Michaela Ivri Mendelsohn is the founder of TransCanWork, which connects trans job seekers to businesses that will welcome them. [1]
Mendelsohn worked extensively towards the development of Laverne Cox's character in Orange is the New Black. [2] [3] Mendelsohn is the CEO of various El Pollo Loco restaurants on the west coast. [4] As an LGBTQ activist, [5] [6] she services on the board of directors at the Trevor Project, [7] [8] and was featured on the cover of the Los Angeles LGBTQ Vanguard Magazine. [9] She was the first transgender contestant in the Ms. Senior California Pageant. [4] Due to her work, she was named the Grand Marshal of 2018 Los Angeles Pride. [2] [4]
The Los Angeles LGBT Center is a provider of programs and services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The organization's work spans four categories, including health, social services, housing, and leadership and advocacy. The center is the largest facility in the world providing services to LGBT people.
The LA Pride Festival & Parade, commonly known as LA Pride, is an annual LGBTQ Pride celebration in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest LGBTQ Pride events in the world, traditionally held on the second weekend of June, and produced by the Christopher Street West Association.
Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, singer, and teacher. Billings, a trans woman, played one of TV's first openly transgender characters in 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. She is also known for portraying the recurring character Davina in the Amazon series Transparent and has played transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy and The Conners.
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. The largest pride parade in North America and among the largest pride events in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June. The parade route through Lower Manhattan traverses south on Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, passing the Stonewall National Monument, site of the June 1969 riots that launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
Scott Turner Schofield is an American actor, writer, producer, and speaker. He is a transgender activist, and uses he/him and they/them pronouns. He was the first out transgender actor in Daytime television, and the first out trans man to earn an Emmy nomination for acting.
Indy Pride Festival, formerly Circle City IN Pride, is the annual week of LGBT pride events in Indianapolis. The week is organized by LGBT organization Indy Pride, Inc., and has been held under this name and organization for over a decade. In recent years, more than 95,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual people have attended the festival. Indy Pride's Parade and Festival is held the 2nd Saturday in June, with a week of events leading up to it, in honor of the Stonewall Riots and in accordance with other United States pride festivals. Indy Pride Festival is the largest LGBT pride event in Indiana.
The rainbow flag or pride flag is a symbol of LGBT pride and LGBT social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of LGBT pride began in San Francisco, California, but eventually became common at LGBT rights events worldwide.
Pedro Julio Serrano is an openly gay and HIV+ human rights activist and president of Puerto Rico Para Todes, a non-profit LGBTQ+ and social justice advocacy organization founded in 2003. He is a former advisor to former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito and to former San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. He also served, for more than three years, as executive director of Programa Vida and Clínica Transalud of the Municipality of San Juan. He now works as Director of Public Affairs at Waves Ahead.
Fierté Montréal, also called Montreal Pride, is an annual LGBT pride festival in Montreal, Quebec. The event was founded in 2007 at the initiative of Montreal’s LGBTQ+ communities after the city's prior Pride festival, Divers/Cité, repositioned itself as a general arts and music festival.
Sir Lady Java, also known simply as Lady Java is an American transgender rights activist, exotic dancer, singer, comedian, and actress. Active on stage, television, radio and film from the mid-1960s to 1970s, she is a popular and influential personality in the Los Angeles-area African-American LGBT community.
There were several protests organized by the LGBT community against the policies of United States President Donald Trump and his administration.
Brian Michael Smith is an American actor and LGBT advocate. He is known for playing Paul Strickland in 9-1-1: Lone Star.
The Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival is the second oldest and second-largest pride parade in New York City. It is held annually in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, located in the New York City borough of Queens. The parade was founded by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Queens and memorialize Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera. Queens also serves as the largest transgender hub in the Western hemisphere and is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.
Ryan O'Connell is an American writer, actor, director, comedian, LGBTQ activist, and disability advocate. He is known for his 2015 memoir, I'm Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves, about his life as a gay man with cerebral palsy, which he adapted into television series Special for Netflix, premiering in April 2019.
The Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization working to end human rights abuses against transgender, intersex, and gender-variant people, particularly trans women of color in California prisons and detention centers. Originally led by Black trans activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Asian American trans man and activist Alexander L. Lee, the current executive director of TGIJP is Janetta Johnson, a Black trans woman who was formerly incarcerated in a men's prison.
Donna Personna is a transgender rights activist and fine art artist, who focuses in photography, painting, and mixed media. Personna was friends with The Cockettes and she played a part in Elevator Girls in Bondage. Personna co-wrote a play about the Compton Cafeteria riot, one of the first recorded LGBT-related riots in United States history, and marking the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.
Sher Vancouver is a registered charity in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer South Asians and their friends. The full name of the organization is the Sher Vancouver LGBTQ Friends Society. The society was originally founded as an online Yahoo group for LGBTQ Sikhs in April 2008 by social worker Alex Sangha of Delta, B.C.
Nik Kacy, stylized as NiK Kacy is a fashion designer, founder of Equality Fashion Week, former board member of the Los Angeles LGBT Chamber of Commerce, and part of the Trans Inclusion Task Force for the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. In September 2019, Wells Fargo featured Kacy on their Empowerful Exchange video series. In 2017 and 2019, Kacy's gender-free fashion approach was discussed in two scholarly articles, and in 2020, in the book Crossing Gender Boundaries: Fashion to Create, Disrupt, and Transcend. Kacy is a trans-masculine gender-nonbinary person and uses the pronouns they/them/their.
Ferozea Ferozae is an American trans woman and activist involved in the transgender rights movement from Atlanta, Georgia. She chose to disclose her transgender identity publicly in 2018. She has led efforts in Georgia to end voter suppression and increase voter turnout. In 2018, she was part of Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms' inaugural LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, and in 2019 she was an Atlanta Pride Grand Marshal.