From Black August to Trans Futures: Remembering, Resisting, Reimagining

2021 Rise For Black Trans Lives Sacramento

Black August and Trans History Month arrive together like a call from our ancestors and our transcestors, refusing to let us forget who we are and what we’ve survived. They do not sit quietly on a calendar. They demand our attention, our grief, our discipline, and our imagination. They remind us that liberation has always been lived and fought for, not granted by the very systems that tried to bury us.

The Fire of Black August

Black August was born out of struggle inside San Quentin in 1979, when incarcerated freedom fighters began commemorating the lives and deaths of people like George Jackson. It was never meant to be a holiday. It was created as a practice of resistance, a way of remembering our dead and recommitting ourselves to the fight for liberation.

August itself carries the weight of history. The March on Washington took place in August 1963. The Watts uprising ignited in August 1965. Nat Turner’s rebellion erupted in August 1831. The list continues, reminding us that Black resistance in this country has so often burned brightest in this month.

To honor Black August is to fast, to study, to train, and to fight. It is a discipline as much as it is a remembrance. It teaches us that freedom is never freely given—it is built, protected, and carried forward by those willing to risk everything.

The Power of Trans History Month

Trans History Month rises from the same soil of resistance. In 2021, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to recognize it, and in 2024, California became the first state to make it official. August was chosen intentionally, because it is in August that we remember the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot of 1966, when Black and Brown trans women in San Francisco’s Tenderloin fought back against police violence three years before Stonewall.

Trans History Month is about visibility, but it is also about truth. Our stories have always been here, across cultures and across centuries. From the hijra of South Asia to the Two-Spirit people of Native nations to the ballroom mothers of the 20th century, trans existence has always been part of humanity. Erasure has been the weapon used against us. Trans History Month answers back by insisting that we are not a trend or a new idea. We are legacy. We are lineage.

To honor Trans History Month is to say the names of our transcestors. It is to tell the stories that have been buried. It is to remind ourselves that survival is not just about existing—it is about living with pride, with power, and with community.

When the Currents Meet

When Black August and Trans History Month collide, something powerful happens. One is rooted in the revolutionary fire of Black freedom struggles. The other is born out of the radical survival of trans people who refused erasure. Together, they teach us that liberation must be intersectional, that no struggle exists in isolation, and that our movements are strongest when they are braided together.

This convergence pushes us to practice freedom in our daily lives. It asks us to remember our dead and honor them not with silence but with action. It asks us to release the trauma stored in our bodies and let joy in as an act of defiance. It asks us to build communities of abundance, where care is not scarce and survival is not the limit of our dreams.

Survival as Collective Practice

At the Gender Health Center, we know that survival has never been about going it alone. We are still here because of community hands that catch us when we fall, because of chosen family who love us when the world turns cold, because of the ancestors whispering that our lives still matter. We survive because we hold each other up, even when our own knees are shaking. We survive because when one of us cannot carry the weight, another steps in to shoulder it.

That is the truth of our freedom work. No matter how heavy it gets, we make it through together. And together, we will.