35 YEARS OF TTO PRIDE
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35 YEARS OF TTO PRIDE 〰️
In a world that actively fights
against Queer and
Trans liberation, we need
your support now.
YOU are a very necessary star in the many constellations of TTO. Enter the portal, and join TTO in creating a better collective future.
For our 35th Pride season at TTO, we’re highlighting the changemakers who have paved the path we walk on and uplift the innovators who break new ground towards a liberated queer future for Boston. These artists, advocates and community leaders refuse to accept oppression as their reality; instead, they look beyond the edge and launch into the fertile unknown. Join us in celebrating them this Pride season!
As the founding (and only) Executive Director of Boston Alliance of LGBTQ Youth (BAGLY), Grace Sterling Stowell has been a pioneer for LGBTIA+ youth activism for over 40 years. She is the longest serving transgender Executive Director in the nation, and has served as a mentor for countless Queer and Trans youth.
GRACE sterling STOWELL
Genderful icon, diva, singer, and “Queen of Disco” Sylvester was a pioneer for AIDs activism through music, with proceeds from his estate all benefitting AIDS activism organizations.
SYLVESTER
laWHORE VAGISTAN
Former TTO Board Member Kareem Kubchandani (alternatively known as everyone’s favorite desi drag aunty LaWhore Vagistan) is a scholar, drag performer, and educator whose scholarship is vital in creating frameworks for decolonizing drag.
Fleeing the Jim Crow South in the 1950’s by way of Boston and then Canada, Jackie Shane paved a path for early transgender representation in Soul and R&B music, becoming a major recording artist in Toronto.
JACKIE shane
Former TTO resident artist Adil Mansoor’s innovative work centers queer Muslim voices through unique, transmedia modes of storytelling. After being developed at TTO, Mansoor’s Amm(i)gone will be touring nationally with Woolly Mammoth theater throughout 2024.
adil MANSOOR
As a self-proclaimed "World Builder" and "Story Doula", former TTO Radical Futures artist AnAkA’s artistry is created through Afro Indigenous practices and rituals. Their artistry continues to gain international recognition from recent collaborations with artists such as Janelle Monae.
AnAkA
EBONY Noelle Golden
Former TTO Radical Futures artist Ebony Noelle Golden is a theatrical ceremonialist, culture strategist, entrepreneur, and public scholar. Ebony’s episode of Radical Futures, Jubilee 11213: The Keeping, explored practices of social good, self-determination, spirituality, sensuality, and sovereignty as critical components of the Black liberation continuum.
Board Treasurer Cheryl Schaffer has been a longtime supporter of issues impacting the QTPOC community, from her work as a labor organizer wiith the ILGWU and District 925 SEIU, with the New England Innocence Project, and her work as the Deputy Director of the AIDS Action Committee of MA.
Cheryl Schaffer
Senator William Brownsberger has served as a vital government supporter of The Theater Offensive’s capital campaign through his advocacy for changes in building code policy. These changes in legislation will enable The Boylston Black Box to have gender inclusive bathrooms, serving the needs of our community.
Senator WILLIAM Brownsberger
Kathryn Willmore has led an illustrious career, from being the former vice president of MIT, to involvement in the founding of Sojourner, one of the nation’s longest running feminist newspapers. As a TTO supporter since 1998, Kathryn Willmore’s allyship has been vital in sustaining TTO’s legacy and future growth.
Kathryn WILLMORE
Local educator and rock musician Rita Hester became an ancestor as the result of a hate crime right here in Allston, MA in 1998. Her death was the catalyst that sparked the yearly observation of Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is now observed internationally.
RITA hester
Sought-after public speaker and preacher Reverend Irene Monroe is a Black lesbian feminist public theologian who has paved important new ground in the fight against homophobia in religious theories and discourse in the US.
Reverend IRENE Monroe
Congresswoman AYANNA Pressley
As a vocal supporter for LGBTQIA+ rights nationally, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley has been a vital government supporter of building TTO’s new home in the Fenway.
Artist Sharon Bridgforth’s writing, performance artistry, and theatrical jazz composition queerly embodies the unbending dignity, commitment to community, self-determination and love of Black cultures.
SHARON Bridgforth
A long-time member of TTO’s community, TTO produced Letta’s first play, Hamartia Blues, in 2002. In addition to being the co-artistic director of Fort Point Theater Channel, Letta is a Black lesbian playwright, performer, poet, mother, teacher and community activist who has been involved in progressive, anti-racist and queer liberation movements all her adult life.
LETTA neely
As founders of LGBTQ+ Elders of Color, married couple Charles Edwards and Paul Glass exemplify a lifelong commitment to volunteership, advocacy, and activism by and for QTPOC communities.
CHARLES Edwards & Paul GLASS
Former TTO Radical Futures artist Chetna Mehta’s artistic practice centers expressive healing arts and reflective community circles, utilizing themes like collective purpose, holistic well-being, decolonizing and liberatory creativity, compassionate connection and peaceful communication.
Chetna Mehta
Pomo Afro Homos was a theater trio whose internationally acclaimed work offered vital representation of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the Black community. After originally performing with TTO as part of their 1992 tour, Pomo Afro Homos Fierce Love: Stories from Black Gay Life re-mounted its original 1991 production at TTO in 2012.
Pomo AFRO Homos
Through his work as a consultant, particularly with TDC, Gordon has dedicated his career to helping nonprofits succeed, including TTO partners such as Fenway Health and Hyde Square Task Force. His long-term dedication to serving organizations that help communities thrive is exemplified through his monthly giving to TTO.
