User:Emiilydowney/sandbox

= LaSaia Wade =

LaSaia Wade (born March 20, 1987) is an Afro-Puerto Ricans indigenous transgender woman. She is an activist and organizer for transgender rights and equality. She has over ten years of experience in organizing and advocacy work with black, indigenous, trans, and gender non-conforming people around the world. She is the founder of a number of organizations, focusing her work in Tennessee and Chicago.

Personal life
Wade was born in 1987 in Chicago Heights. She was born into a strict Baptist-Catholic working-class family. At age sixteen she began to experience gender dysphoria but did not have the language to understand her feelings. She came out to her mother at age eighteen and has had a difficult relationship with her father since. She began transitioning in high school. 

At age sixteen she left Chicago to attend high school and college in Tennessee and then relocated for a short time to California where she received training and experience in activism and politics. Since 2012 she has lived in the Chicago area. 

She graduated from Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro in 2010 with a Masters in Business Administration and a degree in Business Management. 

Wade has a son, Lil X, who was born on July 31, 2020. Her partner is also transgender and works for The Chicago Freedom School, a school that educates Black and Brown people about social justice and building for change. 

Work
After graduating college, Wade worked for AT&T as a director in Tennessee. She was fired from this job due to her failure to disclose she was a transgender woman. She was unwittingly outed to by a colleague. After this event, she faced great trouble finding a job and as a result, after meeting her partner at a conference in 2013, was encouraged to turn to activism.

Wade is the owner of Mystical Beehive, an Agricultural Collective that aims to Protect and Preserve Honeybees with natural practices. Mystical Beehive provides beekeeping services, community outreach, and education.

Activism work
Her first engagement with activism was through joining the Black Lives Matter Movement where she learned about homophobia, transphobia, racism, and intersectionality. Through her involvement with the Black Lives Matter Movement, she came to accept her identity as well as recognize that she had the power to effect change.  Wade is the founder of the Tennessee Trans Journey Project, and a member of The Chicago Black, Trans, Gender Nonconforming Collective as well as the Trans Liberation Collective. She is currently the Director of Brave Space Alliance. 

Tennessee Trans Journey Project

The Tennessee Trans Journey Project was founded in 2014 in response to the killing of Gizzy Fowler, a Black transgender woman. The group’s main aim is to draw attention to the inequalities suffered by the queer and transgender community. This includes their experience with barriers to accessing health care, discriminatory hiring practices, violence, and assault. In 2015 the group organized the first trans visibility march in Tennessee’s history. The march began at Legislative Plaza, ending at the office of OutCentral, an LGBTQ center in Nashville that had no trans people of color on their board. More than one hundred transgender people as well as a great number of allies were in attendance. 

LGBT rights in Tennessee: Tennessee does not allow transgender people to change their legal gender on their birth certificate, nor does it have anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ people in Employment, Housing, or Public Accommodations.

Chicago Black, Trans, Gender Non-conforming Collective

In 2016 Wade and a small group of other Black trans individuals launched The Chicago Black, Trans, Gender Non-conforming Collective. In 2016, the group staged a large event at the intersections of Belmont and Halsted in Chicago’s famously recognized queer neighborhood – Boystown. The event was to honor TT Saffore, a Black Trans woman killed on Chicago’s Westside. The following year, this same group launched the Trans Liberation Collective which staged one of the largest trans-led protests in Chicago. The protest took place across from the Trump Tower, to rally in defense of transgender rights.

Membership in The Chicago Black, Trans, Gender Non-conforming Collective is open to any individual in the Chicago area who identifies as part of the African diaspora, trans, gender questioning, and/or gender non-conforming community. They prioritize Chicago natives, youth, elders, and the disabled. There are no membership fees. 

Transgender Liberation Collective

The Transgender Liberation Collective works alongside the non-Black trans community. It focuses on educating cis-gender, white, and other non-Black trans folk about the oppression of the Black-trans community. It aims to work together with these people to achieve liberation for all. In 2017 they organized a march in honor of the murder of three Black trans women in Chicago. The march was organized by Wade to draw attention to the fact that these women's deaths were being ignored by not only the city of Chicago but more specifically by the LGBT community. The Transgender Liberation Collective continues to battle transgender exclusion from LGBT community organizing.

