Mara Keisling
Founder, National Center for Transgender Equality; Senior Fellow, Searchlight Institute
Every school district has trans kids, and workplaces now have trans people, so folks have to face it now. And that causes conflicts sometimes, but it’s because we’re standing up. We’re being visible.
Mara Keisling is the founder of the National Center for Transgender Equality, which she led as executive director from 2003 until 2021 and which merged with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund in 2024 to form Advocates for Trans Equality. Under her leadership NCTE became the leading national policy organization for transgender people, winning the inclusion of gender identity in proposed federal employment legislation, the first congressional hearing on transgender issues, changes to federal passport and identity-document policy, and numerous federal administrative and state-level advances; it also conducted the U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest survey of transgender people ever undertaken. She is now a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute, where she writes on the future of transgender advocacy. She has appeared frequently on national television and in print as a voice on transgender issues.