Overview: Trans Leadership Award
Vasquez, 27, is in charge of the transgender and nonbinary support program at the San Diego LGBT Community Center.
The first-ever Julia Legaspi Trans Leadership Award winner, Bliss Vasquez, will be recognized at Friday’s San Diego PrideSpirit of Stonewall Rally.
Legaspi, a stalwart of the San Diego LGBTQ+ community for decades, passed away last April at the age of 71. The new accolade bears his name.
She was a proud Filipina transsexual immigrant who worked for numerous charity organizations and on the county and local human rights commissions.
She was only the third transgender person in the country and the first in San Diego to be appointed to public office.
Vasquez, 27, is in charge of the transgender and nonbinary support program at the San Diego LGBT Community Center.
In their own time, they manage Gender Enders Meet (GEM), an LGBT online community that was established in 2021. It provides isolated community members with an opportunity to make friends in all their quirkiness, whether due to their remote residence or immunocompromised state.
According to Vasquez, “I feel fueled by the joys that I get to experience, living my most authentic self, and being with other transgender, queer people,” even though “fighting transphobia is an uphill battle.”
Despite being significantly younger than Legaspi, Vasquez has several characteristics with the award’s namesake.
They have things in common, like being incredibly spiritual and caring, but not the most vocal supporters in any setting. But like Legaspi, Vasquez works quietly to help others and achieves a lot.
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Legaspi and I only met once, following a contentious debate in which a fellow commissioner and religious leader referred to transgender persons as an abomination and the county human rights commission’s failure to issue a statement condemning transphobia. After the incident, Legaspi was distraught and crying, but she was still giving when she talked to me.
Vasquez was all too familiar with the remarks.
They believe that the biggest problem facing San Diego’s transgender community, aside from a shortage of housing, is inadequate treatment.
According to Vasquez, we need to enhance people’s perceptions of transgender people as well as their perceptions of the difference period.
However, discrimination and housing can be linked.
Vasquez, a former frontline caseworker, has witnessed it firsthand. People who go in person to apply for apartments or employment are turned away as soon as they are examined. “That is so ridiculous and disgusting,” he said.
Vasquez, who grew up in Southeast San Diego, believed that the only options available to LGBT people were to live in Hillcrest, perform drag, or be homeless. It changed my life to meet an LGBT librarian in high school.
Their own professional path has been challenging, with problems obtaining interviews and a CEO at a nearby NGO stating that they should look for another position if Vasquez couldn’t adjust to being misgendered.
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They are also aware that a trans person may be having difficulty making ends meet or obtaining gender-affirming treatment, even if they are getting recognition or seem to be successful.
Vasquez continues to advocate for their community in pragmatic ways, but also through joy and connection, despite the emotional and financial costs associated with being publicly transgender.
Knowing that so many of our transgender people don’t get to experience that moment or that there are those out there who simply don’t want us to be happy and instead want to see us dead makes me thankful to be alive right now, Vasquez added. I live out of spite because of that hatred.
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