GJLA: A Legacy of Trans Liberation
Saturday October 28th 1-3pm
@ The GJLA Center 2701 N Broadway Los Angeles CA 90031
This program is organized by Gender Justice LA as part of the 2023 Circa: Queer Histories Festival, presented by ONE Archives Foundation.
Gender Justice LA (GJLA) is one of the longest running trans-led social justice organization in Los Angeles. An organization by and for trans, gender non-conforming, intersex (TGI), two spirit, non-binary and gender expansive folks, GJLA has been part of LA’s queer and trans ecosystem since the late 90’s. Last year, GJLA celebrated its 20+ years of existence. The organization is excited to continue lifting up the legacy, memory, resistance, and imagination of trans organizing in Los Angeles in an effort to keep our community’s histories alive and not be erased or forgotten.
Join GJLA for an immersive event featuring an exhibition of trans organizing in LA and gallery walk featuring archival pieces of past GJLA art projects, campaigns, photos, and videos. Following the tour, GJLA will host a monumental panel of past and present TGI organizers, artists, advisory board, and staff. The event will culminate in an art-making activity for anyone interested in being part of TGI legacy.
Gender Justice LA
CIRCA Event Bio/Pics
Moderator:
Past GJLA Panelist & Guest Presenter
Coach Blossom C. Brown is an Activist, Astrologer, Life-Coach Tarot reader, content creator, and writer. Originally from the Birthplace of the Blues in the Mississippi Delta, she became the first Black transwoman to graduate from Mississippi University for Women with a bachelor of science degree. Her story got world-wide attention in Season 1 of Caitlyn Jenner’s docuseries I am Cait and for her appearance on the Ellen Show in Season 13. In 2019 she disrupted the CNN LGBTQ town hall calling for the inclusion of Black transwomen . She currently stars in her documentary One Life to Blossom and will be making her second appearance on Jubilee’s Middleground.
Panelists:
riKu Matsuda, Past Executive Board Member with Gender Justice LA
Bio: riKu Matsuda (he/him) is a queer mixed Japanese American trans man living on occupied Kizh land. He works as the LGBTQ Information and Assistance Liaison for the Aging & Disabilities Department of LA County. riKu's roots are in community organizing and intersectional movement building and he is passionate about flowers, insects and dreams.
Drian Juarez, Past Executive Board Member with Gender Justice LA
Drian Juarez (Elle, They, She) is a global consultant on Transgender issues and has served as a University of Colima Fellow, Folx Health’s Vice President of Learning, Development, and Employee Experience, Trans Can Work’s Vice President of Programming, and was the first Program Manager of Grindr’s Grinder for Equality(G4E) program where she promoted health, justice, and equality for the global LGBTQI community with a focus on the global south. She was the founder and former Program Manager of the LA LGBT Center’s Transgender Economic Empowerment Project (TEEP). Building a solid foundation for TEEP, Juarez established cross-
organizational/cross-functional teams to assist in the mission of developing substantive employment and business opportunities for the Los Angeles Transgender community. Under her direction, TEEP worked with thousands of Transgender and gender nonconforming people by assisting with basic housing and helping Transgender and gender nonconforming people move from the street economy to assisting with more complex job skills like resume writing and job searches for Transgender people who transitioned after establishing professional careers.
Jaden Fields , Previous Advisory Board Member with Gender Justice LA
Jaden is a survivor organizer, poet, educator, and cannabis enthusiast cultivating healing-centered spaces committed to collective liberation. Jaden is the Co-Director of Mirror Memoirs, an oral history and abolitionist organizing project intervening in rape culture by uplifting the healing, liberation, and leadership of 2-Spirit, queer, trans/non-binary, intersex, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (QTIBIPOC) who are survivors of child sexual abuse. His work within grassroots and nonprofit organizations has included designing and leading programs for trans folks to access health services, training government agencies to better serve transgender people, participatory action research, and policy advocacy at the city, county, and state level. As a consultant, Jaden supports organizations, collectives, and professional groups to increase their knowledge and capacity to support and uplift communities that continue to be marginalized by white supremacy. Jaden was an inaugural member of the Los Angeles Transgender Advisory Council, a 2017 California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Fellow, 2021 Women’s Foundation California Solis Policy Institute Fellow, and a 2021 John W. Mack Fellow. He currently sits on the Board of Level Ground, an award-winning artist collective and production incubator. Jaden self-published his first poetry chapbook, Intentional Musings on Staying Alive When I Want To Die (2019), an honest depiction of navigating mental health and systemic oppression. You can learn more about Jaden through his Linktree, https://linktr.ee/thedappermrjaden, and his LinkedIn, https://bit.ly/JadenLinkedIn
Jazzmun Nichcala Crayton, Current Advisory Board Member with Gender Justice LA
Jazzmun Nichcala Crayton’s (she/they) career combines show business and advocacy for over 25 years. She has appeared in numerous television and movie roles, most noticeably on Roseanne, the Wayan Brothers Show, the CSI series franchise; the box office hit “The 40 Year Old Virgin”; and a starring role in the first black romcom “Punks” that was the darling of Sundance in 2000.
Jazzmun serves the community through her role as Associate Director at the organization Access Prevention Advocacy Intervention and Treatment (APAIT), where she develops and oversees programs that serve the communities that are underserved and marginalized.
As an extension of her capacity as an HIV Counselor and Associate Director, she serves as the Coordinator of the Midnight Stroll, which brings awareness and needed self-care supplies for street-based sex workers in order to enable and empower them to move from street based sex work into comprehensive community resources such as HIV testing and treatment, housing services, substance use counseling, legal and victim advocacy, and medical services.
