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Jari Jones is a Black transgender actress, curve model, activist and creative. With her career start in theater, Jari has graced some of New York’s greatest stages, such as The Public Theater's Production of Elizabeth Swado’s “The Runaways,” Here Art Center’s “The Sex Myth: A Devised Play” and Lin Manuel Miranda’s “In The Heights.” Jari later shifted her career into TV and film, featured in primetime television’s hot ticket “Pose,” Sundance nominated film “Adam” and the highly anticipated “Transparent: Musical Movie Finale.” Jari has recently been named the first black trans producer ever to have a film premiere at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in its 72-year entirety with their film “Port Authority.” After building a successful career as a fashion and editorial photographer, Jari jumped on the other side of the lens and into the magazines and New York billboards, quickly becoming internationally recognized as a trans and body-positive model and influencer. Jari has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Teen Vogue, Allure and recently in PAPER Magazine “Predictions: 100 people taking over 2019,” with her insight on fashion within politics, body positivity and LGBTQ community building and relationships. Jones is one of the new faces of the acclaimed and inclusive fashion empires Universal Standard, making her the first transgender model of the brand.

“After having interrupted President Obama during the White House LGBT Pride Month reception, Jennicet Gutiérrez is still existing to resist, and she’s thankful for that. She’s learned much more about herself as an activist and the communities she serves. “I think it’s been really critical for me to make connections with other communities who are fighting for the liberation for all of us,” says Gutiérrez. “And not the ones who want to assimilate. It’s not going to make our life better.” 

This past year she’s spoken out about immigration across the country, furthering the message of her organization, the TransLatina Coalition, working to stop deportations for all undocumented people. She’s even completed a hunger strike to encourage the shutdown of an LGBTQ-focused Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. But in addition, she’s worked to gain more understanding of other communities fighting for liberation and is on the front lines of other movements in the fight. “That’s why being intersectional to me is important,” Gutiérrez says about her work involving both LGBTQ people and immigrant communities. She says that LGBTQ groups could do more to understand and empathize with LGBTQ immigrants, and immigrant communities should work more to understand the needs of LGBTQ immigrants. “I think many people shut people down without giving people an opportunity to really share their pain and the experience under the system that we live in.”

A Campus Pride Hot List artist, Trans Justice Funding Project panelist and Trans 100 honoree, Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, performer and educator, navigating life as a disabled pin@y-amerikan transgender queer in the U.S. with struggle, resistance and laughter. They have been a poetry fellow of The Home School, Drunken Boat and Lambda Literary Review. Kay has featured on colleges and stages globally; Princeton University, U Penn, UC Berkeley, Musee Pour Rire in Montreal, The Chicago Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum and even an invitation to The White House. Kay’s bold work continues to excite and challenge audiences. A seasoned speaker, Kay has facilitated workshops, presented keynotes and contributed to panels with various social justice communities.

As a fellow of The Home School, Drunken Boat and Lambda Literary Retreat, honors include: 18 Million Rising Filipino American History Month Hero, Chicago’s LGBTQ 30 Under 30 awards, finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Open-Mic Award, Windy City Times Pride Literary Poetry Prize. Their contributions are found in Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, ENTROPY, Poor Magazine, Apogee, Plentitude, Kicked Out Anthology, Trans Bodies/Trans Selves, Windy City Queer: Dispatches from the Third Coast, Make/Shift, Filipino American Psychology, Asian Americans For Progress, The Advocate, Fusion.net and Bitch Magazine. Kay turns art into action and is dedicated to remixing recipes. 

Recent publications include contributions in the upcoming anthologies, Subject To Change (Sibling Rivalry Press), Outside the XY: Queer Black & Brown Masculinity (Magnus Books) and Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices (Trans-genre Press).  When The Chant Comes (Topside Press) is their first collection of poetry. See their online wobble on Tumblr, Instagram and kaybarrett.net.

