Beyond Survival: Building a Boston Where Trans and Gender-Expansive People Thrive
A Kuumba Conversation on Solidarity, Power, and Collective Action

As attacks on trans and gender-expansive communities intensify nationally and locally, Greater Boston faces an important question: what would it truly take to build a city where trans and gender-expansive people — especially Black, Brown, immigrant, and low-income community members — are not simply surviving, but thriving?

Date: Tuesday, September 8th
Time: 10am-12:30pm EDT (doors open at 9:30am EDT)
Location: Kuumba Library, 140 Clarendon Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA 02116

This installment of Kuumba Conversations, convened in partnership with Representative Samantha Montaño, will bring together community leaders, organizers, advocates, care providers, and elected officials for a roundtable discussion centered on collective vision and action. During this conversation, we’ll explore such questions as:

• What does a Boston where trans and gender-expansive people can thrive look like?
• How can we all – grassroots organizers, institutional leaders, funders, care providers, and legislators – work together to make progress towards this future?
• Across sectors, roles, and systems, what does solidarity look like, and how can we practice it with each other? How can we build trust, collaboration, and shared strategy?

Grounded in the spirit of Kuumba — creativity, collective responsibility, and community-building — the conversation aims to foster deeper connection, alignment, and sustained collective action across movements, sectors, and organizations. The event is envisioned as a participatory experience that centers dialogue and engagement over a traditional panel format, with opportunities for attendees to contribute ideas, identify priorities, and shape future collaborative efforts.

Audience members will include organizers, LGBTQ+ advocates, healthcare leaders, youth-serving organizations, philanthropic partners, elected officials, and community members committed to advancing equity and liberation for trans and gender-expansive communities across Greater Boston. 

Funding for this event generously provided by the Equality Fund at the Boston Foundation.

Roundtable Panelists

Lakia Doncheva (she/her), Executive Director, Trans Emergency Fund

Lakia Doncheva serves as the Board President and Executive Director of the Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts (TEF), where she leads one of the Commonwealth’s most impactful organisations dedicated to supporting transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals experiencing homelessness and housing instability. A lifelong advocate for the transgender community, Lakia has devoted her life to advancing equity, dignity, and opportunity through direct service, community organising, and systems change.

Under her leadership, TEF has expanded its transitional housing programme, strengthened partnerships with public agencies and community organizations, and continues working towards long-term solutions that address the root causes of housing insecurity. Lakia believes that affirming housing is more than shelter; it is the foundation for stability, health, employment, and the opportunity for individuals to thrive.

Drawing from both her lived experience and years of advocacy, Lakia is passionate about creating spaces where transgender people are not simply included, but empowered to lead, shape policy, and build stronger communities. Her work focuses on developing sustainable programmes, strengthening nonprofit leadership, and ensuring that transgender voices remain at the centre of conversations affecting their lives.

Lakia is honoured to share her perspective on building a Greater Boston where transgender and gender expansive people can not only survive but truly flourish.

Website: www.transemergencyfund.org

Finn Gardiner (he/they), Director of Advocacy and Organizing, Mass Trans Political Coalition

Finn Gardiner (he/they) is the Director of Advocacy and Organizing at the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, where he leads MTPC’s efforts to advance trans rights and lived equity through intersectional policy advocacy, community organizing, and civic education. He has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Tufts University and a master’s degree in public policy from Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy & Management. Finn can be found at his website, finngardiner.com, or his Bluesky at @phineasfrogg.  

Jullieanne Doherty Lee is a nonbinary, queer visionary, strategist, community and civic leader with more than 20 years in public service, government administration, and community engagement. They currently serve as Executive Director of the City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of LGBTQIA2S+ Advancement (MOLA), leading the City’s work to advance LGBTQIA2S+ equity and build a Boston where LGBTQIA2S+ residents can thrive. As a nonbinary leader in this space, Jullieanne is deeply committed to ensuring trans and gender-expansive people have meaningful input into the policies, programs, and decisions that affect their lives.

A lifelong Bostonian and Boston Public Schools alum, Jullieanne was one of Boston’s first LGBTQ+ Liaisons in the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services and served for six years as the Neighborhood Coordinator for Jamaica Plain, where she worked alongside residents, grassroots organizations, and community leaders to strengthen neighborhoods and civic participation. They later served as Director of Outreach & Engagement at the City of Boston’s Age Strong Commission, focusing on reaching and building relationships with communities that are often the most isolated from City services and resources.

