Bonus- 'It's Self-Love': Trans Elder Donna Personna Shares Advice With a Younger Generation

For the last few weeks, we’ve been sharing conversations between transgender and nonbinary kids and the people in their lives who love and support them — a series called Love You for You. As we enter Transgender Awareness Month, we shift the lens toward intergenerational stories — young people in their twenties in conversation with transgender elders whose lives trace the long arc of LGBTQ+ activism in California. These bonus episodes carry heavier histories and more mature themes than the family conversations featured earlier in the series. They offer deeper context to the ongoing fight for safety, dignity, and self-expression. This week, we meet Donna Personna, a 79-year-old transgender Chicana artist, activist, and playwright who grew up in San José and now lives in San Francisco. A longtime drag performer and advocate, Donna has devoted decades to uplifting the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, she was named Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade. She also co-wrote Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, an immersive play that brings to life a 1966 uprising in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District — when trans women and drag queens stood up to police harassment, three years before Stonewall. In this episode, Donna speaks with Quetzali (who also goes by “Q”), a 23-year-old Latinx nonbinary organizer from Sacramento who uses they/them/elle pronouns and who is using only their first name to protect their identity. Together, they reflect on how Latinx gender-expansive identities have evolved across generations, from quiet survival in the shadows to living freely. Donna also shares how she continues to cultivate self-love and resilience in a world that still tests both — grounding today’s struggles in a lifetime of resistance, care, and optimism. Read the transcript of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices