As we come into a new year, I want to pause and honor the fullness of everything 2025 held for WAVE Women Inc. and for me personally. This past year reminded us that joy and grief often walk side by side, shaping us, strengthening us, and calling us deeper into purpose.
There were moments of celebration and collective pride, most notably our 5 Anniversary WAVE Gala; a powerful night of community, visibility, and love. Seeing our supporters, partners, and chosen family gathered in one space affirmed why this work matters and how far we have come together. It was a reminder that WAVE is not just an organization; it is a movement rooted in resilience, creativity, and care.
At the same time, 2025 carried profound loss. We mourned the passing of my cousin, Danny Dusse, whose absence is deeply felt in my heart and within our family. Grief has a way of slowing us down and asking us to move with tenderness, reflection, and grace. Our community was also devastated by the loss of a legend in the fight for Black Trans liberation, Miss Major Griffin-Gracey. In that loss, I was reminded that our work must always center humanity, mental health, compassion, and the honoring of life in all its seasons.
I am intentional to walk mighty into 2026 with the strength found in community, the necessity of rest and remembrance, and the unwavering commitment to show up for one another. Thank you to all of you for walking alongside WAVE through every high and every low. Together, we continue.
Javannah J. Davis Founding President J. President
ut reflection; it is about reckoning. Black lives k LGBTQ+ people, especially Black Trans and er is recurring, systemic, and deeply personal.
being legislated, policed, erased, and mourned. nged while anti-LGBTQ+ attacks intensify in tehouses. The repetition is haunting. New laws, grief from losing loved ones. History keeps s without protection is fragile.
Black LGBTQ+ history has always been rooted in resistance. We have been central to every movement for liberation, even when our names were left out. We build chosen families, create safety where none exists, and keep showing up for one another in the face of exhaustion and loss.
Black Hist
Black LGBTQ+ lives are not an afterthought in history. We are living history, still here, still fighting, still loving, and still demanding a future where Black lives are no longer repeatedly placed in harm’s way.
THE COST OF I.C.E.
A NATIONAL IN CRISIS
We are living in a time where cruelty has been normalized under the guise of “law and order,” put in place under this despicable Trump Administration. No other institutions embody this more clearly than Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.).
What has transpired under the watch of this agency is not merely a series of isolated incidents or bureaucratic failures. Murders. Kidnappings. It is a systemic pattern of dehumanization that has become a profound detriment to our society as a whole.
I.C.E. was created under the pretense of public safety. That was a LIE!
In practice, it has too often functioned as an engine of fear, trauma, and destabilization, particularly within Black, Brown, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ communities. Families are torn apart. Children are separated from caregivers. People seeking safety, stability, and dignity are instead met with detention, neglect, violence, and even death.
Reports have documented hundreds of allegations of sexual assault within I.C.E. and Border Patrol custody, alongside preventable deaths and widespread medical neglect. Detention facilities are routinely plagued by overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and delayed or denied medical care. These are not conditions that align with any humane, moral, or democratic value we claim to uphold.
When a society accepts cages instead of care, punishment instead of protection, and surveillance instead of support, we are not just harming immigrants. We are eroding our collective humanity.
THE COST OF I.C.E.
A NATIONAL IN CRISIS
The presence of I.C.E. raids in neighborhoods do not create safety. It creates terror. Parents become afraid to take their children to school. Survivors hesitate to seek medical care. Workers endure exploitation in silence, knowing that reporting abuse could mean deportation or detention. This climate of fear weakens communities, fractures trust, and undermines public health and public safety for everyone.
As a Black Woman of Trans experience and a community advocate, I see firsthand how state violence compounds vulnerability. Many of the people targeted by I.C.E. already exist at the intersections of racism, poverty, Transphobia, and xenophobia. For them, detention is not just incarceration. It is often a death sentence disguised as policy.
We must also confront the moral contradiction of funding systems that harm while neglecting investments that heal. Every dollar poured into detention centers, militarized enforcement, and surveillance is a dollar taken away from housing, healthcare, education, mental health services, and community-based support systems that actually make our society stronger.
This is not about borders alone. It is about values.
A society that allows people to die in custody, that separates children from their families, and that treats migration as a crime rather than a human reality is a society in crisis. We cannot claim justice while excusing cruelty. We cannot claim safety while manufacturing fear. And we cannot claim freedom while denying it to those deemed “other.”
A NATIONAL IN CRISIS
The question is not whether this system is broken. The evidence is overwhelming.
The real question is whether we are willing to say, collectively and unequivocally, this is not who we are and this is not the future we accept. Our liberation is bound together. When we allow injustice to thrive anywhere, it weakens justice everywhere.
And that is a cost we can no longer afford.