Today, Jullieanne leads the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQIA2S+ Advancement’s work, including policy, community engagement, education, constituent services, and cross-agency collaboration. They are particularly passionate about building strong relationships between City government and LGBTQIA2S+ communities, bringing community voices into decision-making, and helping City departments better understand and respond to the needs of LGBTQIA2S+ residents. Jullieanne has spent years ensuring the City’s work in LGBTQIA2S+ communities goes beyond acceptance and visibility to systems change and community connection. This work includes increasing access to affirming housing, safety, health, and City services.

Jullieanne has been recognized as a City of Boston Civic Hero and has received numerous community service awards, including from Fields Corner Main Street, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and G.O.A.L. New England. They are proud to be making their hometown one where everyone has the opportunity to feel seen, supported, safe, and at home. Jullieanne has committed their life to creating the conditions for trans and gender-expansive people, and all LGBTQIA2S+ residents, to feel safe, build economic stability, find community, and experience a real sense of belonging.

Jullieanne learned to read at the Jamaica Plain Boston Public Library, spent most childhood summers visiting family in Mexico, loves to explore the wonders of space at the Museum of Science, and ultimately followed in mom’s footsteps to become a community leader. Outside of their work at City Hall, Jullieanne loves discovering the latest local restaurants with their wife, Seol, swimming in the ocean, painting, and turning the car ride home after picking up their daughter, Harper, from BPS into an impromptu lip-sync session. Throws rainbow glitter.

Learn more about the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQIA2S+ Advancement at boston.gov/lgbtq.

Nicholas McCaskill (he/they), Interim President, Trans Resistance MA  

Nicholas McCaskill is President of Trans Resistance MA, a Black trans-led nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the health, safety, and self-determination of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive communities across Massachusetts. His work is grounded in addressing the structural inequities that disproportionately affect Black transgender people, recognizing the intersection of racism, transphobia, and socioeconomic marginalization as critical drivers of health and social disparities.

Nicholas is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where his research examines the psychological well-being and resilience of Black transgender men and transmasculine individuals. His scholarly interests focus on identifying protective factors that promote positive mental health outcomes while informing culturally responsive interventions, public policy, and clinical practice. His research emphasizes community-engaged methodologies that center the lived experiences and expertise of Black transgender communities.

As both a researcher and community leader, Nicholas works collaboratively with policymakers, healthcare institutions, and community organizations to translate research into evidence-informed policy and practice. His work advocates for structural approaches that advance health equity and ensure that Black transgender people are not only represented in policy discourse but are recognized as essential partners in developing sustainable, community-centered solutions to persistent social and health inequities. 

Grace Sterling Stowell (she/they), Executive Director, BAGLY

Grace Sterling Stowell has been a pioneering activist and leader in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) youth, transgender and social justice communities for over 40 years.

As a gender non-conforming child growing up queer and transgender in the 1960’s, Grace’s personal experiences of harassment, discrimination and violence served as a catalyst for her activism in the feminist, racial justice, holistic health, and LGBTQ movements of the 1970’s.

In 1980, Grace joined the founders of the newly formed Boston Alliance of LGBTQ Youth (BAGLY), one of the earliest LGBTQ youth groups in the nation.  As BAGLY’s first (and only) executive director, Grace led youth and adult leaders in its expansion from a Boston-based, all volunteer, grassroots social support group, to an established statewide non-profit organization, including the AGLY Network of Massachusetts.  BAGLY’s youth-led programs were among the first of their kind, and have served as a local and national model and resource for LGBTQ youth leadership development and community organizing.

In the 1990’s, Grace was a leader in the pioneering national movement to expand community organizing, advocacy, and support for the LGBTQ youth and transgender communities.  Grace was a founding member of several local and national LGBTQ youth and transgender advocacy organizations, including the National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC) for LGBTQ youth, and she is believed to be the first openly transgender person to address the health care issues of trans youth with senior staff at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA.

As executive director of BAGLY, a founding member of both the MA Commission on LGBTQ Youth and the MA Unaccompanied Homeless Youth Commission, and long time Steering Committee member of the MA Transgender Political Coalition, Grace continues to advocate for the needs of LGBTQ youth and transgender communities throughout the Commonwealth. Most recently, Grace was among the leaders of the successful effort to add gender identity to the Massachusetts non-discrimination laws in 2011, expand gender identity protections in public accommodations in 2016, and defend gender identity protections at the statewide ballot box as part of the Freedom MA Yes On 3 Campaign in 2018.

Grace is now the longest-tenured transgender executive director in the nation (and one of the few leading a non-trans-specific organization), and she has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work, including the National LGBTQ Task Force’s “Susan J. Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement” award in 2010.  While Grace has served many roles in her community work over the past four decades, she remains especially honored to be known as “Mother” (and now “Grandmother!”) by three generations of LGBTQ youth.