​Learn why activist Jae Douglas is so dedicated to helping other LGBTQ+ Floridians

Florida is not a paradise for transgender people, but Jae Douglas is fighting for those who are staying — either by choice or by circumstance.

Douglas is a 21-year-old Black and Latine trans femme advocate living in Tallahassee whose activism began after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.

“I didn’t go to that school, but just being in a Florida school, it really unsettled everyone, and I was just tired of the gun violence that was happening and the lack of care,” she says. “I had experienced lack of care my whole life from at home, and I kind of envied other children and having happy homes. And they can’t even go to school without being petrified.”

She and other students organized a walkout that got media attention — she remembers a news helicopter flying over the wave of students. But it would be another few years before Douglas could return to her work as an activist.

At 15, she was experiencing homelessness. That’s when she came across an organization that would change her life. Capital Tea, the same group she works for now, helped her get off the street and into a shelter. It eventually opened a safe house where Douglas lives. It’s one of the very few safe houses for trans people in Florida, she says. When she moved in, she saw the work of its executive director, Janel Diaz. Douglas was inspired to give back.

Douglas saw Diaz do so much with little support, so she decided to help. First it was with administrative duties, but then Douglas traveled with her to conferences and events.

“I think a lot of my activism skills come from survival. I feel, I always say, like the streets prepared me for the work that I’m in,” Douglas says. Homelessness and surviving domestic abuse as a child made her aware of the resources needed to support those with similiar experiences, she says.

Florida has also given the activist and ballroom enthusiast a unique environment to become a trans rights activist. “People feel a certain confidence that they don’t always feel, and trans hate is a unique unifier for different demographics.”

“I know a lot of people are trying to leave [Florida] right now … and I don’t blame them,” she says. “I’m doing the work for the folks who are trying to leave and also for those that don’t see themselves leaving, because I don’t think anybody should have to leave. People have had families here for generations and memories here that they shouldn’t have to throw away or run from out of fear.”

Having spoken at the National Trans Visibility March and Ts Madison’s opening of her shelter for Black trans women, Douglas has emerged as a voice for trans young people. She finds inspiration from her elders but also in thinking about the children of tomorrow, she explains.

“I always really say my driving force is people from the past that have been fighting this fight and also children in the future that I don’t wish this fight upon. The whole goal is to try to make the world into a place that I wish I could have grew up in,” she says. “That’s my motivation.”

This article is part of The Advocate's July/Aug 2025 issue, on newsstands now. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader.