GLAAD is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization. Originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals in the media and entertainment industries, it has since expanded to queer, bisexual, and transgender people.
Lynn Breedlove is an American musician, writer, and performer who was born in Oakland, California.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBTQ people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
The St. James Infirmary, founded by members of the sex worker activist community in 1999, is a peer-based, full spectrum medical and social service organization serving current and former sex workers of all genders and their families. Located in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, California, the St. James Infirmary is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Its services are free and confidential. Named after the sex workers' rights activist and founder of COYOTE, Margo St. James, the St. James Infirmary is the first occupational safety and health clinic for sex workers run by sex workers in the United States.
Susan O'Neal Stryker, best known as Susan Stryker, is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and sexuality and trans realities. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona. Stryker is the author of several books and a founding figure of transgender studies as well as a leading scholar of transgender history.
Honey Mahogany is an American activist, politician, drag performer, and singer. She first came to national attention on the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race, followed by releasing her debut EP Honey Love. She was instrumental in setting up The Transgender District in San Francisco, where she served as the first director. In 2024, Mahogany was appointed director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, often referred to as Miss Major, is an American author, activist, and community organizer for transgender rights. She has participated in activism and community organizing for a range of causes, and served as the first executive director for the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project.
Nikki Calma, better known as Tita Aida, is a social activist from San Francisco, California. She is a long-time advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness, particularly among Asian American communities, and for transgender people.
Cecilia Chung is a civil rights leader and activist for LGBT rights, HIV/AIDS awareness, health advocacy, and social justice. She is a trans woman, and her life story was one of four main storylines in the 2017 ABC miniseries When We Rise about LGBT rights in the 1970s and 1980s.
Adela Vázquez was a Cuban-American transgender activist and performer. She died in her home on October 11, 2024. Hailing from Cuba during a time of political uprising, Vázquez was one of 125,000 people who sought asylum and migrated in the Mariel Boat lifts in 1980. Local to San Francisco's gay scene, Vázquez began to organize with HIV prevention organization Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida and became a community activist for transgender rights.
Kiki is an American-Swedish co-produced documentary film, released in 2016. It takes place in New York City, and focuses on the "drag and voguing scene [and] surveys the lives of LGBT youth of color at a time when Black Lives Matter and trans rights are making front-page headlines". The film was directed by Sara Jordenö and considered an unofficial sequel to the influential 1990 film Paris Is Burning, the film profiles several young LGBT people of colour participating in contemporary LGBT African American ball culture.
Henry M. Tavera was an AIDS activist, artistic director, and archivist based in the Mission District of San Francisco, California; his 1979 move to the region put him at the forefront of the AIDS epidemic via his involvement in various HIV/AIDS service organizations as well as AIDS theatre. He also did work around Chicano Gay Activism and teaching/advising. Tavera died on February 27, 2000, at 56 years old from kidney cancer.
Sean Dorsey is a Canadian-American transgender and queer choreographer, dancer, writer and trans rights activist. He is widely recognized as the United States' first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey founded his San Francisco-based dance company Sean Dorsey Dance, which incorporates transgender and LGBTQ+ themes into all of their works. Dorsey is also the founder and artistic director of Fresh Meat Productions, a non-profit organization. Fresh Meat Productions creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts. The organization hosts Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, an annual festival of transgender and queer performance.
Raquel Willis is an African American writer, editor, and transgender rights activist. She is a former national organizer for the Transgender Law Center and the former executive editor of Out magazine. In 2020, Willis won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Article. Her memoir, The Risk It Takes To Bloom, was published in November 2023.
Masen Davis is an American transgender rights activist who is currently the interim executive director of Transgender Europe, and was previously the executive director of Freedom for All Americans and of the Transgender Law Center.
The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes". Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty inductees were unveiled June 27, 2019, as a part of events marking the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Five honorees are added annually.
The Transgender District, formerly known as Compton's Transgender Cultural District, is the first legally recognized transgender district in the world. Named after the first documented uprising of transgender and queer people in United States history, the Compton's Cafeteria riot of 1966, the district encompasses six blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin, San Francisco, and crosses over Market Street to include two blocks of Sixth Street. It was co-founded by Honey Mahogany, Janetta Johnson, and Aria Sa'id.
Aria Sa'id is an American transgender advocate and political strategist based in San Francisco. She is a co-founder and former executive director of The Transgender District, and founder and director of the Kween Culture Initiative. Sa'id has also worked at the Trans:Thrive resource center, as program manager for St. James Infirmary, and as policy advisor for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. In 2018, she was awarded the 10 Years of Service Award by San Francisco Pride.
Janetta Louise Johnson is an American transgender rights activist, human rights activist, prison abolitionist, and transgender woman. She is the Executive Director of the TGI Justice Project. She co-founded the non-profit TAJA's Coalition in 2015. Along with Honey Mahogany and Aria Sa'id, Johnson is a co-founder of The Transgender District, established in 2017. Johnson's work is primarily concerned about the rights and safety of incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated transgender and gender-non-conforming people. She believes that the abolition of police and the prison industrial complex will help support the safety of transgender people, and she identifies as an abolitionist.
