Black History Month - Black Trans Women - February 6th

For today, I want to highlight a Black trans woman whose life challenged legal, medical, and social boundaries decades before the modern civil rights era: Lucy Hicks Anderson. Lucy Hicks Anderson was a Black transgender woman born in 1886 in Kentucky who lived openly as herself for most of her life, at a time when doing so was almost unimaginable. As a teenager, she asserted her identity and was supported by a local doctor who allowed her to live and be recognized as female, an extraordinary occurrence for the early 1900s. She later settled in Oxnard, California, where she became a well known community figure, running boarding houses and earning respect for her presence, style, and leadership. For years, she lived openly as a woman without public controversy, navigating her life with confidence and determination. Her life became a national story in the 1940s when authorities targeted her for fraud after discovering she had been assigned male at birth. Lucy was arrested, publicly humiliated, and imprisoned, not for harming anyone, but for insisting on living authentically. Even in court, she refused to deny who she was, stating plainly that she had lived as a woman her entire life. Lucy Hicks Anderson’s story is not one of celebrity or performance, but of everyday resistance. She reminds us that Black trans women have always existed, built lives, and demanded recognition long before the language of rights or visibility was available. Her courage stands as an early cornerstone of Black trans history, rooted in dignity, self determination, and survival.