Black Trans Advocate Aria Sa’id Promotes Self-Care and Community

Aria Sa’id (she/her/hers) is a Houston transplant from San Francisco who leads the consulting firm Aria Sa’id & Associates. Living in San Francisco for 17 years, she created the world’s first municipal transgender district. This legally recognized cultural district continues to provide resources and cultural preservation both locally and nationally. Describing herself as an unorthodox leader, while in San Francisco she also helped to launch a first-of-its-kind guaranteed-income pilot project and the Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program for people of transgender experience. Since moving to Houston a year ago, she has been working with organizations locally and nationwide to deepen their fundraising efforts, including strategic communications for capital campaigns, event planning for leadership conferences, and convening and planning galas.

Doing this comes with a cost, though. “I don’t think people realize the emotional and physical toll that leadership in the nonprofit, grassroots sector can have on you and your body, and it’s something we don’t talk about enough as activists and leaders in nonprofit spaces,” she says. “I think of Erica Garner often, and how her commitment to demanding justice for her father—and the many other Black people who have been systematically impacted by violence and harm from police and government—literally killed her.”

Sa’id has twice suffered a diabetic coma as the constant complexities of her position as executive director caused a rift between what was necessary and what her body could handle. As she has done since the day she started the consulting firm, she continues to reimagine liberation while remaining proud to have created a legacy. She is even prouder that she is doing work that allows her to also focus on self-care. “We, as leaders, work day and night to manifest possibilities. That takes a massive toll on our bodies. I’m proud of the work I’ve done in the past, but I am also proud that I raised my consciousness on how to better care for myself.”

Moving to Texas, the home of Juneteenth, and coming from a city where significant strides in HIV care originated, she knows what it is like not just to fight but to bear witness to victory. As a newly dubbed Southern woman, she is experiencing Houston’s tight-knit local community. She has begun opening her home to Black women of transgender experience for dinner and conversation, where she can observe firsthand how different the equity movement is in the South and how the women here continue to press forward among seemingly impossible odds.

‘We will always be here; we will always fight for justice,” Sa’id says. “Seeing how it’s in our DNA is what inspires me. It’s not fair that we have to fight, but we do it anyway!”

Her inspiration comes from a long list of people who came before her. One of Sa’id’s heroes is Sharyn Grayson, a Black woman of transgender experience who is the founder and chief executive officer of the Nonprofit and Consumer Services Network (NPCSN). As a teen, Sa’id looked up to Grayson, as she had never before seen a possibility model so connected to her own identity. As a result, Sa’id has modeled her advocacy and career trajectory after the elegance, beauty, and grace that Grayson leads with. “I wish more people gave her flowers for all the incredible contributions she’s made so that we could have the realities we have now,” says Sa’id.

Now, as she leads a more communal life in her new home in Houston with less stress, Sa’id is adamant about her self-care. She habitually goes to the gym, eats well, reads, runs in Memorial Park, and uses Sundays as “spa days.”

Keep up with Aria Sa’id on Instagram @AriaSaid.