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Willow Kamamoto’s friend Kayla Wilburn, who nominated her as one of LGBTQ Nation’s ten Hometown Heroes, gets emotional when she talks about the 53-year-old “accidental activist” she met a couple of years ago in San Luis Obispo, California.
“I’ve just seen her give so much in that time,” Wilburn says. “I do get emotional, you know, just witnessing what she’s willing to give and to put herself out there at a dangerous time, unfortunately.”
“I think I wrote in the nomination that she worked on the first Trans Pride in our county. I was there volunteering, as well, and I watched her very meticulously put together clothing for people who were attending. She gave them the concierge treatment, helping them put together outfits and select accessories, and warmly handed people off to the folks who are fitting them for binders. And it just spoke to me in a way that I, a very fortunate cisgender heterosexual woman, had never experienced. I just think she’s amazing.”
Wilburn says her friend calls herself an “accidental activist” because “the more she became recognized, the more that she spoke out, and the more she became vocal in the community, the more she was asked to do.”
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“When I look at my transgender community,” says Kawamoto, who identifies as trans and a lesbian, “I see my face in every single one of them struggling to try and be their authentic selves. And so that pushes me every single day, no matter how tough my day is.”
Kamamoto, a teacher by vocation, joined the board of directors at the Gala Pride & Diversity Center, where she’s a valued volunteer, and is working with support group Tranz Central Coast to create a curriculum to train and advise clinics on gender-affirming care. She’s a regular at school board meetings, speaking up for LGBTQ+ students fighting “for the right to be your authentic self” and against discriminatory book bans. And she’s creating an endowment through her Willow Tree Foundation to grant funds to individuals seeking gender transition and affirming care.
She says she came out as a woman four years ago.
“I had been completely denying my existence as to who I’m supposed to truly be. And it was the oddest thing of just walking in this town and seeing this beautiful dress in a store window, and I saw my reflection on the head of the mannequin. And then, all of a sudden, everything snapped. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is who I’m supposed to be.'”
Kawamoto and Wilburn became acquainted through Free Mom Hugs, the organization devoted to a “nationwide movement of love, visibility, and acceptance for the LGBTQIA+ community,” in their description.
“Last year, we went down to Santa Barbara Pride,” Kawamoto remembers, “and we’re decked out in our Free Mom Hugs shirts, and this young, beautiful young woman comes running up to me and she begins crying and said, ‘I’m not the only one! You’re trans, and you’re here! I’m not alone.'”
“I said, ‘You’ve never been alone.’ We just had to come out and be that positive element in their lives and say, ‘Yes, we can overcome. We no longer have to stay in the shadows.’ And being that visible — Free Trans Hugs, by a member of your own community who’s living it, who’s been rejected — that speaks volumes. Cries volumes.”
“I came to my epiphany very late in life,” Kawamoto says. “And that’s one of the things that will encourage trans men and women my age: that it’s never too late. That there are resources for you. There is support for you, that there are people who understand what you’re going through, and that you are not alone. Because if I can begin my journey at 49 years of age, you can begin your journey at 50, 60, or at 30 or 20. Doesn’t matter. It’s that you found yourself looking back at you in the mirror, and bless you for that.”
