“Award-winning writer Thomas Page McBee became the first transgender man to ever box at Madison Square Garden in New York City during a charity match in 2016. He wrote about his experiences in his groundbreaking memoir, Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man. In it, he not only talks about what it was like to go through training and enter the ring but also explores masculinity, sexism, and male aggression. Through boxing, McBee finds compassion, mentorship, and self-expression.”

“Don’t miss Bluff City Bombshell Miss Bella DuBalle’s drag show at Memphis’ largest drag club, Atomic Rose! Out of drag, Slade Kyle, who is trans nonbinary, has been an outspoken critic of the state’s anti-drag bill. When the law was set to first go into effect on April 1, the Atomic Rose hosted Brick Ball to protest the law and honor Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two trans women and drag queens credited with throwing the first bricks during the 1969 Stonewall Riot.”

“Drag is not new! Harlem’s ball culture goes way back to the ’20s and ’30s during the Harlem Renaissance, when hundreds of participants and thousands of spectators would attend ball competitions. In the ’80s, the Elks Lodge was the center of ballroom culture as shown in the TV series Pose. Ball is best known for originating the vogue dance style, but balls and houses have also provided a safe haven for LGBTQ youth of color disowned by their families."

“In 2020, when a young Black transgender woman was found dead in Newark, New Jersey, and her death went uninvestigated, Black queer women at the Newark LGBTQ Community Center fought for police accountability. This radical act of solidarity led to the Justice for Ashley Moore campaign, a rally in her honor in downtown Newark, and widespread media awareness. In response, the Newark police agreed to reexamine her case, add a gender identity checkbox to police reports, and create an LGBTQ hotline.”

“True Spirit, an annual transgender conference, was held [here] circa the late 1990s and early 2000s. The conference sought to ‘address personal, social, medical, legal, and political issues of concern to gender variant people.’ In 1997, pioneering transgender activist and writer Leslie Feinberg gave the keynote speech, stating, ‘None of us can ever be free while others are still in chains.…Trans liberation is inextricably linked to other movements for equality and justice.’”

“Trans- and queer-owned and operated, A Room of One’s Own was founded in 1975 by a group of feminists. In 2018, longtime employees and booksellers Gretchen Treu and Wes Lukes purchased the local, independent, anti-racist, abolitionist feminist bookstore, which features a wide selection of queer novels, picture books, fiction, romance, and nonfiction. They also lovingly offer Queer Qare packages that customers can buy for recently out trans youth.”

“A legal scholar, civil rights activist, writer, labor organizer, and a co-founder of the National Organization for Women, Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray self-described as a ‘he/she personality’ and for years sought testosterone hormone therapy but was denied. As a law student in the early 1940s at Howard University, and long before intersectionality was commonly understood, Murray coined the phrase ‘Jane Crow’ to describe the sexist treatment s/he received as a Black person perceived as a woman.”

“Founded in 1952, ONE Inc. was one of the first gay rights organizations. But its existence was in large part due to a trans man named Reed Erickson. Erickson was wealthy—he even had a pet leopard named Henry! He wanted to use his money to further gay and trans rights. He became the main funder, and his support enabled ONE to offer classes in homophile studies for state-recognized graduate degrees! Today, the ONE Archives Foundation is the largest repository of LGBTQ+ materials in the world.”

“LGBT homelessness isn’t just a problem in big cities. As a Black feminist, trans-led, and intergenerational collective committed to transformative justice, Lucie’s Place provides TLGBQ+ young adults experiencing homelessness with housing solutions, job training, and case management. Founder Penelope Poppers, who is queer and gender nonconforming, chose the name Lucie’s Place as a memorial to her late friend Lucie Marie Hamilton, a trans woman who was an advocate and mentor to many.”

“On Transgender Day of Remembrance 2021, Nikole Parker, a director at Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ organization, wrote in the Advocate, ‘Transgender people are human. We have hopes, dreams, aspirations, and fears. We deserve to be protected like everyone else. We deserve to live full, happy lives. We are your neighbors, family members, colleagues, and friends.…We need our LGBQ family to show up for us. Protect us like we protect you. Fight for us like we fight for you.’”