The 2014 ‘Trans 100’ Celebrates Pennsylvania Leaders


On Sunday, March 30th, the 2014 Trans 100 was reveled at a celebration event in Chicago. The Trans 100 is a list to honor living transgender community leaders. For the second year, Pennsylvania leaders were featured among the cohort.

Before the first honorees were named, Jen Richards, a Co-Director of the Trans 100, said to the audience:

“I want to remind everyone that this is not a ‘top 100,’ this is not a ‘best of.’

100 is meant to be a sampling of what our community has to offer. It’s just a glimpse.

We choose 100, because if we get up to 100, that is just a way of saying we have countless people in this community doing incredible work. It is specifically curated so that we have everyone represented, so that no trans person who thinks they are alone, who thinks that they are not trans, or that they are not trans enough, or that they are doing the wrong thing, can look at this list and see something of themselves in it and feel that they are a part of this community.”

The 2014 Trans 100 includes the following Pennsylvanians.

DSC_0090

Photo: PSEC



Charlene Arcila
(Philadelphia) Co-Founder of the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, longtime trans rights advocate [2014 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference Plenary Speaker]

Stallworth_Dionne_bySuziNas

Photo: Philadelphia Gay News



A. Dionne Stallworth
(Philadelphia)
Founding member of Gender PAC, longtime advocate on housing and mental health issues

michael_david_battle_headshot

Photo: Garden of Peace Project



Michael David Battle
(Pittsburgh)
Founder and Director of the Garden of Peace Project

Shay_Gonzalez_300px

Photo: Studio34Yoga



Shay(den) Gonzalez
(Philadelphia) Director of Program Development at the Safe Spaces Project, former Youth of Color Coordinator at the National Youth Advocacy Coalition

Also among this year’s honorees are Alison Gill, the current Government Affairs Director of the Trevor Project, who was a featured speaker at the 2011 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference; and Sarah McBride, Special Assistant on LGBT Issues at the Center for American Progress, who was a plenary speaker last month at the 2014 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference.

The 2013 Trans 100 featured the following Pennsylvanians.

Allyson Robinson (Jermyn)   Former Executive Director of OutServe-SLDN
[2014 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference Keynote Speaker]
Che Gossett (Philadelphia)  Author and AIDS activist, Program Assistant at the Leeway Foundation
Jenny Boylan (Valley Forge)   GLAAD Board Member, New York Times bestselling author
Mara Keisling (Harrisburg)
Founding Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality
[2011 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference Keynote Speaker]
Van Nguyen (Philadelphia) Steering Committee member of hotpot!
[2014 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference Plenary Speaker]

The keynote speakers for this year’s event were Laverne Cox and Kye Allums. Laverne spoke last Tuesday at the University of Pennsylvania, while Kye traveled directly from Bethlehem, PA, to Chicago after speaking at this year’s Lehigh Valley LGBTQIA Intercollegiate Conference. Kye will speak twice this week at the West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

The 2014 Trans 100 event can be viewed online here.


The featured image in this article is a collage from the Trans 100 of 2013. At time of this posting, the Trans 100 has not released official media for this year’s list, but is expected to do so shortly. The image will be then updated for 2014.

Leave a Reply