Iam
There comes a defining moment in a woman ’ s life when survival is no longer enough. When resilience, though powerful, becomes exhausting. When we realize that constantly proving our worth to a world determined to question it is not empowerment, but endurance. For me, that moment arrived quietly yet decisively, anchored in one undeniable truth: I am enough.
At my big age, and as a Black woman of Trans experience, my life has been shaped by navigating systems that were never designed with my safety or affirmation in mind. It wasn’t until my transition late in life, but right on time, that I learned how to perform strength, how to minimize my needs, and how to make myself palatable in spaces where my existence was already considered a disruption. I had to unlearn to overextend, overexplain, and overdeliver just to be seen as worthy.
Recognizing that I am enough did not come easily. It emerged through years of advocacy, leadership, and community care, often at the expense of my own wellbeing. I poured into others while quietly questioning my own value. I uplifted voices while silencing parts of myself. It was through moments of exhaustion, grief, and reflection that I began to understand that self recognition is not selfish. It is necessary!
This understanding is the foundation of my pageant platform, E.N.O.U.G.H., a framework for self empowerment rooted in internal validation rather than external approval.
Iam
E = Embracing self worth
N = Naming my truth
O = Owning my power
U = Understanding my value
G = Grounding myself in my purpose
H = Honoring the Woman I am without apology.
This platform is both personal and communal. It reflects my journey and the collective experience of so many Black and Latinx Trans and gender nonconforming people who have been taught to look outward for acceptance while being denied affirmation within.
Through my work with youth and community members, I have witnessed how early messages of inadequacy take hold. Young people are conditioned to believe their worth is tied to conformity, visibility, or survival. E.N.O.U.G.H. challenges that narrative. It invites individuals to look inward, to recognize that their existence is valid without permission, and to understand that empowerment begins when we stop abandoning ourselves for the comfort of others.
This is why I am entering the Miss Black Trans International Pageant in April 2026; during the Black Trans Advocacy Conference. This decision is not about a crown or a title. It is about intentional visibility. It is about occupying space with purpose and showing what it looks like when a Black Trans Woman stands fully in her truth, not seeking approval, but offering affirmation. The pageant is a platform, and I am using it to amplify a message that too often goes unheard.
Saying I am enough is not a declaration of arrival. It is a commitment to self honor. It does not deny growth or accountability. Instead, it affirms that my humanity is not conditional. It is a refusal to shrink, to silence myself, or to perform pain for legitimacy. It is choosing wholeness over harm and authenticity over fear.
As I step onto this global stage, I carry with me the stories of those who came before me and the hopes of those who are still learning to see themselves clearly. I stand as a reflection of what is possible when we choose ourselves without apology. I stand not despite my journey, but because of it.
I am E.N.O.U.G.H….and in claiming that truth, I invite others to do the same.
If you’d like to help me make this journey, monetary support can be made as following:
ON NOVEMBER 1 5 2 0 2 5 , WAVE WOMEN INC . MARKED ITS FIFTH ANNIVERSARY WITH THE RADICAL LOVE INAUGURAL AWARDS CEREMONY AND GALA , A MOMENT THAT CONTINUES TO RESONATE
ON NOVEMBER 15 2025, WAVE WOMEN INC. MARKED ITS FIFTH ANNIVERSARY WITH THE RADICAL LOVE INAUGURAL AWARDS CEREMONY GALA, A MOMENT THAT CONTINUES TO RESONATE EMPTIED.
LONG AFTER THE LIGHTS DIMMED AND THE ROOM EMPTIED . IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED , I INTENTIONALLY SLOWED DOWN , ALLOWING MYSELF THE SPACE TO FULLY ABSORB WHAT THE EVENING REPRESENTED : FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE , RESILIENCE , AND COMMUNITY ROOTED LEADERSHIP.
DAYS FOLLOWED, INTENTIONALLY SLOWED DOWN, ALLOWING MYSELF THE SPACE TO FULLY ABSORB WHAT THE EVENING REPRESENTED: FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE, RESILIENCE, AND COMMUNITY ROOTED LEADERSHIP.
THE GALA WAS MORE THAN A CELEBRATION . IT WAS A REFLECTION OF THE COLLECTIVE CARE , TRUST , AND PARTNERSHIP THAT HAVE SUSTAINED WAVE WOMEN INC . SINCE ITS FOUNDING . SURROUNDED BY FAMILY , FRIENDS , COMMUNITY MEMBERS , AND PARTNERS , THE ROOM HELD A SHARED UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS WORK EXISTS BECAUSE PEOPLE CHOSE TO BELIEVE IN IT AND TO INVEST IN IT.
