LaSaia Wade
Founder and Executive Director, Brave Space Alliance
Dorothy LaSaia Wade is the founder and executive director of Brave Space Alliance (BSA), Chicago’s first and only Black-led, transgender-staffed LGBTQ center serving the South and West Sides.
Brave Space Alliance is a self-described “for us, by us” organization, founded in part to address the lack of representation of trans people of color in institutions that make decisions affecting their lives, while leveraging community assets that exist in BIPOC LGBTQ+ communities such as strong community ties, informal mutual aid networks, creative thinking and strategizing, and collective analysis of intersecting oppressions. LaSaia has guaranteed that transgender people of color are represented in key decision-making positions at all levels of the organization, from volunteer membership to staff to the board of directors. In Chicago, transgender people of color experience systemic racism, anti-transgender sentiment, and discrimination in education, employment and housing and a 2018 needs assessment conducted by the organization revealed that one in five members of the community live on less than $10,000 a year. During the pandemic, she led the organization to launch a rapid-response food pantry and grocery delivery service for South Side households experiencing food insecurity, so they had access to groceries, fresh produce, and other essential items during the shelter-in-place order. They originally planned to resource 100 households but ended up serving over 80,000 unduplicated people. Today, the food pantry is a permanent installation with three locations across the South and West Sides. It is also the only independent LGBTQIA-run food pantry in the Midwest.
LaSaia is not only amplifying the voices of transgender people of color in Chicago, but she is also building their capacity and decision making at individual, community and city-wide policy levels. She has established Brave Space Alliance as a dedicated space accountable to the community, from sourcing programming ideas to food access to representation. Her voice is crucial to the community and the next generation of transgender leaders and she has created a unique space in Chicago that reimagines how organizations can support and grow the communities they serve.