Gabriel Vidal, Current Advisory Board Member with Gender Justice LA
Gabriel Vidal, GFUNKTRECE (he/Gabe) is a record collector, local DJ and community organizer. Born and raised in San Fernando Valley, Gabriel, from a young age has been inspired by his parent’s journey as political refugees from El Salvador. His parents desire to fight for peace and their introduction of SGI Nichiren Buddhism laid a foundation of humanism and social justice in Gabriel’s life. Through his own personal struggles in high school being suspended due to organizing for LGBTQ, immigrant and student rights, Gabriel developed a passion for youth organizing. For the last ten years, he has been a member of numerous community based organizing efforts throughout Los Angeles County, including initiatives through Gender Justice LA, the Labor/Community Strategy Center, the Brown Boi Project, and Innercity Struggle. Music, records and DJing has been a healing outlet for Gabe, which has manifested thru his experiences with family, community grassroots organizing and underground music communities in LA. Currently, Gabriel is the Associate Director of Youth Organizing with Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network of CA, and continues DJing in local venues and community events in the Los Angeles area.
GJLA Assistant Curator:
féi hernandez: Past Advisory Board Member with Gender Justice LA
féi hernandez (b.1993, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a trans, formerly undocumented immigrant. féi is a multimodal writer, cultural worker, director/filmmaker, designer/illustrator, and a life doula—creative and spiritual coach—devoted to the empowerment and preservation of trans and queer Black and Indigenous futures. She is a 2023 Lambda Literary fellow and 2022 Tin House Scholar. féi is the author of Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020) and the forthcoming (UN)DOCU MENTE (Naomi Press, 2025). For more of her projects and services visit: feihernandez.com
GJLA Staff:
Ezak Perez: GJLA’s Executive Director
Ezak Perez was born and raised in and around (Los Angeles CA) Tongva (Gabrielino) land, Chumash, Kish Nation and is currently residing on Lenapehoking territory (NY). They come from Hopi & Paeaekila Puebloan people. He identifies as Native & Xicanx. They are two-spirit of center, Indigiqueer, trans and have been facilitating and organizing locally in LA as well as nationally for the past 20 years. He is currently the Executive Director of Gender Justice LA a grassroots social justice organization led by and for trans, gnc, 2S, trans, Black, Indigenous, people of color. GJLA organizes, holds space, provides resources, and collaborates with others so that our communities can: resist oppression, develop community responses to violence, heal from present & historical trauma, and come together in ways that feel brave & affirming. They work at the intersections of racial, economic and gender justice. Ezak is currently the co-chair and co- founding member of Indigenous Pride LA, a lead researcher for Transmasculine Health Justice: LA, a thought partner, a lover, a dog parent, strategist and someone who believes that we will absolutely win.
Camila Camaleon: GJLA’s Administrative Coordinator
Camila Camaléon is a paradigm shifter, bridge-builder, and queer archivist based in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles. By centering radical curiosity, joy, and power, Camaleón’s scope of work invites methods of transformative healing justice, media justice, and curated engagement as expressions of healing practices for folks of all genders and sexualities. With a commitment to the Black Femme Radical Imagination, her expertise is a transgression of boundaries, knowledge, compassion and empathy to build worlds in collaboration of our collective future.
She is a multi-fascinated writer, Board President for the SGV LGBTQ+ Center, Playfulness Consultant, Zumba instructor, and Administrative Coordinator with Gender Justice Los Angeles. Visit camilacamaleon.com to find out more of her story!
Sonia Guiñansaca: GJLA’s Program Director
Sonia Guiñansaca is an international award winning queer non-binary migrant poet, cultural organizer and social justice activist. They emerged as a national leader in the migrant artistic and political communities where they coordinated and participated in groundbreaking civil disobedience actions. Guiñansaca helped build some of the largest undocumented organizations in the U.S, including co-founding some of the first artistic projects by and for undocumented writers and artists. Sonia has worked for over a decade in both policy and cultural efforts building equitable infrastructures for migrant artists. They have been awarded residencies and fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation, Poetry Foundation, British Council, Creative Time, and the Hemispheric Institute for Performance & Politics. Guiñansaca has performed at the Met, the NYC Public Theater, Lehmann Maupin Gallery and has been featured on PEN American, Interview Magazine, Ms.Magazine, Teen Vogue, Diva Magazine UK, CNN, NBC, and PBS to name a few. Their migration and cultural equity work has also taken them to London and Mexico City to advise on migrant policy and arts programming. They consult and advise national social justice organizations, cultural institutions, and foundations on artists convening, cultural activations, advocacy and civic engagement. They are Kichwa Kañari from Ecuador. They are now the Program Director at Gender Justice LA.
More info here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CW6kntRPBG2/?utm_medium=copy_link
Gia Dacayanan: GJLA’s Outreach Coordinator
Gia Dacayanan is a queer and nonbinary Filipinx migrant with a special heart for communal empowerment through art, political education, magic, and community-centered care practices. They are sometimes a poet but most times a dreamer of just futures. Gia hopes to utilize transcestral/ancestral knowledge to curate spaces that can hold us all with gentleness, fun, and power.
Davia Spain: GJLA Campaign Coordinator
Davia Spain is an activist and artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from San Francisco State University in 2017 with a Bachelors in Anthropology. During her college career she started working for her community at non-profits such as LYRIC SF, BAVC, and the SF LGBT Center. Since relocating to Los Angeles, she has continued her community based work by doing Trans Sensitivity Trainings on behalf of LA County throughout the LA Homeless Shelter System and now Campaign Coordination with Gender Justice LA.
