Vanessa Edwards Foster

Vanessa Edwards Foster traces her journey from discovering the word 'transsexual' through Renee Richards in 1976 to becoming a pioneering transgender activist. Growing up in the 1960s and navigating isolation through the seventies and eighties, she attended Fantasia Fair in Provincetown and explored Houston's drag scene at The Exile in the late 1980s. After accessing hormones from Dr. Anthony without gatekeeping requirements, rapid feminization led to job loss in 1996, inadvertently launching her into activism. She founded the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition in 1999, lobbying Congress for ENDA inclusion and hate crimes protections, working with families like Gwen Araujo's and collaborating with Sylvia Rivera. Through two decades of advocacy work in Washington and Austin, she learned the art of finding common ground even with opponents like Republican Warren Chisum. After returning to Corpus Christi in 2018, escalating anti-trans legislation drove her decision to emigrate to Costa Rica by 2024. Her reflections reveal both pride in unexpected accomplishments and deep concern about historical patterns repeating, as dehumanization intensifies and violence against transgender people continues.