Resistance Round-Up: Organizations That Are Working to Liberate Trans Communities

April 1, 2025

At Forward Together, we envision a world where queer and trans people of color have the ability to define our lives and determine our own future. In spite of political and cultural attacks on reproductive rights, gender identity and bodily autonomy, there are thousands of organizations across the country that are still leading the charge towards our collective liberation.

This month, we want to spotlight revolutionary organizations that are grounded in queer and trans liberation to drive the power of our resistance. As we honor Trans Day of Visibility, let’s take a look at some of our movement comrades that are prioritizing trans liberation in their communities and beyond.

1. My Sistah’s House 

My Sistah’s House was founded in 2016 by two transgender women of color, Kayla Gore and Ellyahnna C. Wattshal, who sought to bridge a gap in services for transgender and queer people of color (TQPOC) in Memphis, TN. in response to a crisis they were witnessing among their own community members. 

Executive Director, Kayla Gore, converted a six-bedroom house she owns into an emergency housing facility with eight beds available for LGBTQ people in need of shelter. My Sistah’s House primarily serves TGNC people of color, many of whom have recently been released from incarceration, are experiencing intimate partner violence, and/or are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.

MSH’s provides: 

• Access to safe spaces
• Emergency shelter 
• Access to health and social services

Learn More 

Through their Tiny House Project, MSH has successfully developed eight homes, including one fully accessible for individuals with disabilities. Two additional homes are currently under construction, one of which will be ADA-compliant, bringing the total number of completed homes to ten within two years. 

2. SisterReach 

Founded in 2011 in Memphis, TN, SisterReach, Inc. is a Black woman-led grassroots organization dedicated to advancing human rights. Their mission is to empower those we serve to lead healthy lives, nurture healthy families, and thrive in safe, sustainable communities. They prioritize Black women, women and teens of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, gender-expansive people, and their families through the lens of Reproductive and Sexual Justice. 

SisterReach Programs: 

• YouMeHIV
• Pleasure Paks
• Pearl’s Pantry

Get Connected with SisterReach

Be the first to know about SisterReach’s latest initiatives, upcoming events, and ways to get involved.

3. Sylvia Rivera Law Project 

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination or violence.

The project is named after LGBTQ civil rights pioneer Sylvia Rivera. A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, Sylvia was a tireless advocate for all those who have been marginalized as the “gay rights” movement has mainstreamed. She fought hard against the exclusion of transgender people from the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York, and was a loud and persistent voice for the rights of people of color and low-income queers and trans people. This project works to continue Sylvia’s work by centralizing issues of systemic poverty and racism, and prioritizing the struggles of queer and trans people who face the most severe and multi-faceted discrimination. 

SRLP’s Core Values

• We can’t just work to reform the system. The system itself is the problem.
• Oppressed people need to be empowered with the skills and vision to fight for their own liberation. 
• All oppressed people need to work together in solidarity to end all forms of oppression. 
• We believe that the struggle for gender self-determination will in the end be fought by our whole communities, and it will win liberation for all of our people.
• It is critical that transgender, intersex, and gender variant people and people of color, especially low-income people, youth, and people with disabilities, take leadership in our work. 
• SRLP strives to maintain gender parity at all levels of the organization.
• SRLP believes that the working environment of an organization shapes the work, and for this reason we strive to create an environment that is non-hierarchical in structure and operates by consensus. 

Get Trained 

Take your movement work to the next level! SRLP offers training and other presentations to schools, community organizations, government agencies, attorneys and legal service providers, law schools, and occasionally other institutions at a sliding scale rate. 

Disrupting the Narrative with Resistance in Real Time

We recently collaborated with My Sistah’s House, SisterReach and movement artist Kah Yangni to disrupt the narratives that trans identity and gender-expansive family formations are new concepts through beautiful art pieces. The Tennessee Family as Freedom Project amplifies the way Black trans people practice freedom through family-making. 

For so many of us, family is a site of resistance, from the mamas who stick up for their trans babies at home, in the principal’s office and at the family gatherings to the mamas who take us in, trans children who have been put out of our homes, to the siblings who protect each other online, on the streets and in the school hallways. 

Black trans people craft possibilities by making all kinds of families, be they kinship networks or circles of community care that thrive despite how anti-black, transphobic, capitalist laws try to erase us. Trans people have always existed, and trans families must be protected.

Join us and these organizations as we resist and share this art.