The Tamesis
Zaya Wade and Gender Liberation Movement co-founder Raquel WillisPhotography: Liam Woods
Every Trans Visibility Day calls for people to learn more about trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive communities and the myriad struggles they face every day in the United States and abroad—but too often, even the most well-intentioned concepts are premised on a majority cisgender audience. But at Laverne Cox, Elliot Page, Sasha Colby, and Brian Michael Smith’s Gender Liberation Movement Liberation Dinner in Los Angeles’ West Adams neighborhood, the audience was determined, defiant, and joyfully gender-expansive—ensuring that the evening felt like the very definition of “for us, by us.”
Guests at the American Civil Liberties Union-sponsored event, which included Kiersey Clemons, Zaya Wade, Nori Reed and Miranda July, began with a touching and wide-ranging conversation between singer and TV personality Michelle Visage and her eldest child, Leo Case. South Central Los Angeles native Bay Davis also performed a stirring performance of poetry before everyone gathered for an intimate and elegant dinner hosted by Devonn Charles Francis’ Charles & Francis.
Some attendees were excited to reunite because they had witnessed each other’s arrests during recent demonstrations in Washington, D.C., to protest a Department of Health and Human Services proposal to ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming health care. Despite the pleasant atmosphere of the dinner, the growing threats to the health and quality of life of transgender people were always on people’s minds, even as the wine was poured and the citrus salad was eaten.
“I will never forget the father of one of my patients who pawned his wedding ring to fund a cross-country trip to get hormone care for his teenager,” said Dr. Morissa Radinsky. The clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford University has been providing gender-affirming care in Alabama for years. “Often adults with transgender experience ask me, ‘What can I do?’ and my answer is always the same: ‘Keep being yourself.'” Visibility and representation are of infinite value. “
