From California to Texas, Trans Champion Aria Sa’id Embraces Community
She helped create the world’s first transgender cultural district in San Francisco during years of Bay Area advocacy. What has she found in Houston, a blue city in her new red-state home? Camaraderie and dedication.
by Pax Ahimsa Gethen
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, the National Park Service gave trans people the “gift” of erasing us from the website of the Stonewall National Monument. The outrage and protests that followed have underlined the central role of trans people – trans women of color in particular – in the history of LGBTQ activism.
As important as the Stonewall Riots in 1969 were to queer history, another milestone in our liberation had occurred three years earlier. In August 1966, trans and queer patrons of Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district fought back against police harassment. Half a century later, the Compton’s Trangender Cultural District became the first legally recognized transgender district in the world.
The Transgender District – as the area was renamed in 2020 – was founded in 2017 by three Black trans women: Janetta Johnson, Honey Mahogany and Aria Sa’id, who also served as its executive director for several years. Thanks to the efforts of Sa’id and other Trans District staff, the building that now occupies the site of the cafeteria riot was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 27 of this year.
By the time this honor was bestowed, though, Sa’id was no longer leading the district, having moved to Houston a year earlier. As a Bay Area advocate myself, I had spent time with Sa’id on a number of occasions, so I was surprised to learn of her relocation to Texas, a place not known as welcoming for trans folks. Given the wave of discriminatory executive orders coming from the Trump administration, I wanted to see how she was faring.
For one, Sa’id said in an interview with Assigned Media, “living here means embracing nuance.” While Texas is a red state, Houston, Dallas and Austin are “blue cities” with Democratic majorities at the city council and county level. “We are in liberal cities, in red states,” she said.
“I loved San Francisco, but I feel like I am thriving in Houston,” Sa’id said. “While I departed San Francisco successful in my work so to speak, I struggled intensely to be able to live there. Not just economically, but socially, too. I find there is a bit more authentic community for Black trans folks in the South, and for sure a great deal more camaraderie.”
Sa’id praised the on-the-ground advocacy of trans leaders in Texas. “Trans resources here are seen as a lifeline for the community,” she said, and given the scarcity, these advocates have helped trans Texans maintain access to mutual aid, legal clinics for name changes and gender-affirming health care providers.
While Sa’id said she feels a bit safer when out and about in Houston than she did in San Francisco, she is also “hyper aware” and vigilant of her trans status in Texas. She recognizes, too, that people earlier in their gender transition might find San Francisco a “more ideal” place to find affirming care.
Fatigue is a pervasive, underlying challenge for so many trans advocates, including herself, Sa’id said. As she recently discussed in an interview with Houston’s OutSmart Magazine, self-care is a priority for her now in her new home, where she heads the consulting firm Aria Sa’id & Associates. Her firm supports community organizations with strategies for fundraising, communications, and event planning.
“The trans leaders I've been working with are exhausted – but frankly, they were doing a lot of the same heavy lifting during the Biden presidency,” she told Assigned Media. “While it is devastating to see these new executive orders coming forward, I don't have any feelings any more. I led a lot of grassroots organizing during Trump's previous term as president. I'm tired.”
Back in San Francisco, Sa’id and her staff had helped lead a successful effort to have California officially adopt August as Transgender History Month. She understands how the erasure of trans people from Stonewall’s official website can have a devastating effect.
“Being a Black trans person in the world, you learn and accept early on in this work the experience of erasure. How our contributions get erased. How our impact gets downplayed. How dismissive people are when it comes to milestones and accolades,” Sa’id said. “But it's something I learned in my teen years – if you're doing this for credit, you'll be greatly disappointed. And so many trans elders have experienced this time and time again.
“It's why it's so important that WE prioritize our history.”
What do the people in her communities – Black folks and women, in addition to trans people – need the most right now? “I think we have to acknowledge that without investment and strategic involvement from philanthropy and philanthropic partners, we cannot change the tides set against us,” she responded. “I believe we need economic justice in order to survive.”
Declarations of “sanctuary cities” for trans people, as officials in Worcester, Mass, have recently done, will boost morale, she said, but they won’t address core issues like homelessness, poverty and safety.
Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years myself, and having worked for the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives during the time Sa’id led the Transgender District, I’ve also seen these alarming fundamental problems. Homelessness and poverty are a continuing concern here, particularly for trans people of color. A guaranteed income program for trans people, supported by the Trans District under Sa’id’s leadership, was shut down last year after conservatives filed lawsuits, claiming that it was discriminatory.
Sa’id challenged people who call themselves allies to take real action.
“Just because you like trans people doesn't make you an ally. It just means you know trans people,” she said. “I want allies who are calling their elected officials, who are finding ways to support low-income trans folks. Something. There has to be an action tied to allyship.”
As a Black transmasculine person, I’m grateful for the leadership of Black trans women like Aria Sa’id, who are making positive changes in the community despite being the primary targets of discriminatory legislation. In her new chapter, she deserves the bright and successful future she has worked so hard to give others.
Pax Ahimsa Gethen (they/them) is a queer agender writer, editor, and curator. They live in San Francisco with their spouse Ziggy.