYISTFEMINIST
Black and Kanaka Maoli trans woman, author, screenwriter, director, advocate
Janet Mock is the New York Times-bestselling author of Redefining Realness (2014) and the first trans woman of color to write and direct a television episode — on the FX drama Pose, which she helped create and produce, becoming the first trans creator to sign a major studio deal. Her #GirlsLikeUs campaign built community and visibility for trans women of color at a scale that had never before been possible, and she used her platform to speak for girls the industry still tried to ignore.
BLACKTRANSWRITERFILMMAKERADVOCATE
Black trans woman, actress, Emmy-nominated producer, advocate
Laverne Cox made history in 2014 as the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and the first trans person on the cover of TIME magazine. Her portrayal of Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black — and her consistent, frank advocacy on behalf of trans women of color — helped shift mainstream American culture's understanding of trans lives. She produced Free CeCe (2016), lifting the story of CeCe McDonald to a national audience.
BLACKTRANSACTRESSPRODUCERADVOCATE
Black trans woman, filmmaker, archivist, Marsha P. Johnson scholar
Tourmaline is a filmmaker, activist, and historian whose work centers Black and trans liberation — most powerfully in the short film Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2017), which she co-wrote and co-directed. She worked for years as membership director at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and has been instrumental in reclaiming and restoring the historical record of Marsha P. Johnson, pushing back against narratives that erased Marsha's transness and her agency. Her archival research and storytelling are acts of survival.
BLACKTRANSFILMMAKERARCHIVISTACTIVIST
Black trans woman, activist, survivor, prison abolitionist
CeCe McDonald survived a white supremacist and transphobic attack in Minneapolis in 2011, defended herself, and was then convicted of second-degree manslaughter and imprisoned — an injustice that sparked a global #FreeCeCe movement. Since her release in 2014, she has dedicated herself to prison abolition and trans liberation, using her story to build community and change systems. Laverne Cox produced the documentary Free CeCe (2016) in her honor.
BLACKTRANSACTIVISTPRISON-ABOLITIONISTSURVIVOR
Black trans woman, author, journalist, co-founder of Gender Liberation Movement
Raquel Willis has spent her career building infrastructure for Black trans liberation — as national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, as the first openly Black trans woman in a senior editorial role at a major U.S. magazine (Out), and as co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement. She developed Black Trans Circles to support Black trans women in the South and Midwest, led Atlanta Trans Liberation Tuesday, and delivered one of the most powerful speeches at the 2017 Women's March. Her memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom (2023), carries the full arc of her story.
BLACKTRANSACTIVISTJOURNALISTAUTHOR
Black trans woman, abolitionist organizer, singer-songwriter
As Executive Director of Black & Pink National (2018–2022), Dominique Morgan grew the organization into the largest LGBTQ+ prison abolitionist network in the U.S. — running bail funds that freed hundreds of people in Omaha and Atlanta, launching Lydon House transitional housing, and developing the framework of the 'gender to prison pipeline.' She later directed the Fund for Trans Generations at Borealis Philanthropy. Her album 'Pisces in E Flat Major' carries her organizing into song. In early 2026 Morgan pled guilty to grand larceny and 23 counts of falsifying business records connected to her separate, brief tenure at The Okra Project; sentencing was scheduled May 28, 2026.
BLACKTRANSFOUNDERORGANIZERABOLITIONIST
Black queer disco icon, gender-fluid performer, AIDS activist
Sylvester James Jr. was the openly queer, gender-fluid voice behind 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' and 'Dance (Disco Heat)' — a Black performer who refused to soften his queerness for chart success. He sang in church, in the Cockettes, and on the world stage, and used his platform for AIDS visibility before his own death from the disease. He left his future royalties to HIV/AIDS charities.
BLACKQUEERANCESTORMUSICIANAIDS-ACTIVIST
Black bisexual poet, essayist, founder of Poetry for the People
Author of more than 28 books across poetry, essays, plays, and children's literature, June Jordan named her bisexuality openly when few Black women did. She founded Poetry for the People at UC Berkeley, a program that trained generations of writers to treat poetry as a tool of survival and resistance. The Stonewall Monument honors her.
BLACKQUEERANCESTORPOETEDUCATOR
Black queer feminist organizer, BYP100 founding director
Founding national director of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), Charlene Carruthers built one of the most consequential Black radical organizations of the 2010s. Her book 'Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements' lays out the Black queer feminist lens for political organizing that has shaped a generation of work.