Alok (they/them) is a gender non-conforming writer and performance artist. Their eclectic style and poetic challenge to the gender binary have been internationally renowned. In 2017 they received the Live Works Performance Act Award granted to 10 performance artists across the world and released their inaugural poetry chapbook FEMME IN PUBLIC. They have been featured on HBO, MTV, The Guardian, BBC, CNN and the New York Times and have presented their work at 500 venues in more than 40 countries. 

Speaking about their Femme in Public project, Alok states: “One of the things I really get sad about is that when people think about resistance, they often don’t think about art. Art is seen as not consequential, not substantial not real, emphasis is on policy and economics. I also think we need to be nourished creatively and spiritually as well. Art can be a political force.”

There are many reasons why Johannesburg is being heralded for its creativity right now. The music is hot, the style is unique, the art offers a raw perspective. As with many of the world's most culture-shaping underground movements, the kids behind this are shunning outdated notions of gender and sexuality. At the heart of this creative rebellion is Umlilo. Born and raised in Jo'burg, Umlilo couldn't be pinned down to one thing, though is perhaps best known as a musician. “Fierce, queer and gender bending,” the music Umlilo creates sounds like a revolution. “My perspective is particularly unapologetic, queer, black, South African and non-binary.” While queer South African music has a way to go before reaching the mainstream, Umlilo's two EPs, Aluta and Shades of Kwaai, have won fans across the world, with Noisey calling the latter “a spacious mix of smooth vocals and melancholic synths, like Kelis back when she was left of centre.”

Aodhàn (Aiden) Crawford, a young Two-Spirit Cherokee, Powhatan descent who lives in Boise Idaho, uses oral traditions, visuals and craftsmanship to authentically preserve this native LGBTQ culture and identity. Two-Spirit is a contemporary term used to identify some Native American transgender individuals, with traditional and cultural understanding of gender roles and identity. “I am all about history, and all about where I come from. The thing about being Two-Spirit is that we have always been here. I have a culture that has historic documentation that I am a part of it, that I am accepted, that I am not a sin, that I have a place in my faith. A Two-Spirit person would be culturally involved in their tribes’ history, their tribes’ preservation, languages, historical crafts ... because it’s not just a hashtag, it is a way of living, it’s a way of being.” Aodhàn, along with other Two Spirit community members, travel across North America to preserve their culture through cultural stewardship. With the help of his Two-Spirit community, Aodhàn will start a youth powwow dedicated to the preservation of Two-Spirit traditions.

Malik Nashad Sharpe is a London-based choreographer and dancer making performances under their alias Marikiscrycrycry. Operating with an expansive and emotional choreographic proposition, their work is about the socially radical practice of imagining new worlds; dances that motorize the conditions necessary for possibility and futurity; performances that double as survival rituals; performances that drip with meaning, texturizing all the affective and infective material left behind.  Their work integrates pessimism and optimism, minimalism and maximalism, soft and sweet, hyperreal and absurdist ontological propositions with various dance and choreographic practices. Their identity is often central to their work as the site and receptacle of maintained racial and gender based violence, frequently recalling, reneging, and reifying their experiences being Black, Vincentian/Caribbean-American, gender non-conforming, femme, Queer, immigrant with a felt transgenerational history of displacement, alienation and allostatic load, in order to humanize another possibility, worlds of ulteriorly.  

They have performed their work in various venues across the UK, USA and Canada, and have been supported by Arts Council England, Canadian Council for the Arts, a-n, Fierce Festival, Hackney Showroom, Chisenhale Dance Space, Live Art Development Agency and Marlborough Theatre and Pub, and have performed with various artists like Last Yearz Interesting Negro, Rachael Young, Project O, SPIT!, Randy Reyes, Dalston Ballet, amongst many others.  They’ve also taught workshops and courses around their dance practice at University of Illinois (USA), Glasgow School of Art (UK), Otion Front Studio (USA), The Workroom (UK), Gibney Dance (USA), Goldsmiths University (UK), CLOUD at Danslab (NL), Leeds Beckett University (UK), Tate Modern (UK) and School of New Dance Development (NL).