CELEBRATION. THE COLLECTIVE CARE, TRUST, AND PARTNERSHIP SUSTAINED WAVE WOMEN INC. SINCE ITS FOUNDING. SURROUNDED BY FAMILY, FRIENDS, COMMUNITY MEMBERS, AND PARTNERS, THE ROOM HELD A SHARED UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS WORK EXISTS BECAUSE IT IT.
EVERY ELEMENT OF THE EVENING REFLECTED THE VALUES AT THE CORE OF WAVE WOMEN INC . ’ S MISSION . FROM THE HONOREES AND PERFORMERS TO THE PARTNERS AND SPONSORS WHO HELPED BRING THE VISION TO LIFE , THE NIGHT AFFIRMED WHY RADICAL LOVE IS NOT SIMPLY A THEME , BUT A PRACTICE . IT REMINDED US THAT WHEN COMMUNITIES ARE RESOURCED AND SUPPORTED , THEY CREATE SPACES OF HEALING , JOY , AND ACCOUNTABILITY. WHAT REMAINS MOST POWERFUL IN REFLECTION IS THE REMINDER THAT THIS MILESTONE WAS NOT REACHED ALONE . EVERY ELEMENT OF THE EVENING REFLECTED THE VALUES AT THE CORE OF WAVE WOMEN INC.’S MISSION. THE WHO HELPED BRING THE VISION TO LIFE, THE NIGHT AFFIRMED WHY RADICAL LOVE IS NOT SIMPLY A THEME, BUT A PRACTICE. IT REMINDED US THAT WHEN COMMUNITIES ARE RESOURCED SUPPORTED, THEY HEALING, JOY, ACCOUNTABILITY.WHAT REMAINS MOST POWERFUL IN REFLECTION IS THE REMINDER THAT THIS MILESTONE WAS NOT REACHED ALONE.
RADICAL RADICALLOVELOVEGALA: GALA:
ANIGHTOFREFLECTION ANIGHTOFREFLECTION
THE SUCCESS OF THE GALA , AND OF THE ORGANIZATION ’ S FIRST FIVE YEARS , WAS BUILT THROUGH COLLABORATION AND SHARED COMMITMENT . FOR FUNDERS AND PARTNERS , THE EVENING STOOD AS A TESTAMENT TO THE IMPACT OF INVESTING IN COMMUNITY LED WORK THAT CENTERS DIGNITY , SUSTAINABILITY , AND LONG TERM CHANGE .
GALA, ORGANIZATION’S YEARS, WAS BUILT THROUGH COLLABORATION AND SHARED COMMITMENT. FOR FUNDERS AND PARTNERS, THE EVENING STOOD AS A TESTAMENT TO THE IMPACT OF INVESTING IN COMMUNITY LED WORK THAT CENTERS DIGNITY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND LONG TERM CHANGE.
AS WAVE WOMEN INC . MOVES FORWARD , THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONTINUES TO SERVE AS A GROUNDING MOMENT , ONE THAT HONORS THE PAST WHILE CLARIFYING THE PATH AHEAD . IT REINFORCED THAT THIS WORK MATTERS , THAT PARTNERSHIP MATTERS , AND THAT TOGETHER , WE ARE BUILDING SOMETHING LASTING .
AS WAVE WOMEN INC. MOVES FORWARD, THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONTINUES TO SERVE AS A GROUNDING MOMENT, ONE THAT HONORS THE PAST WHILE CLARIFYING THE PATH AHEAD. IT REINFORCED THAT THIS WORK MATTERS, THAT PARTNERSHIP MATTERS, THAT TOGETHER, ARE LASTING.
RADICAL RADICALLOVELOVEGALA: GALA:
ANIGHTOFREFLECTION ANIGHTOFREFLECTION
GALASNAPSHOTS GALASNAPSHOTS GALASNAPSHOTS
I’m writing this as Danny’s cousin, from a place of deep grief, love, and concern for our community.
I regret that I missed so much of Danny’s life. We didn’t see each other often, but whenever we did, it was always love. Always laughter. Always family. Distance never changed that bond, and time never erased it. Danny carried a light that reached people in ways I’m still learning about. Hearing the stories shared by friends, community, and chosen family has shown me just how much impact Danny had on the lives of others. That legacy matters. That love matters.
This loss cuts deep, not just because we lost someone we love, but because so many in our community carry heavy pain every day. Too many Black and Brown LGBTQ siblings feel restricted from being themselves out of fear. Fear of losing loved ones, fear of being shunned, fear of being misunderstood or unsafe. That fear takes a toll. When it becomes too much, too heavy, it can lead people to a place no human should have to endure alone.
The grief I feel for Danny is intertwined with a collective sorrow. For all the ones we ’ ve already lost, for those struggling now, and for the lives that could still be here if they had the support and care they deserved.
