In August 2019, six weeks after Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen joined the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) as deputy executive director, news broke that the Justice Department, under President Donald Trump, had asked the Supreme Court to legalize firing transgender workers on the basis of their gender identity.
But at one of the moments it was needed most, the nation’s premier transgender policy nonprofit, which had worked shoulder-to-shoulder with presidential administrations, sat empty.
Earlier that same day, the staff had walked out over the way the organization treated its employees of color.
Yet Heng-Lehtinen is hopeful for the future of NCTE and the future of transgender rights.
“With the anti trans-bills, this is what 2008 to 2011 more or less felt like on marriage equality and LGBT umbrella protections,” he said. “We lost those all around the country for years. We were just getting clobbered until we started winning and the tide turned.”
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While the organization is working to staff back to full capacity, Heng-Lehtinen has prioritized diversifying its roster: nine of its 15 staffers are people of color. NCTE has formally recognized its employees union. The organization is actively partnering with smaller transgender organizations that serve people of color, especially in relaunching its now two-year delayed U.S. Transgender Survey.
