Honoring Kiara St. James, a Now-Mighty Transcestor

I just learned today that the indomitable and irreplaceable Kiara St. James (she/her/Goddess) died on May 8, 2026, from complications related to cancer. I am heartbroken to lose yet another trans sibling -- and specifically, a powerful Black transgender woman -- to a healthcare system that ignored, placated, and ultimately waited too long to effectively treat her. Gender affirming care is medically necessary, yes, as is competent and aggressive care for all the other things that ail transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive people throughout our lives.

Kiara and I were both born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, near Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. Kiara escaped before I did, and made her way up the eastern seaboard to New York City, where we met in overlapping activism circles in the early 2010s when I moved there for law school. A co-founder and executive director of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG), she worked tirelessly for the rights of trans women of color in New York City, including efforts to protect trans women from being arrested for "walking while trans" (aka, being assumed to be sex workers by police officers simply for being clocked as gender nonconforming), as well as to destigmatize and decriminalize sex work for all people. I had the honor and privilege of working closely with Kiara on a statewide coalition to get the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA) passed in New York State in 2019, which added statutory protections for all transgender New Yorkers in employment, housing, education, and places of public accommodations.

In 2020, near the beginning of the pandemic -- while I was still a Icelandic sheep farmer and practicing LGBTQ+ civil rights attorney in Upstate New York -- I decided to break the isolation of COVID-19-time quarantine and start a Run for Trans Equality campaign. I worked up to being able to run a marathon in that fall, and got folks to pledge some money amount for every mile I ran in the meantime, which was donated to trans justice orgs (admittedly, it wasn't much, but every little bit helps). As I practiced longer runs, I made short videos giving talks about the state of trans rights and issues in this country, and I also interviewed a few of my favorite trans activists. Kiara was my very first interviewee!

Here is the video of our interview, in hopes of amplifying her message of activism, inspiration, and hope to current and future generations.

Kiara: You were and will always be a source of light, love, and ferocity in this world. Thank you for all you did in this lifetime, and please aid us in the work of revolutionary love and change we will continue to do in your name and spirit. You are so loved and so missed. Rest in power and peace, sister.

Love, Milo