Houston Transgender Unity Banquet Celebrates 26 Years

By Autumn Rendall

The Houston Transgender Unity Banquet, the largest annual transgender community event in the city, is celebrating its 26th anniversary on Saturday, September 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Doubletree by Hilton Houston Intercontinental Airport.

The Houston Transgender Unity Committee (HTUC) hosts the banquet every year to honor and acknowledge the advocates and allies within the transgender community. The event raises money for scholarships, Houston Pride, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, annual recognition awards, and other small grants.

This year, LGBTQ social justice advocates Shane Whalley and Trudie Jackson will be the event’s keynote speakers. Both say they are honored to be a part of the banquet, and that they believe it is an important event for the Houston transgender community. “Times are changing. The generation is changing,” Jackson says. “Individuals that identify outside of the gender binary are raising their voices and their presence to where there’s more visibility of the trans community in all different communities.”

Jackson is a member of the Navajo Nation and identifies as a 5th gender person. She is a second-year doctoral student at the University of New Mexico in American studies with a research focus on American Indian transgender women in urban areas. “Being American Indian and transgender, it’s like I am facing barriers in two areas,” Jackson says. She also founded the Southwest American Indian Rainbow Gathering, which addresses health disparities of American Indians who identify as Two-Spirit.

In 2008, she received the Marty Prairie Red Ribbon Award from the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center for her strong voice, action, and leadership in tribal communities. In 2017, she was awarded the Equality Arizona Skip Schrader Spirit of Activism Award at the It Gets Better Conference in Tucson, Arizona. Now living in Albuquerque, she is a board member for the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico. “Events like the banquet allow individuals to share in their struggle, but also in their successes,” Jackson says. “They inspire the attendees to really think about giving to the event, so they can help support emerging trans communities that may be interested in pursuing higher education.”

Whalley owns Daring Dialogues Consulting, which offers consultation and workshops on LGBTQ identities, sexism, the concepts of power, privilege, and oppression, and cultural humility. Ze received a master’s degree in social work from the University of Texas and is a Licensed Master Social Worker. “One of the reasons that I wanted to do education work is to make change one workshop at a time,” Whalley says.

Since 2003, Whalley has been an adjunct faculty member at the UT School of Social Work and has taught classes on LGBTQ identities, social justice frameworks, and introductory classes to the field of social work. For seven years, Whalley was also the education coordinator for the UT Gender and Sexuality Center. Ze received the 2017 Alumni of the Year award for the UT School of Social Work and was the 2011 recipient of the Texas Exes Teaching Excellence award. “[The banquet is a great time] to celebrate together, to grieve together, and to fight [alongside] each other,” Whalley says. “All of us individually are enough, but together, we can be a mighty power.”

HTUC explains that, in many cases, members of the transgender community face additional barriers to higher education, and must work harder to achieve their academic goals. That’s why, every year, the banquet’s Peggy Rudd Transgender Scholarship Fund recognizes outstanding transgender students by awarding around $1,000 to one or more individuals to support their continuing education. “I think we’ve always been, as a community, trying to figure out how we can help people financially to get surgery and hormones, and with their education,” Whalley says.

“If you have goals in mind, if you have a desire to create change, that is possible,” Jackson adds.

Doors for the 26th annual Houston Transgender Unity Banquet open at 6:30 p.m. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit unitybanquet.com.