Oyena Bisholo is a fashion pioneer in South Africa and participated in the fashion protest: “Femme in Public” with Alok Vaid-Menon. “Femme in Public” is described as an unscripted video and photoshoot while walking through the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa, conducted by a group of femme non-binary and trans folks. The shoot captured the spectacle that being non-binary femme is made out to be by the public while empowering the participants through their united front and protest against what qualifies for gender normative dress and performance.

Speaking about the project Oyena stated: “Being femme in public is my reality. There is no other way that I would rather be. It speaks to my wanting to stand in my truth against all forces. It also allows me to present the best version of myself to the world as that is my true self. I encourage all Queer bodies in the world to get up and fight for themselves, even though that may prove challenging or impossible, so that we can start ruling the world. My motto is that vastness is the way, vast being anything extreme, jaw-dropping or extraordinary. I am the embodiment of vastness and hope to achieve total equality and flourishment through vastness. May you all find pleasure and satisfaction in being your true self even though it may not be easy.”

Starting at 18, Krimsky began documenting himself, as part of a “spiritual experiment.” Hundreds of self-portraits were created to explore the internal changes he felt he was going through. “It became a place that is a private sanctuary, a diary without words, an intimate place between the body, the soul and its deepest whims and desires,” he says. 

A wild traveler’s life followed, with nights of parties, smoking and drinking, “but an empty soul. The longer I fought being masculine, the more I tried ‘educating myself’ on how to be more feminine.” Towards his late 20s, Krimsky says, he managed to once again reconnect to his true self spiritually, and resolve the perplexing issues with men. “I discovered I feel like one inside, once again. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and started telling some people around me about it.” Confusing times came and passed, including a mental breakdown, before Krimsky embarked on the path of transition. 

Today Krimsky is free. Free from definitions, free from categories. “If I want to speak about myself with female pronouns, I do,” he says. “If I want to dress up in drag and take pictures of myself or perform, I do.”

Many in the LGBT community view existing categories as limiting. “This generation doesn't want to label themselves or put themselves into a box, but want to give themselves flexibility,” says Genny Beeyman, director of The Stonewall LGBTQ+ resource center at UMass Amherst. “We see that the majority of LGBTQ plus identify outside of a gender and sexual binary, and are identifying as a-sexual, bi-sexual, pan-sexual, omnisexual or queer, as a fluid identity.” 

Krimsky understands why categories are necessary for society, but rejects them. “I see myself as a being," he says. “By introducing new definitions, we create more borders and differences.”

Chris Mosier is a trailblazing hall of fame triathlete, All-American duathlete and a six-time member of Team USA. In 2015 he became the first known transgender man to make a men’s US National Team, and was the catalyst for change for the International Olympic Committee policy on transgender athletes. In 2016, he was sponsored by Nike and featured in his own Nike commercial which debuted on prime time during the Rio Olympics. Chris was the first trans athlete featured in the ESPN Body Issue. 

Chris is known as the go-to source for policy and information on transgender people in sport. In 2013, Chris created the site transathlete.com, a resource for students, athletes, coaches and administrators to find information about trans inclusion in athletics at various levels of play. He has mentored transgender athletes around the globe, from high school and recreational to the professional levels, and helped teams, leagues and professional sports leagues create gender-inclusive policies.

“I think right now our media landscape is definitely changing. I think people are starting to understand that the diversity of representation matters. This new show, ‘Pose,’ has all of these amazing trans people, more and more queer characters are being intr4oduced into people’s homes and the entertainment landscape. It’s not about just having someone black and just having someone trans in front of the camera, it’s about the context of their lives. What story are you trying to convey? When representation of trans people is just about our genitals, it’s about us being over sexualized or criminalized, people die. I think with this representation we are going to see the hearts and minds of people begin to change. When that happens, we see the culture shift, when we see the culture shift happen, we start to see policies change. It’s a great feeling to see us represented. Not to get that confused with us thriving. Just because Laverne Cox nominated for an Emmy does not mean that black trans women are not getting killed every day. But it feels good to know that we are taking steps. Having this representation of different kinds of people allows us to complicate human experience for other people. That is the starting point, when people start to see trans people as complex individuals and complex human beings instead of being stuffed into this really awful stereotype and I think having this kind of representation makes us better people. To understand that everybody is not like us, I think it is important for a lot of black people to understand that black trans people exist. I am black and I am trans and I am masculine all at the same time. When I walk into a room, I bring all of those things and not one thing is more important than the other and I cannot shed one of those things. I am black, I am trans, I am masculine and no one thing is more important than the other.”  

