Xica Manicongo was born in the mid-1500s and was taken from her home in West Africa to be forced into slavery in Brazil. Despite this, Xica lived her life as openly as she was able, meeting her male lovers and wearing clothing in ways untraditional for men in public. Accounts of her describe her colonizer’s distaste for the way she proudly paraded down the streets in flouncy clothing, her existence was an act of resistance. 

The Portuguese Inquisition harassed Xica and threatened to execute her for “crossing-dressing” and having same-sex relations. To save her life, Xica was forced to conform to her enslaver’s norms.

Her story was rediscovered years later and is now regarded as it should be, a tale of resilience, authenticity, and joy in the face of oppression. Xica is remembered as her true self today and honored by trans women and allies by dance, costumery, and celebration in Carnival. 

We’wha was a member of the Zuni tribe born in 1849 who began showing traits associated with Lhamana around age three. Lhamana was a traditional Zuni gender role who was assigned male at birth but lived mostly as a woman. Llamana people performed mostly women’s tasks but also fulfilled special functions usually reserved for males such as spiritual leadership, meditation, crafting.

In 1886 We’wha was hosted in Washington, D.C., by anthropologist Matilda Stevenson where she was generally mistaken for a cisgender woman and often called the “Zuni Princess.” Here she met with President Grover Cleveland at the White House and presented him and his new wife, Frances, with a handcrafted wedding gift.

When colonizers came, they condemned identities like We'wha and other Two Spirit and gender diverse identities, using them to further dehumanize Indigenous people. These people lived on, refusing to let their oppressors erase their existence, their heritage, and their traditions. 

In Idaho in the late 19th century, there was a beloved doula and midwife that delivered over 1,000 babies for both Black and white families. She was affectionately called Mother George and was known throughout Grays Lake as someone who cared deeply and took care of her community. 

Mother George lived fully as a woman. Aside from the odd comment about the size of her hands, nobody thought much of her gender. She simply was who she was, a deeply caring woman with the skills and desire to help her community.

Unfortunately, not much else is known about Mother George in part because her transgender identity was learned after her death. The fact that we can tell her story here today reminds us that no matter how hard they try - Our history CANNOT be erased. 

Born in 1860, Jane Addams would come to be known as the “Mother of Social Work.” In 1889 she and her current partner Ellen Starr founded Hull House, America’s first settlement house. It was built in the West side of Chicago where poor and immigrant industrial working families resided, where it would provide services such as English language education, women’s empowerment, and child care.

Jane Addams became a founding member of the NAACP and was an officer in the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. While her professional life was dedicated to serving others, her personal life was dedicated to Mary Rozet Smith who she wrote to every day. When apart, Addams would write, “I miss you dreadfully and am yours 'til death.”

During WW1 Addams became a powerhouse for peace. In 1915, she led the Women's Peace Party and became president of the International Congress of Women. Due to her tireless efforts, in 1931 she became the first woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. 

In 1866, white police officers started harassing a Black community street party. After veterans in the party resisted, three days of violence and atrocities against the Black community broke out, known as “The Memphis Massacre.”

Frances Thompson was a victim in these racist attacks and when a congressional Committee was formed to investigate, she was invited to testify. Frances took up the charge, becoming the first known trans woman to testify before the United States Congress. Unfortunately, Frances Thompson was harassed after her testimony until she was arrested 10 years later for “cross-dressing.” She was abused, imprisoned, forced to wear masculine clothing, and upon her release she tragically suffered dysentery and passed. 

Today, we remember Frances Thompson and what she did for the civil rights movement proudly. We acknowledged the intersection of Black and transgender liberation in America as both histories and their intersections are under threat of erasure in schools, in the workplace, and in our history books. We demand equality for ALL. 

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906, Josephine Baker lived a hard childhood. She was noticed by the Jones Family Band and found success in Vaudeville shows, taking her to New York where she flourished in the Harlem Renaissance celebrating Black life, culture, and art. Though the term “Bisexual” wasn’t widely used during Baker’s life, she did not shy away from her truth and had relationships with well known men and women. 

When the Nazis invaded France, she answered the call to fight back. Using her fame and charm Baker gathered vital intelligence from Nazi troops, writing on invisible ink on music sheets and pinning notes inside her clothes to pass critical correspondence. She would shelter resistance fighters and Jewish refugees at her home. 

When Baker returned to America, she refused to play in segregated clubs, causing many clubs to cave and desegregate. She was recognized by the NAACP and was one of the few women able to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Born in 1932, Barbara Gittings faced discrimination for who she loved from a young age when she was rejected from her high school's National Honor Society for “homosexual inclinations.”

In 1958, Gittings started New York’s first chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian rights organization in America. She marched in the country’s first LGBTQ+ picket lines in 1965 in D.C. to protest federal workers being fired for their sexuality. 

Gittings joined the LGBTQ+ caucus in the American Library Association, the country’s first LGBTQ+ caucus in a professional association. Years later, she would be given their highest award, lifetime honorary membership. She then went on to successfully lobby the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973. In the same year, she helped start what is now the National LGBTQ Task Force. 

Today, GLAAD and the American Library Association both bestow awards named in her honor and she is still known as the “Mother of the LGBT Civil rights Movement.”

“I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” 

These words were spoken by Lucy Hicks Anderson in court in 1945, the first time a trans person defended their identity in a U.S. courtroom. Lucy Hicks Anderson was arrested and imprisoned for “lying” on her marriage license and impersonating a woman after her transgender identity had been discovered during STI testing at her boarding house and bordello. Before this, she had been a successful and well-known chef, socialite, and a generous contributor to charities who was an important pillar of her community. 

Despite her community turning against her, Lucy Hicks Anderson continued to live as her authentic self, moving to Los Angeles with her husband when she was released from prison. Today, we remember her making her voice heard and advocating for her existence from an early age when she insisted on attending school as a girl right up to the U.S. courts.