Imara Jones: TIME 100 Most Influential People 2023
Trans journalist and American LGBTQ+ Museum Board Member Imara Jones is one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2023
BY TOURMALINE
Imara Jones knows that transphobia is a choice, not a default setting. In a world where we are inundated with anti-trans bills and violent rhetoric, Imara Jones offers a vision of the world we deserve. Imara’s work on her podcast and media platform, TransLash, takes the media narrative beyond where it usually goes by cultivating our awareness of and desire for Black trans futures. This showcases the power of media and storytelling. Imara illuminates worlds where it’s easy to be free; it’s easy to be Black and trans and know your value because you’re being reflected back by Imara herself—through exploring important policy and issues, and also through fun and joy.
In a moment when anti-trans violence is on the rise and there are those seeking to legislate us out of existence, Imara’s work declares loudly and proudly not just that we get to have a future, that our aliveness deserves to extend beyond this moment—but also that it can be pleasure-filled. Imara shows us that our aliveness can and should move from a world of scarcity to one of abundance.
BY SAMANTHA RIEDEL
On Thursday, Time magazine revealed that Imara Jones, founder of the nonprofit organization TransLash Media, is among those honored in this year’s Time 100, which honors influential figures in areas such as the arts, government, journalism, and activism. To honor Jones, artist and activist Tourmaline wrote for the magazine about Jones’ history in journalism and her pioneering LGBTQ+ activism.
“In a world where we are inundated with anti-trans bills and violent rhetoric, Imara Jones offers a vision of the world we deserve,” Tourmaline wrote, adding that Jones’ work “takes the media narrative beyond where it usually goes by cultivating our awareness of and desire for Black trans futures.”
Through TransLash Media, Tourmaline noted, Jones has shown that Black trans lives are not simply relegated to survival, but rather are wholly unique experiences that can be filled with love and pleasure. Her work, Tourmaline wrote, “shows us that our aliveness can and should move from a world of scarcity to one of abundance.”
Speaking with Them on Thursday, Jones said her inclusion was “beyond what I expected,” and that she was “still processing” the news, reconciling it with the climate of hostility trans people around the world currently face.