“Alex Jenny and River Coello are a couple of alien babes in love. As queer and trans artists of color, they create the representation they desperately craved when they were younger. Together, they share multimedia stories about their experiences as individuals and as a couple at the margins of society.” ~Alex and River 

Through their poetry, photography and writing, the self-identified “alien femme” duo Alex Jenny and River Coello showcase a fully realized depiction of queer and transgender love in a decidedly unique way. 

The couple’s blog, appropriately titled “Alien Babes,” is an outlet for the pair to express their creativity via elegant photo shoots and deeply personal prose, all the while representing everyday life as queer and trans people of color in a way that moves past the prevailing narrative of tragedy, pain and suffering. With 1,500 followers and thousands of likes on Instagram to-date, the duo’s passion project is seemingly only getting started.

“We wanted to create the representation we so desperately craved, one with trans love, happiness and glamour,” Jenny said. “We’re really trying our best to be open and vulnerable about our relationship in different ways and allow people to see what’s possible.”

“I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the word ‘girl’ by turning it into a weapon they used to hurt me,” writes Toronto-based writer and artist Vivek Shraya in her new book, I’m Afraid of Men, due out from Penguin Canada on August 28. “I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to hate and eventually destroy my femininity. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the extraordinary parts of myself.” 

Shraya’s dispatches from the frontlines of life as a queer, trans woman of color are frequently illuminating, painfully honest, and, in spite of everything, hopeful. Tegan and Sara Quin, the Grammy-nominated indie-rock duo, who consider Shraya a longtime friend and collaborator, have deemed the book “essential reading for everyone.” 

Shraya’s first non-fiction book unfolds via short vignettes, where her lived experience seamlessly coexists alongside gender and queer theory. She asks herself and the reader questions like, “What would my body look and feel like if I didn’t have to mold it into both a shield and an ornament? How do I love a body that was never fully my own?” And, later, “What if you were to challenge yourself every time you feel afraid of me—and all of us who are pushing against gendered expectations and restrictions?” The answers could likely fill several books of their own without ever reaching a final conclusion, but what’s important is that Shraya is willing to start the conversation. While the book may be named for fear, Shraya’s work, no matter the medium, exudes bravery.

“My name is Ceraun, pronounced (Sir-AHN) and I am a gender queer visual artist from Washington, D.C. What I want is to use the genre of fashion photography to tell the stories of the marginalized.”

Ceraun the Divanun is a multimedia storyteller from Washington, DC. Whether its poetry or performance, photography or short stories Ceraun is always invested in using the art of storytelling to shine a light on the people society too often forgets.  

One of Ceraun’s projects is challenging the media and social representation of Black women, femmes and genderqueer folx as angry or violent or dangerous, while also praising softness as a strength in a society that wants us to remove our emotions. 

Ceraun travels the world in search of queer art communities, fun adventures and all the learning that happens when you are uncomfortable. This journey is documented on Ceraun’s website Archives of a Divanun. Part diary part travelogue, Archives serves as a medium to display Ceraun’s continuing artistic projects such as Black Femme Magic, and snapshots of the cities and communities that they interact with. 

Acton Seibel is a normal guy who came home to Missoula, Montana, to transition. As a transgender person of color working in a traditionally masculine industry as a mechanic, he challenges us to see beyond politics, seeing the value he adds to our communities. 