Brave Space Alliance

Brave Space Alliance was launched in 2017. It was formed by the merging of The Black Gender Trans Nonconforming Collective and The Trans Liberation Collective. It is a Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ nonprofit designed to create and provide affirming and culturally competent services for the entire LGBTQ community of Chicago. It now has three full-time employees, a staff of nine, and over 3000 volunteers. 

Brave Space Alliance aims to provide a platform for the voices of transgender individuals, especially those of color, to tell their own stories on their own terms. It works toward maintaining the visibility of the trans community. Brave Space Alliance strives to maintain a position from which to shape issues affecting the LGBTQ community in Chicago, especially in the wake of the Trump administration which has seen many transgender individuals stripped of their rights.

Brave Space Alliance focuses its work on three key areas: health and wellness, leadership development, and visibility. They offer programs that focus on the needs of the community, such as food insecurity, housing insecurity, and economic justice. They are committed to Relationship Building, Conversation, Community Education, and Safer Spaces, although emphasize Bravery and Solidarity in the face of trans oppression. This mentality stems from the idea that there is no safe space for transgender people in our current world, thus, whilst this is being created Bravery is the most important form of resistance a trans person can engage in.

Brave Space Alliance hosts monthly job preparedness and campaign organizing workshops as well as hair-touch ups, manicures, arts and crafts, bodywork, music, food events, classes on safer sex-work, gardening, and teas. In March 2020, Brave Space Alliance began delivering 200 bags of food a week to Chicagoans regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity in order to address COVID-related food insecurity. This food pantry will now become a permanent fixture of their organization as it illustrated a great need for such assistance amongst the people of Chicago. Brave Space Alliance has hosted events such as “TRANScending the Binary with Wellness: Day of Care and Community” and “Hydrate Won’t Erase You”, as well as maintaining support groups such as “Boi Talk: Trans Men/Masculine”, “Rose Petals: Trans Women/Femme” and “Fluid AF: Non-Binary”. They are also beginning a Telehealth Mental Health Program to provide mental health services to trans individuals in Chicago. They have continued to offer services to the Chicago LGBTQ community online as a result of COVID-19.

In 2018 Brave Space Alliance lost the space that previously housed its activities when the landlords discovered what the building was being used for. This included the loss of spaces such as a recording studio where individuals were encouraged to express themselves through artistic means. At this time, they continued to offer services and culturally oriented activities through cooperation with other organizations. In 2020 they moved to Hyde Park where they will permanently hold their offices. 

More recently Brave Space Alliance has been working with groups in Chicago that focus on the rehabilitation of people once they leave prison – especially since the legalization of marijuana in the state of Illinois. They also work to support the wider Black Lives Matter Movement, supporting protestors with food, clothing, water, and first aid supplies. 

Political Philosophy
Wade prefers to engage in local initiatives with her community rather than acting on a national level. Brave Space Alliance has engaged with politicians like Illinois governor-elect J. B. Pritzker, although tends to stay out of the realm of national politics. Brave Space Alliance does not work with any law enforcement. 

The group is committed to transformative justice, centering Blackness and Black Liberation. They support police and prison abolition, reparations for slavery and imperialism, the mass redistribution of resources, and advocate for climate justice.

Legacy and Recognition
In 2018 Wade, on behalf of Brave Space Alliance, alongside Victor Salvo and Gloria Allen (a trans woman who led a charm school for trans girls and women), unveiled a plaque in honor of trans-activist Marsha P Johnson in Chicago’s Boystown Neighborhood to commemorate her work for the trans community and especially her emphasis on promoting bravery within the trans community, something that is central to Brave Space Alliance's message.

Wade was honored at the Chicago LGBTQA Black History Recognitions ceremony for leading in Chicago to inspire change daily, whilst increasing visibility. She is the first Trans woman in Illinois history to be honored in Women’s History month for her work in the trans community.

Wade was recognized by The Obama Foundation for her work in Chicago in the pursuit of creating a safe space for Black transgender people whilst making resources available for under-served Black and Brown trans-Chicagoans.

She was recognized in the Streetwise '20 most inspiring Chicagoans' in 2020.