Transgender Day of Empowerment

Donate to Empower Trans Students

San Diego Pride is the proud fiscal sponsor of Trans Day of Empowerment and the Tracie Jada O’Brien Trans Student Scholarship Fund that ensures 100% of donations go directly to this vital programming.

Your tax deductible charitable donation will support the Tracie Jada O’Brien Trans* Student Scholarship Fund, which annually awards scholarships to transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse students in higher educational programs from or residing in San Diego County.

The Tracie Jada O’Brien Transgender Student Scholarship Fund application will reopen in Spring of 2025.

Eligible applicants are:

–located in San Diego or from San Diego
–Transgender or outside the gender binary
–a student enrolled in a 2-4 Year institution of higher education, technical /vocational school, or graduate school

Check back in Spring 2025 for more information!

Donate Here

Thank you to our 2024 sponsors!

Tracie Jada O'Brien

Learn more about the founder, Tracie Jada O’Brien.

Learn more

Why Do We Focus on Transgender Students?

A national school climate survey by GLSEN showed that found that 75% of transgender youth feel unsafe at school, and those who are able to persevere had significantly lower GPAs, were more likely to miss school and were less likely to plan on continuing their education.

The scholarship fund is one of the first scholarships of its kind focused on transgender student success in San Diego. We believe that strong community support can give our local transgender students the confidence to beat the odds. Our volunteer-led committee has been able to distribute scholarships totaling $48,000 to local transgender students over the past 6 years. We are proud to report that their average GPA was 3.5. Our students are studying law, medicine, social work, psychology, and more. They are attending schools as close as City College and SDSU to as far away as the University of Chicago and Harvard University!

Have questions? Please contact Lo Horst, Philanthropy Manager at [email protected].

Thank you for giving these high-achieving students your support!