USA TODAY captures what LGBT Pride across America looks like by featuring members of the LGBT community and their allies from all 50 states.
In their recent "Faces of Pride" project, the news organization featured Lilianna Angel Reyes, program services director at Affirmations in Ferndale.
Reyes talks about growing up in a traditional Mexican Catholic home. She was always effeminate, which was never a problem — until she came out as a transgender woman to her parents, she told USA TODAY.
They didn't speak to her for two years.
"It was scary, but I refused to live as a person I wasn't…I was going to be who I was," Reyes said.
She started speaking out on LGBT issues in college.
"I started to do more introspective thinking…what could I do as a trans woman of color? Who's going to hire me?" Her first job was at Planned Parenthood. She's now program services director for Affirmations, a Ferndale nonprofit that supports people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
"I think it just became a mission that I have to…come to a job that supports what I believe in every day."
See who else made the USA TODAY 'Faces of Pride' List here.
