The Champion of Pride is the highest award handed out each year and is given to someone who demonstrated outstanding leadership in the LGBTQ+ community over an extended period of years. This year, the honor goes to Christynne Lili Wrene Wood, a transgender woman residing in East County who has repeatedly stood up for herself and the larger trans community when facing discrimination – all with her warmth and self-deprecating humor intact.

 

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1. Christynne Wood (left) stands next to SoCal ACLU Executive Director Hector Villagra at the Dodger’s Pride Night on June 16, 2023 where she was hosted by the SoCal ACLU. The Pride night occured after the Dodger’s received national pressure to disinvite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Other LGBTQ+ groups threatened to boycott if the Dodgers did not include them on the guest list. The sisters were invited back after the controversy. (Photos courtesy Christynne Wood)

2. Christynne Wood with her aquatics group at the Santee YMCA.

3. Christynne Wood was part of a group that raised money to place copies of trans memoir "I am Jazz" in East County schools.

4. Christynne Wood with Senator Toni Atkins and Mayor Todd Gloria in 2018. The pair supported her while she challenged discrimination from her previous job.

5. Wood meeting with La Mesa officials.

This year, she refused to cave to rightwing backlash over her using the women’s locker room at the Cameron Family YMCA in East County. She continued to attend her water aerobics class and counter-protested the groups organizing to have her barred from the gym.

“After first … suffering a minute of heartbreak and trauma, I managed to get pissed and stood up to them with the help of others,” Wood said.

This was not the first time others attempted to keep her from the proper facilities. In 2016, Crunch Gym in El Cajon ended her membership as she transitioned so she would not be in the locker rooms, which is against a law authored by Senator Toni Atkins. With the help of the ACLU, she faced down the owner there. When the issue arose again in Santee, from members rather than the owners, she refused to back down knowing it would make it more difficult for other trans people to use the proper facilities.

“How the hell can I as a trans elder then betray the next 10 to 20 generations that follow me?” the Navy veteran said. “I don’t come from that kind of DNA.”

She explained that her grandparents marched with Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement. In other legal scuffles, she has continued to fight for trans rights for those younger than her. She has also been part of organizing LGBTQ+ people in East County. She fundraised for trans child Jazz Jenning’s memoir to be bought and donated to public schools and is currently helping a progressive candidate campaign for the school board.

“I’m that next generation and this is the next generation of civil rights to follow that. That is my required duty– to stand and fight for the rainbow family and for those rainbow children that follow,” she said.