November 30 2025, 08:15 
When Stephen Chukumba’s son, Hobbes, came out to him as trans at the age of 11, Chukumba didn’t have anyone to turn to. His wife had passed away from breast cancer the year prior, and Chukumba didn’t know any other parents of trans children who could help guide him or explain the kinds of medical treatment his son would need. Google searches were actively unhelpful, telling Chukumba that his child’s gender was a “phase” and claiming that he “shouldn’t give into his fantasies.”
“There are questions that you don’t even know to ask because you don’t know what you don’t know,” Chukumba tells LGBTQ Nation. “You don’t know what to do. You don’t know where to go. You don’t know who to call.”
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Being a Black father of a Black trans son added an additional layer to the isolation they felt. Although Chukumba eventually found support groups that allowed him to connect to a vast network of parents with gender-diverse children, he says that many of those organizations unintentionally centered the perspectives of white families. There was little room to talk about the fact that, as a man of color, advocating for his son means fighting not only transphobia but implicit racism. He has seen, over and over again, how their voices are dismissed not merely because of Hobbes’ particular health care needs but because of their skin color.
Shortly after his son began to socially transition, Chukumba took Hobbes to a local urgent care center with a sore throat. Because he didn’t want the boy to be embarrassed by medical providers misgendering him, Chukumba pulled three members of the care team aside and explained that, despite what it says in Hobbes’ chart, he is a boy and uses he/him pronouns. Every provider he spoke to repeatedly misgendered his son anyway, often going out of their way to do so. Chukumba says that he has countless stories like these.
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“I recognize that it’s entirely possible for people to just be oblivious,” he says. “But then there is an intentionality behind people’s behavior, where they think: We don’t have to respect your wishes because you’re Black, and Black people know that. We know what it is for a person to look at you and decide they’re not going to do what you ask because you’re Black.”
A newly launched organization, Rainbow in Black, hopes to provide the specific resources and support that families like Chukumba’s need to thrive. Based in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit operates through a similar model to the longtime parent support network PFLAG, offering monthly meetings where parents can come together and share community. As the organization works to expand its reach after launching in April, Rainbow in Black’s gatherings are held solely online. Around 10 parents typically attend its virtual support sessions, but the team hopes to see that number continue to increase.
Chukumba co-founded Rainbow in Black with two other parents of trans youth: Keisha Bell, a pediatrician, and Sonia Murphy, an attorney.
The trio originally met as members of the Human Rights Campaign’s Parents for Transgender Equality Council, a coalition advocating for trans youth across the country. Rainbow in Black arose from a shared recognition that the critical work their team had been engaging in needed to be deepened and expanded, particularly for communities of color. There’s a misperception, as Bell tells LGBTQ Nation, that only white kids are trans because Black families see so little representation of their own experiences in mainstream media.
“When we see messaging, and it has a certain commonality, we think, by default, that that’s the sum total of the story,” says Bell, who serves as the nonprofit’s executive director. “People don’t think that there are other ways that that story can be experienced. It does create added work to overcome when you’re trying to connect with a community about a topic that they may not see as relevant to their own. That erasure can create an increased obstacle when you’re trying to promote inclusion.”
Although Rainbow in Black was incorporated back in July 2022, its timing couldn’t have been shrewder. Three months before the organization’s spring 2025 launch, President Donald Trump took office for the second time, kick-starting an unparalleled assault on trans equality. Just days after his January inauguration, Trump issued a series of executive orders limiting trans people’s ability to compete on school sports teams or access gender-affirming medical care. Since then, the White House has banned trans, nonbinary, and intersex people from correcting their passports and internally floated the idea of making it illegal for anyone who isn’t cisgender to own guns.
Those attacks at the federal level have correlated with a historic wave of legislation targeting trans people from Republican state lawmakers. According to Trans Legislation Tracker, an estimated 1,012 bills have been introduced in 2025 that target trans rights. At least 123 of those bills have become law, with one month left in the year.
For its members, Rainbow in Black allows an opportunity to reflect on the racial motivations behind the assault on trans people, which often go unacknowledged. Chukumba, who serves as the group’s advocacy and outreach coordinator, says that anti-Blackness has played a major role in the hysteria around trans athletes.
For instance, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif faced widespread scrutiny over her body after winning an Olympic gold medal last year. Despite identifying as a cis woman, Khelif was the center of an online harassment campaign from noted anti-trans figures like J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk, which eventually resulted in her filing a legal complaint.
“If you’re a white person, you may not get it,” Chukumba says. “You may see the transphobia, but you may not see the racism. Being able to have conversations where the unspoken is known is one of the reasons that organizations like Rainbow in Black exist. It’s not like we’re sitting around talking about racism all day, but it is a space where you can have an honest conversation.”
Rainbow in Black serves, in many ways, as a mutual aid network for families of color. In addition to allowing parents to engage in these larger dialogues, its meetings also give members the chance to ask questions about the everyday issues they face, such as where to find an affirming endocrinologist or how to have difficult conversations with family members.
At a recent session, the mother of a 14-year-old transmasculine person sought advice as her child navigated going to school as themselves for the first time. Another parent who had recently been through that same process suggested speaking directly with counselors and teachers about their child’s gender and ensuring they have a strong support network at school.
As the organization continues to grow, Rainbow in Black aims to bring these internal conversations to the fore through broader education efforts — informing the public about the nuanced experiences of Black trans youth. Earlier this year, staffers had the opportunity to present at a conference for Black psychiatrists; they engaged in a candid conversation about what it means to parent a trans person of color and how mental health professionals can improve outcomes for families like theirs. Chukumba says he left the session knowing that “those 100 doctors have a different perspective than they did before,” and he hopes to see more eyes opened in the years to come.
Rainbow in Black believes that providing these tools, both to medical providers and parents themselves, is about equipping allies for the fight ahead. The second Trump administration, Bell says, has exposed that even Americans who already know and love trans kids were oftentimes “not fully equipped to defend this population of people.”
According to Bell, many lacked the basic information to respond and waited to speak out until it was already too late. Their work is to make sure that never happens again.
“We definitely see our role as more imperative,” she says. “We really need to be in this space because the house is on fire. Yes, we would have always been here, but who knew we would have been needed this much?”
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