Message from National NOW President Kim Villanueva
November 21, 2025
As Transgender Awareness Week concludes, we’re reminded that this was not just a week of visibility — this was a week of truth-telling. Between November 13–19, people and organizations across the country came together to uplift transgender voices, stories, and lives. And every year, we’re confronted with the urgency of this work.
On Transgender Day of Remembrance, we paused to honor the transgender people whose lives were taken by hate, violence, and despair. This year’s Remembrance Report from Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) names 58 transgender individuals who have died since November 2024. Twenty-seven were killed by violence. Twenty-one died by suicide.
Each of these lives mattered. Each had hopes, talents, families, friends, and futures that should never have been cut short. Their deaths are not isolated tragedies; they are the consequence of a country where transgender people are relentlessly targeted, misunderstood, and dehumanized.
NOW members know this too well. We have watched as transgender people become political scapegoats, as safety nets are dismantled, and as institutions meant to ensure justice look away. Legislative attacks and public hostility are not abstract debates — they are conditions that endanger lives.
That’s why NOW stepped forward as a Friend of the Court in two upcoming Supreme Court cases. The outcomes will determine whether transgender students — and all students — can fully participate in school sports without fear and without discrimination. Even more, these decisions could redefine the very meaning of sex discrimination protections in this country.
Most legal scholars believe that state bans that push girls and women out of sports because of their gender identity are unconstitutional. But these bans are also something deeper: they are messages meant to shame, exclude, and erase people who deserve safety, dignity, and respect.
Rep. Becca Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, captured this truth with powerful clarity:
“Every student deserves to feel safe and supported, on their sports team and in the classroom, regardless of their identity… Congress should stay out of policing our kids’ bodies.”
These are not just policy battles. They are fights for human lives. They are fights for young people who want to play sports with their friends. For adults who want to live openly without fear. For families who want their children to feel loved and protected.
NOW will not look away. We will stay present, persistent, and unafraid — in the courts, in communities, in statehouses, and at the ballot box.
Equality is a promise we intend to keep — for everyone.
Until justice is ours,
Kim Villanueva
