Transgender Day of Visibility

With welcome by LGBTQ Policy Center Director, Erin Mayo-Adam.

The LGBTQ Policy Center at Roosevelt House invites you to attend an event celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility. The event brings together a panel of New York City-based advocates, academics, and policymakers who are working toward what activists call the “liberation” of transgender and nonbinary communities.

The discussion will address recent policy victories in New York, including the passage of the Gender Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) in 2019 and the repeal of the “Walking While Trans” law in 2021. In addition, the discussion will consider continuing policy challenges that directly impact New York’s transgender community—with a focus on policies that intersect race and gender.

Panelists:

Sean Ebony Coleman (He/Him) is the Founder and Executive Director of Destination Tomorrow, a TLGBQ center in the South Bronx serving the community through educational, financial, housing, health, and personal support programs. The grassroots organization puts an emphasis on providing support to vulnerable members of the TLGBQ community that takes them off the path of requiring emergency care, focusing on economic, social, and mental empowerment on a holistic level. As a nationally recognized leader in the transgender community and the first African American of transgender experience to operate a TLGBQ center in New York City, Sean plays a key role in advocating for policies that directly impact the lives of millions of TLGBQ New Yorkers. Sean is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Sean Ebony Coleman Consulting, where he specializes in DEI strategies for TLGBQ communities. He is a part of Gilead’s National Advisory group and manages the TRANScend Community Impact Fund, a million-dollar fund that supports Trans-led organizations nationwide.

Cecilia Gentili (She/Her) is an advocate, organizer, and storyteller working at the intersections of sex work, immigrant rights, incarceration issues, and the liberation of transgender people. Originally from Argentina, Cecilia came to the United States and survived for 10 years as an undocumented immigrant, gaining a living through sex work. She has years of experience working in direct services with organizations like The LGBT Center and Apicha Community Health Center. She became the Director of Policy at GMHC before creating Trans Equity Consulting to advocate directly for better policy for transgender people at the local, state, and federal level. Cecilia is also a founding member of Decrim NY, a coalition working towards the decriminalization, decarceration, and destigmatization of people in the sex trade. As a performer, Cecilia starred as Ms. Orlando in the hit FX ShowPose. She has also performed a one-woman show called The Knife Cuts Both Ways as well as countless storytelling events across the country. Her recently published epistolary memoir Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist won the 2023 Stonewall Book Award. 

LaLa B. Zannell (She/Her) is an advocate, organizer, and artist working towards liberation for transgender and nonbinary communities—with a particular focus on transgender women of color, leadership development, and transgender sex workers. LaLa has years of experience working in organizing and advocacy spaces, such as with the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP), where, as Lead Organizer, she coordinated advocacy, outreach, and networking on behalf of LGBTQ New Yorkers who have experienced violence. She has also organized and held a vigil for National and local transgender community members. LaLa currently leads the ACLU’s national advocacy and organizing work to support and empower transgender and nonbinary people.

Zein Murib (They/Them), Moderator, is an assistant professor of Political Science and co-director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Fordham University. Zein’s research and teaching interests are located at the intersection of scholarship on gender and sexuality, interest groups and social movements, and marginalized political identities in US politics. Zein’s research has been published in numerous academic journals, includingSigns; Transgender Studies Quarterly; Politics, Groups, and Identities; Politics & Gender; and New Political Science. Their current book project, Brokering Identity, explores the brokering of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender interest group coalition between 1968 and 2004. Zein is also a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, including two recent articles that explain the history behind the rise of anti-trans policy in the United States.

This event is co-sponsored by the New York City Commission on Human Rights and the CUNY LGBTQ Advisory Council. This event is made possible by the generous support of the New York City Council and the CUNY LGBTQ Consortium.