Mental health matters. Danny’s life mattered. Danny’s story mattered. Danny’s life reminds me, and all of us, that love, community, and support can be lifesaving. Let’s keep showing up for each other. Let’s make space for truth, healing, and care. Let’s honor those we ’ ve lost by protecting those who are still here.
Family is forever. Love doesn’t disappear. Rest in peace, cousin. You are loved. You are remembered…always.
or someone know is struggling, lonely, hopeless, thinking about suicide, please reach You do carry pain in
If you or someone you know is struggling, overwhelmed, lonely, hopeless, or thinking about suicide, please reach out. You do not have to carry this pain in silence.
ASacredGathering forTransLiberation
In a world that often demands our resilience but rarely offers us rest, the Sisters of Eternal Essence,partnering withtheMarshaP.JohnsonInstitute,emergeswithTHEFAMILYGATHERING;a sanctuary. A transformative space born from love, led by purpose, and sustained by the sacred bond between Transgender/GNC people across the country. Rooted in the wisdom of our ancestors and the brilliance of our lived experiences, this collective exists to offer something our communityhaslongbeendenied:peace,healing,andradicaljoy.
Our mission is clear and unwavering; to unite Trans/GNC individuals in a safe and affirming environment that celebrates harmony, joy, wisdom, and love. Unlike traditional gatherings centered on institutional hierarchy or professional gain, this convening will be grounded in communitycare,freefromtheconstantpressureofsurvival.Withallcostsfortravel,lodging,and meals covered, our intention is simple but revolutionary: to create a space where Trans and GNC peoplecangathertolaugh,toheal,toshare,andtojustbe!
AtatimewhenBlackandBrownTranswomenandfemmescontinuetobearthebruntofsystemic injustice, the Sisters of Eternal Essence offers more than an event, we strive to offer liberation. Throughpeer-ledskillsharing,sharedmeals,andmomentsofrest,wearebuildingafuturerooted notinscarcityorfear,butinabundance,affirmation,andcommunity-ledwisdom.Thisisnotjusta gathering. This is a reclamation. We look forward to welcoming you to, “The Family Gathering” August2026.
ute 2026 Calendar is a bold, unapolog . Set against a backdrop of resistance honors the brilliance of trans women who continue to stand tall, e to burn us down.
This is not just a calendar. It is art. Legacy. Protest. Celebration.
This calendar is a year lived in relationship with BLACK trans leadership. Featuring Dominique Jackson, Isis King, Javannah Davis, Dominique Morgan, Hope Giselle, Diamond Stylz, Jasmine Tasaki, and other pioneering changemakers, Resilience Thru Destruction stands as a visual testament to what it means to remain grounded and unshaken as the world transforms around us.
In the know! BULLETIN
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A LGBTQIA HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IN CENTRAL & WESTERN NY?
DISCLAIMER: THERE IS STILL A STRUGGLE WITHIN OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM WHEN IT COMES TO CULTURALLY COMPETENT CARE FOR BLACK AND BROWN TRANS/GNC INDIVIDUALS ALWAYS SPEAK UP REGARDING WHAT YOUR HEALTHCARE SHOULD LOOK LIKE FOR YOU.
Wave
The world feels quieter when we lose a legend. Not because the fight has ended, but because the room no longer hums with the presence of someone who made courage feel possible simply by existing. Some people do not just enter spaces. They shift them. They recalibrate what we believe we are allowed to demand, to survive, and to become.
I had the honor of caring for her. Not as a spectator, not as someone reading history after it was written, but as her nurse, present in moments that mattered. Moments that were not polished for public memory or wrapped in ceremony. Moments rooted in humanity. In trust. In vulnerability. The kind of time that is sacred because it is quiet, honest, and irreplaceable.
Being in that role taught me something profound. Healing is not just clinical. It is ancestral. It is political. It is deeply personal. Care is not only about tending to the body, but about witnessing a life that has carried generations forward through sheer refusal to disappear. I did not just provide care. I received instruction.
Mother Major didn’t just open doors. She showed me how to kick the fucking thing in when the system said no, look it dead in the eye, and say, “I said YES!”. She taught me that permission is not something we wait for. It’s something we take, especially when our lives depend on it.
I’m grateful to have learned that survival is not an individual achievement but a collective act, and that liberation requires audacity. She modeled how to fight systems with love in one hand and fire in the other, without apologizing for either. She showed me that softness and strength are not opposites. They are partners.
Walking beside her, even briefly, is something I will carry for the rest of my life. Legends do not leave us empty when they transition. They leave us equipped. They leave us sharpened. They leave us with instructions written into our bones.
Her rest is deserved. The work, however, continues. And every time I am told no by a system built to exclude, I will hear her voice in my spirit reminding me that doors were never meant to contain us. I will kick them in, carrying her legacy forward, every single time, telling everyone that “I am STILL fucking her!”
