Mother Jones illustration; Photo courtesy of Stas Ginzberg
Raquel Willis knows that her power lies in her voice. From her home state of Georgia to the streets of New York City and the steps of Congress, Willis has used her voice to uplift trans people’s stories, whether it be as a journalist or leader of the Gender Liberation Movement, a national organization officially formed in January of this year, but was born out of 2020 and 2021 protests against anti-transgender discrimination to advocate for abortion rights and gender-affirming care. Her work, she says, is rooted in a fundamental belief in bodily autonomy and the self-determination of all people—the idea that “we all deserve the right to be the drivers of our own destinies.”
In 2013, Willis was a local reporter in the small city of Monroe, Georgia, before she began to work on social justice projects, including an initiative to end police profiling of trans women of color. In 2019, while at Out magazine, Willis published the award-winning Trans Obituary Project, highlighting the lives of trans women of color who had died—mostly by homicide—that year. Two years later, she and trans civil rights attorney Chase Strangio started the Trans Week of Visibility and Action, a digital campaign to bring attention to the rising wave of anti-trans legislation across the US.
Last September, the Gender Liberation Movement organized its first Gender Liberation March in Washington, DC, attracting about 2,000 protesters to advocate for abortion rights and gender-affirming care ahead of the November election. I first spoke with Willis in December, hours after she and more than a dozen other activists were arrested on Capitol Hill for protesting the Congress-wide trans bathroom ban enacted by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. “It was important to show up in a radically defiant way and let the world know, and let our electeds know, that we are not going to allow this disrespect and this disregard for our lives,” she told me at the time. “Trans folks deserve access to the restrooms like anyone else.”
Since then, she’s been busy organizing protests, taking interviews, and issuing calls to action online as the Trump administration and its Republican allies continue to target trans people in executive orders, policy changes by federal agencies, and proposed legislation.
“What’s always at the top of mind for me is safety and security—particularly in the queer and trans community, how we can keep folks alive. “
Willis felt compelled to organize against anti-trans discrimination because of the disproportionate violence that trans people of color face. She pointed to Sam Nordquist—a 24-year-old trans man from Minnesota who was held captive and tortured for over a month in upstate New York before police found his body in February. Then there is the story Tahiry Broom from Michigan, who was fatally shot one morning, also in February. According to police, that same morning the alleged killer made more than 30 calls to sex workers, many of whom were Black trans women.
It’s not lost on Willis that the same month Broom was killed and Nordquist’s body was found, Time named her one of its Women of the Year. I caught up with her to discuss that honor, the work she’s doing, and the work she says still must be done. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
It can be really hard to triage what feels most urgent right now in terms of protecting trans people. What about the current moment feels most important for you to address?
What’s always at the top of mind for me is safety and security—particularly in the queer and trans community, and how we can keep folks alive. I don’t know that we put it often enough in those terms.
This is something I first noticed a decade or so ago—the epidemic of violence plaguing Black and brown trans women, as well as high rates of suicidality around trans youth. It was 2014 going into 2015 when a young trans girl named Leelah Alcorn died by suicide, and then a young trans man named Blake Brockington died by suicide, that I committed to championing the rights and the liberation of trans people.
That mirrors the time that we’re in now. We’ve just seen the grisly murder of Sam Nordquist. About a week after he was killed, a Black trans woman named Tahiry Broom was murdered. The cycle continues, but what’s different about right now is that we have the Trump administration back in power, and they are more hell-bent than ever to curtail the rights of trans people.
Relatedly, what about the current moment are the media and the public missing?
A lot of institutions are failing so many communities in the margins right now. I think in terms of mainstream media, there isn’t an understanding of just how deep the systems of oppression still are in this country, and there’s such a hesitance to call out transphobia for what it is.
“This is a time when the broader American public has to get real.”
We have a journalism industry that is just as plagued by these systems of oppression as every other sector of society. I start with journalism because that’s my craft. I know what it’s like to be facing the indoctrination of this idea of being unbiased. Everyone has a bias. If you’re not clear about what your bias is in a patriarchal and white supremacist society, then you’re feeding those systems of oppression.
There are so many institutions I could call out right now, but one that really comes to mind is the Democratic Party. They’re not going to have the teeth needed at this moment to call out the billionaire, technocratic, oligarchic order because they’re in bed with those same people and corporations and forces.
This is a time when the broader American public has to get real. No one is coming to save us, and we can’t keep allowing those with power—regardless of their political orientation—to delude us into thinking that they have values other than capitalism.