BLACKQUEERORGANIZERAUTHOR
Black trans actress, TransTech founder, organizer
Angelica Ross founded TransTech Social Enterprises, a workforce development nonprofit training trans and gender-nonconforming people in tech skills. She co-starred in 'Pose' and 'American Horror Story,' and in 2019 became the first trans person to host a U.S. presidential forum. Her work refuses to separate visibility from material survival.
BLACKTRANSFOUNDERACTRESS
Black trans elected official, poet, oral historian
Andrea Jenkins became the first Black openly transgender woman elected to public office in the United States when she joined the Minneapolis City Council in 2017, later serving as Council President. She is also a poet and the oral historian who built the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota — preserving the testimonies of trans elders. She stepped down from the council in January 2026.
BLACKTRANSELECTEDPOETARCHIVIST
Black trans organizer, co-founder of My Sistah's House (Memphis)
Kayla Gore co-founded My Sistah's House in Memphis, a zero-barrier housing organization that has built 20 tiny homes for Black trans women and offers emergency housing, mutual aid, and gender-affirming support throughout the South. In states where trans people have been targeted by law, Gore's work is one of the most concrete answers to the question 'where can I go.'
BLACKTRANSFOUNDERORGANIZERHOUSING
Black trans woman media entrepreneur, television host, housing activist, and HIV advocate
TS Madison built a media empire from the ground up — turning viral internet fame into executive-producing credits, a regular judging seat on RuPaul's Drag Race (season 15 onward), and a writing credit alongside Beyoncé on Renaissance. In 2021, she made history as the first Black transgender woman to executive-produce and star in her own national reality series (The Ts Madison Experience, WE tv). In March 2025 she opened the TS Madison Starter House in Atlanta — a re-entry home for formerly incarcerated Black trans women, providing housing, healthcare, and business workshops entirely outside government funding. She has been a candid public voice on HIV, survival sex work, and the economics of Black trans life for over a decade.
MEDIATVHOUSINGHIVADVOCACY
birth year not publicly available
Black trans woman journalist, TransLash Media founder, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning storyteller
Imara Jones built TransLash Media — a cross-platform journalism and narrative organization — as the primary counter-machine to anti-trans propaganda in the United States. Her podcast, documentary series (The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality), and investigative reporting have won Emmy and Peabody Awards and earned her a 2020 Time Magazine cover. In 2019 she chaired the first-ever United Nations High Level Meeting on Gender Diversity. She previously held economic policy posts in the Clinton White House and has served on the boards of the Transgender Law Center and GLSEN.
JOURNALISMMEDIAADVOCACYDOCUMENTARYPOLICY
birth year not publicly available (was 25 as of late 2016)
Black trans woman organizer, co-founder of Black Trans Lives Matter coalition and 'Day of Action for Black Trans Women'
Cherno Biko co-founded Black Trans Lives Matter in 2014 after leading a group of Black trans women to Ferguson, Missouri, to connect racial justice and trans liberation movements during the uprising following the killing of Michael Brown. She organized the 'Day of Action for Black Trans Women' as a regular platform forcing visibility at the intersection of anti-Black police violence and transphobia. Of Senegalese-American heritage — her great-uncle is Steve Biko — she frames Black trans liberation explicitly within a global anti-colonial tradition. Her family background in Talladega, Alabama, and the murder of her eldest brother James are documented parts of her radicalization narrative.
ORGANIZINGBLM-INTERSECTIONADVOCACYBLACK-TRANS-LIVES-MATTERLIVING
Black trans woman media editor, first openly trans person to run for California state office, leading voice on Black trans visibility
Ashlee Marie Preston broke barriers as the first trans woman to serve as editor-in-chief of a national publication (Wear Your Voice Magazine) and the first openly trans person to run for state office in California (54th State Assembly, 2018). As a contributor to Teen Vogue, Vice, and other national outlets, she has used editorial platforms to center Black trans women's perspectives in mainstream public discourse. The Root named her one of its 100 most influential African Americans in 2017, and Out Magazine included her in its Out100 in 2018.
