2021 NYC Pride: Dr. Paula Stone Williams continues the fight with her newly released memoir

NYC Pride is perhaps the most magical time of the year in the city. The celebration beams with spirit, joy, imagination, zeal, and remembrance. Since its first inception in 1970, the LGTBQIA community and friends across New York City have gathered in common spaces—from local businesses to parks—to reflect on the long history of activism; to demonstrate the power of love, belonging, and solidarity; and to protest for equal rights. After a year unlike any other, after fighting for breath on so many fronts, nationally and as a city, this year, we shout from the rooftops and the streets, “the fight continues!”

With new and old members and allies, this year, we not only fight for equal rights for the LGTBQIA community, but we also fight the ongoing issues of the COVID pandemic, climate crises, economic hardship, and efforts to disenfranchise voters, all of which disproportionately affect brown and black communities, especially those who identify as LGTBQIA.

Whether in NYC or throughout the world, we continue the long tradition of bringing the fight not only to the streets and our living rooms but perhaps more urgently, to the classroom and the boardroom. Power and access are largely found in and distributed through the corporate world; consequently, corporations have a distinctively unique social responsibility to educate staff on inequities and invest in equitable solutions. Outspoken speaker, Dr. Paula Stone Williams, understands the importance of educating workplace staff on the relationship between power and gender.

Paula is one of the leading transgender voices disrupting oppressive gender norms in America and bringing awareness to gender inequity. In her newly released memoir, As a Woman: What I Learned about Power, Sex, and the Patriarchy after I Transitioned, (Simon & Schuster) Paula chronicles her past life as a father of three, a husband, and prominent evangelical speaker and leader. Though she knew at the tender age of 3 or 4 that she did not identify as a boy, the “gender fairy” she was expecting to come and grant her wish to be a girl never arrived. For 35 years, Reverend Dr. Paula Stone Williams led several conservative evangelical megachurches; she was the editor-at-large of a national Christian magazine and the host of a national television show. However, after she made the life-changing decision to transition from a man to a woman at the age of sixty, she lost all her jobs; but that didn’t stop her from pursuing authenticity, bringing people to know God, and reaching across political, religious, and gender spectrums to build a more inclusive and equitable world. Much to her surprise, the key to her new career as a woman came with a deeper awareness of the inequities she had overlooked before her transition.

Now, Paula speaks to corporate groups and others throughout the country about the nuances of the patriarchy, male privilege, and the universal struggle to be human.

Her newest memoir, As a Woman, is now available for purchase online and in bookstores. Paula is also available to book for virtual and in-person events. For more information, click here.