At Gender Liberation Movement’s Dinner, Trans Identity Wasn’t Just Visible—It Was Celebrated

Zaya Wade and Gender Liberation Movement cofounder Raquel WillisPhoto by: Liam Woods

Every Trans Day of Visibility brings with it a call to be more aware of trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive communities and the myriad struggles they face in the U.S. and abroad every day—yet so often, even that most well-meaning of notions presupposes a largely cisgender audience. But at the Gender Liberation Movement’s Liberation dinner hosted by Laverne Cox, Elliot Page, Sasha Colby, and Brian Michael Smith in Los Angeles’s West Adams neighborhood, the audience was firmly, defiantly, and joyfully gender-expansive—ensuring the night felt like the definition of “for us, by us.”

Guests at the ACLU-sponsored event, including Kiersey Clemons, Zaya Wade, Nori Reed, and Miranda July, first took in a moving and wide-ranging conversation between singer and TV personality Michelle Visage and her oldest child Leo Case. South Central L.A. native Bay Davis also delivered a galvanizing poetry performance before everyone gathered for an intimate and elegantly coursed dinner, executed by Devonn Charles Francis’s Charles & Francis.

Some attendees were happy to reunite, after recently witnessing each other be arrested in Washington D.C. during a demonstration against proposals by the Department of Health and Human Services that would block access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. Despite the cheery mood at dinner, the increasing threat to trans health and quality of life was never far from anyone’s mind, even as wine was poured and citrus salad was consumed.

“I’ll never forget the father of one of my patients, who pawned his wedding ring to finance a cross-country drive to access his teen’s hormone care,” said Dr. Morissa Ladinsky. The clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford University has spent years providing gender-affirming care in Alabama. “I’m often asked by adults of trans experience, ‘What can I do?’, and my answer is always the same: ‘Keep being you.’ Visibility and representation have infinite value.”