MEDIAPOLITICSADVOCACYJOURNALISMLIVING
birth year not publicly available
Black trans woman organizer, executive director of Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaPCo), prison abolitionist
Toni-Michelle Williams co-founded and leads Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaPCo), Atlanta's anchor organization fighting for Black transgender people, sex workers, and people living with HIV at the intersection of criminal justice and health. She co-led citywide campaigns that incubated the Atlanta Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative, pushed for cannabis reform and sex worker protections, helped close the Atlanta City Detention Center, and led accountability demands for the families of Tee Tee Dangerfield and Rayshard Brooks. She works as an auto-theorist, performance artist, and somatics coach, grounding political organizing in embodied leadership.
ORGANIZINGABOLITIONHIVATLANTADECRIMINALIZATION
birth year not publicly available
Black trans woman co-founder of the world's first legally recognized Transgender Cultural District, San Francisco policy leader
Aria Sa'id co-founded the Compton's Transgender Cultural District (now The Transgender District) in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood — the world's first legally recognized transgender cultural district — alongside Honey Mahogany and Janetta Johnson. As its founding executive director, she built the district into a vehicle for preserving trans history and housing, rooted in the site of the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot. She previously directed the Kween Culture Initiative, served as program manager at St. James Infirmary, and advised the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
PRESERVATIONHOUSINGPOLICYSAN-FRANCISCOTENDERLOIN
Black trans woman co-founder of The Transgender District, first Black trans person elected to public office in California
Honey Mahogany co-founded the Compton's Transgender Cultural District in San Francisco and served as its first director, anchoring a globally significant act of trans historical preservation in the Tenderloin neighborhood. In 2020 she became the first Black trans person elected to public office in California, winning a seat on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee; in 2021 she was elected DCCC chair — the first Black chair and first trans person to chair a local Democratic Party in the country. In 2024 Mayor London Breed appointed her director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.
FIRSTSPRESERVATIONSAN-FRANCISCOPOLICYORGANIZING
birth year not publicly available (was 32 as of c. 2020)
Black trans woman organizer, Co-Director of Policy at Transgender Law Center, co-founder of House of Tulip (Louisiana's first trans housing refuge)
Mariah Moore co-founded House of Tulip in New Orleans — Louisiana's first housing refuge exclusively for transgender and gender-nonconforming people — and serves as its executive director while simultaneously serving as Co-Director of Policy and Programs at the Transgender Law Center. Born and raised in New Orleans' 7th Ward, she ran for New Orleans City Council in 2021 as the first openly Black trans woman to run for city council in Louisiana, and has led campaigns to repeal the 'crimes against nature' statute that historically targeted Black trans women. The Root named her one of the 100 most influential African Americans.
HOUSINGORGANIZINGNEW-ORLEANSPOLICYTRANSGENDER-LAW-CENTER
birth year not publicly available
Black disabled nonbinary trans woman, founding director of Trans Women of Color Collective (TWOCC)
Lourdes Ashley Hunter co-founded Trans Women of Color Collective (TWOCC) in 2013 in the wake of Islan Nettles' murder — building a global organization that centers the leadership and visibility of Black trans women and trans women of color. As TWOCC's executive director for over two decades of advocacy work, she has framed her organizing explicitly as resistance against 'state-sanctioned violence' against multiply marginalized identities. TWOCC's programming spans mutual aid, economic opportunity, restorative justice, and arts and culture.
ORGANIZINGTWOCCMUTUAL-AIDBLACK-TRANS-WOMENLIVING
Black trans man attorney, founder of Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC), first openly trans person to testify before the US Senate
Kylar Broadus founded the Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC) in 2010 — the only national organization exclusively dedicated to the civil rights of transgender people of color — and built it from his base as a longtime attorney and professor of business law at Lincoln University, a historically Black college. In June 2012 he became the first openly trans person to testify before the United States Senate, speaking in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). He stood with President Obama at the signing of the 2014 executive order barring federal contractors from LGBT workplace discrimination.
LAWTRANS-MANTPOCCFIRSTSHBCU
birth year not publicly available (graduated college 2001)
Black trans and intersex man, intersex rights advocate, former president of Interact Advocates for Intersex Youth
Sean Saifa Wall built his advocacy at the intersection of Black identity, trans experience, and intersex rights — arguing that these identities are inseparable for people like himself. As former president of Interact Advocates for Intersex Youth, he helped file the landmark lawsuit M.C. v. Medical University of South Carolina (with the Southern Poverty Law Center), challenging non-consensual intersex surgeries on children. In 2015 he joined the inaugural international advisory board of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation's Intersex Human Rights Fund. His art project EMERGE centers healing from medical trauma for intersex people of color.
