Artist, advocate, and educator Hazel Edwards is the executive director of GALAEI, a “QTBIPOC radical social justice organization in Philadelphia.” Edwards says her work is “rooted in community care, education, racial justice, and trans liberation.”
The pansexual transgender community leader, 29, has had her share of challenges in life, like “being pushed out of high school for coming out as trans and [experiencing] homelessness as a young person,” she shares, “but those experiences became the foundation for my organizing and my commitment to fighting for my community. What keeps me grounded is knowing that I was never meant to carry this work alone, and that by trusting myself, my community, and the universe, I know everything will be OK.”
“I want the world to understand that Black trans people are not just surviving. We are leading, creating, organizing, loving, building, and imagining futures that have not been built yet,” Edwards says. “I’m here because my community believed in me, and I want every young Black trans person to know that where you come from does not determine where you can go. Your story is not something you have to hide. It can become part of your power.” @galaeiphilly
