2020 has left many in the U.S. and around the world more vulnerable than ever. Thankfully, there are organizations out there working hard to keep humans and animals and the planet afloat during our most trying times.

Founded in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender woman, to memorialise the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts, it’s since evolved into a day on which all trans people lost are remembered, and on which attention is drawn to transphobic violence.

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The Okra Project was founded nearly a year and a half ago by Ianne Fields Stewart to combat food insecurity in the Black transgender community. However, extraordinary events like the pandemic and protests have expanded its mission while making its work more essential than ever.

It is impossible to declare that Black lives matter without reiterating the fact that Black trans lives matter. While much of the public conversation about police violence tends to overemphasize cisgender Black men, Black liberation isn’t possible unless all Black lives are valued and protected. More specifically, our society must reckon with the ways that transphobia and state-sanctioned violence—at the hands of police officers and civilians—continue to harm Black trans and gender nonconforming people.

"Horton and Ilunga are the executive producers and hosts of a new docuseries, NATAL, which focuses on the entirety of the childbirthing journey through the eyes of black parents and the birth workers, medical professionals and advocates who support them."