INTERSEXTRANS-MANLAWADVOCACYART
Black and Afro-Latino trans man youth advocate, face of Massachusetts' landmark transgender rights ballot victory
Ashton Mota became a public face of Massachusetts' 'Yes on 3' campaign at age 14 — the first statewide ballot-box victory explicitly protecting transgender rights in US history (2018) — and has since become one of the most visible young Black trans men in national advocacy. He introduced President Biden at a White House Pride ceremony in 2021, co-authored A Kids Book About Being Inclusive with The GenderCool Project, and was recognized by Teen Vogue/GLAAD as one of their '20 Under 20.' Now a Yale College student, he continues to speak nationally on the intersecting experiences of Black, Latino, and trans youth.
TRANS-MANYOUTHMASSACHUSETTSFIRSTSAFRO-LATINO
Black trans woman actress and singer, first trans actress to win a Golden Globe, star of Pose
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez built her career through years of New York stage work before landing the lead role of Blanca Evangelista in Ryan Murphy's FX series Pose (2017–2021), the largest cast of trans actors in a scripted series in television history. In 2021 she became the first openly trans woman nominated for a lead acting Emmy. On January 9, 2022, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Drama — the first trans actor to win a Golden Globe in the award's history. Of African-American and Puerto Rican heritage, she has spoken consistently about the importance of Black and Latina trans visibility.
CULTURETVPOSEGOLDEN-GLOBEFIRSTS
Afro-Taíno trans nonbinary actor, model, and activist; star of Pose; first trans person on the cover of U.S. Elle
Indya Moore built their career from Bronx foster care to starring as Angel Evangelista in FX's Pose, and in doing so became one of the most prominent nonbinary trans actors of color in global media. In May 2019 they became the first trans person to appear on the cover of U.S. Elle magazine. Time named them one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2019. Of Haitian, Puerto Rican, and Dominican (Afro-Taíno) ancestry, Moore identifies as Black and trans and has consistently used their platform to advocate for Black trans women facing disproportionate violence.
CULTURETVPOSENONBINARYAFRO-TAÍNO
Black trans woman actress, author, and activist; fled anti-trans persecution in Trinidad to build a career in New York
Dominique Jackson built her career across fashion and advocacy in New York before her breakout as Elektra Abundance on FX's Pose — a role she described as autobiographical in its themes of family rejection and survival. Born in Scarborough, Trinidad and Tobago, she fled persecution as a trans woman before arriving in the US, where she experienced homelessness before establishing herself at Brooklyn Fashion Week and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Her autobiography The Transsexual from Tobago documents her journey. She has served on nonprofit boards and spoken publicly about mental health and LGBTQ Caribbean diaspora experiences.
CULTURETVPOSECARIBBEAN-DIASPORAMEMOIR
birth year not publicly available; born Washington, D.C.
Black trans woman actress and singer who spent decades building a career before publicly coming out in 2017, featured in Disclosure
Sandra Caldwell built a decades-long acting and singing career — with recurring roles on Canadian series Little Men and The Book of Negroes and US film appearances — before publicly coming out as a trans woman in 2017 when cast in the lead role of Chicago's production of Charm, playing Black trans elder Gloria Allen. Her story, of a Black trans woman quietly navigating an entertainment industry while closeted, became a central case study in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen. Variety described her as 'a Black transgender woman of immense poise, beauty and charm.'
CULTURETHEATERDISCLOSUREREPRESENTATIONLIVING
Afro-Latina trans woman, mother in the House of Xtravaganza, beloved ballroom figure
Layleen Polanco Xtravaganza was a mother in the legendary House of Xtravaganza, one of the founding houses of the New York ballroom scene. Within the house she mentored younger members and was widely loved for her warmth and her style. She died at Rikers Island on June 7, 2019 at age 27, held on a $500 bail despite a documented seizure disorder, after being placed in solitary confinement against the recommendations of mental-health staff. Her family and community — led by her sister Melania Brown — turned grief into organizing, and her name became central to the demand to close Rikers, to abolish solitary confinement, and to decarcerate trans people of color.
INCARCERATIONABOLITIONBALLROOMAFRO-LATINASOLITARY-CONFINEMENT
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