Your response to these institutions not stepping up has been to organize—collaborating with the Women’s March, for instance, or starting the Gender Liberation March, and leading your recent Capitol Hill sit-in.
We’re in an era of radical defiance. Organizing for me is crucial because we’ve learned from so many powerful thinkers and freedom fighters that this idea of liberation isn’t possible without the collective. The way that we get folks invested in the same values and agenda is through organizing.
Cultural organizing and direct action continue to be important. The bathroom sit-in in December is an element of that, and also just civil disobedience, essentially demonstrating the power so that other people can witness what is possible in terms of defiance and not complying.
Those things are key. But I also think mutual aid [grassroots networks of people helping each other with resources and finances] is important. It’s always been important to elevate those efforts that are rooted in feeding and clothing and getting the health care and needs met of our people on the ground. I would love to elevate the Trans Youth Emergency Project, which is supporting trans youth and families who are facing crises all over the country.
You’ve spoken a lot about the need for collective liberation. In your idealized vision, what does a collectively liberated future look like, and what’s needed to get there?
The collective liberation that I’m striving towards is rooted in the values of the Gender Liberation Movement, a collective that I founded with Eliel Cruz last year. Our values are bodily autonomy for all—understanding that, for instance, the fight for abortion access is connected to the fight for gender-affirming care for everyone. It’s also connected to the fight for accessible, affordable, and holistic healthcare for everyone and to the value of self-determination.
The last value I think is necessary to get to collective liberation is already baked in: collectivism. We all have to be striving, not just for us as individuals to access all of the beautiful things that this life and this world can offer, but for everyone to be able to access those things as well.
“We have so many parallels throughout US history to what we are experiencing now.”
What kinds of inspiration and lessons can we take away from past movements, like the battles for civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s and protests like the Stonewall Riots?
The idea of history as a prologue is so true. As a Black trans woman from Georgia whose family on both sides has lived in the Georgia, South Carolina, Florida area for nearly 200 years, I acutely see the connections between telling my mother that she can’t be served in a restaurant because it’s for white patrons and telling me as a trans woman that I can’t use public accommodations. Now there’s a push to undo the gains of the past 60 years and further segregate our society. The anti-DEI crusade—this idea that the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are bad and need to be eliminated from the federal government, schools, and businesses—is just another way of trying to say they want to resegregate society.
Of course, I’m also very tapped into queer and trans history. The Stonewall Riots happened because people weren’t wearing enough of the articles of clothing that allegedly corresponded with the sex they were assigned at birth. The onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s was a time when another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, left the queer community to fend for itself. We have so many parallels throughout US history to what we are experiencing now. We have to honor them as lessons for how we can approach this moment while developing new strategies to survive.
What new strategies or ways of protesting are needed in this moment that wouldn’t have been relevant in the past?
Well, the stakes are different. Obviously, technology is very different. Folks are figuring out how to organize in the most safe and secure ways and starting to understand how broad and deep the surveillance state has become.
We have to be more cognizant and skeptical of our technological tools and also work with digital experts who are aligned with our values. After 20 years of being hyper-visible in a digital world, we have to learn to hold our cards a lot closer to our vests.
When you were first embarking on your journey of organizing and activism, did you get a piece of advice that you have carried with you? Is there some advice you wish you could give your younger self?
The advice that I like to give to people who are interested in making a deeper commitment to social justice is to understand that it is a lifelong thing. There will be wins, there will be losses. I think right now a lot of people are feeling the heaviness of multiple losses, back to back, on different levels. But stick in there and remember that there’s a collective of other big-hearted, empathetic people who are fighting as well.
The other thing that I like to impress upon people is that organizing is really a creative endeavor. I think people are figuring out different ways to organize every day. It helps to start within whatever your craft, or your skill set, or your passion is. There’s something you can tap into in terms of organizing power there.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about being named one of Time’s Women of the Year. What does it mean to receive this honor at this particular moment?
It’s such an honor, and it’s so very humbling. I feel like there’s just so much work to do, and the organizer and activist in me is like, “I have so much on my plate to continue to do. And I know so many people are hurting right now.” I hope that this can be a testament to the power of trans people, Black people, women, and nonbinary people—folks on the margins.
The honor is validating for my work and what I have done as a part of a larger collective. But I don’t need any validation around my identity and my womanhood. I know that despite all of the forces right now, particularly the Trump administration, trying to strip me and other folks of our identities. I don’t give them that permission, and so they can’t do it.