With a deeply held belief that everyone – including transgender people – has the right to live authentically with full protection under the law, Acton joined ACLU and six other transgender people in 2017 as plaintiffs in an attempt to block an anti-transgender ballot initiative filed in Montana. 

“It’s always been about whether or not I belong in this community, or in any community and it’s categorically yes. I belong in it, we have worked so hard to make our homes, to be the people we are. I don’t want to say it’s a luxury, but it’s like the best thing ever to find people who can share that with you. I would not give that up without a fight.”

“In March, I was given the opportunity to begin the process of co-producing and co-hosting a show alongside a dear friend of mine, Pax (aka the Transwitch). Both of us, as new performers and regular drag show attendees whose trans identities often felt dismissed, were interested in putting together a show that not only acts as a safe space for those who are trans and nonbinary, but gives individuals in our community a platform that is built by and for people like us.”

T4T was created with the hope of giving Denver’s trans and nonbinary community a stage and space that we can call our own. Each month, a new cast of all trans and nonbinary performers brings such a variety of art to the stage at Gladys: The Nosy Neighbor. From live singing to burlesque to poetry readings, you’ll quickly learn that T4T is not simply a drag show, but a celebration and exploration of what it means to be trans and nonbinary. 

“I will gladly admit that I absolutely had no clue what I was getting myself into. The responsibility of producing and hosting is no small feat, and one I naively thought would come naturally. The added pressure to put on a seamless production alongside the desire to perfect one’s look and numbers is relieved through the incredible support from those who attend each month and the sense of community with other trans and nonbinary people.

“Knowing that there still may be dysphoria or dysmorphia in expressing yourself through drag, but that there is solace to be had in knowing that the people around you understand, is extremely powerful. Having the opportunity to be a part of a show where I get to work with only trans and nonbinary folks, that centers only trans and nonbinary folks, and also brings trans and nonbinary folks together, is incredibly humbling. 

“Drag has been and always will be about bending the rules of gender and expression. And if drag is about exploring gender, challenging the conventional norms, and having autonomy over how we express ourselves, who better to show you than a trans person?” 

Schuyler Bailar is the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division 1 men’s team. From his first meet at the age of seven, he took the swimming world by storm, competing in the Junior Olympics at age 10, qualifying in national competitions at 13 and winning championships all throughout high school. Throughout his journey, Schuyler struggled with issues of body image and self-esteem, often battling with disordered eating and self-harm. Through therapy and reflection, Schuyler realized that his real struggle was with gender identity and that he was transgender. This presented Schuyler with a difficult decision: whether to continue as a possible NCAA champion on the women’s team or to transition to a man and be authentic to himself, accepting the consequences and challenges it would entail. Schuyler’s choice – to be true to himself – has been historic. His story hit Facebook’s top-trending news and has been recounted globally in thousands of media outlets, with millions of online and broadcast media views. He continues to inspire and advocate for trans rights through policy work, speaking and writing.

Cortez Wright is a Black Queer non-binary femme organizer, development professional and writer. They possess more than 10 years of nonprofit communications and development experience working at the intersection of queer and trans liberation and reproductive justice in the South. They’ve worked on and assisted in crafting fundraising and communications strategies around a variety of issues, including, but not limited to, anti-shackling and the criminalization of Black mothers, abortion access and stigma, reproductive coercion, pop culture and media representation of Queer and trans youth of color.

As co-director of the Trans Housing Coalition of Atlanta, they help Atlanta’s chronically homeless transgender and gender non-conforming people move from the streets into long-term housing and on to the lives they want to lead. As the development and marketing manager at the Southern Center for Human Rights, they focus on supporting all aspects of SCHR’s fundraising, strategic marketing, graphic design and community engagement. They are also the current board chair of Southern Fried Queer Pride.

Eli Campanaro is a queer, feminist trans artist and life model. He makes handcrafted leather harnesses and other goods and is a co-founder of the Unicorn Collaborators, a queer creative collective. Eli often expresses a love for nature, horses, light and creativity.