Eli Erlick an internationally awarded writer, activist, and educator. In 2011, at age sixteen, she founded Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), an organization dedicated to transforming the educational environment for trans students. It quickly became among the largest trans organizations in the country. In the years that followed, Eli has been at the forefront of transgender justice through her research, organizing, and cultural criticism. Erlick’s work and writing have been featured in hundreds of outlets including The New York Times, Time Magazine, and The Washington Post.
Always bridging the personal with the political, Erlick’s work and writing is rooted in her experiences as a transgender woman. She opened up about her trans identity in elementary school in 2003. She was immediately forced to advocate for herself as the first openly trans person in her extremely rural community. After years escaping violence and isolation in school, she decided to dedicate her life to improving the world for others. After founding TSER in high school, she continued to create educational materials like the Gender Unicorn, which is now translated into over a dozen languages and used in tens of thousands of institutions around the world to teach about the gender issues her town was unaware of. She also helped produce and implement dozens of educational policies for LGBTQ+ students still in place to this day.
Along with TSER, Erlick has worked with over fifty different organizations, groups, and events to advance issues ranging from transgender education to youth involvement in social movements. She worked as an advisory council member for GLSEN from 2013 to 2018 and The Trevor Project from 2014 to 2016. She has also collaborated with Transgender Law Center, the ACLU, Equality California, GSA Network, and National Center for Transgender Equality to pass several education-related bills in California.
Erlick’s education is deeply rooted in this activist history. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness in 2023. She researches social movements, political philosophy, and trans theory. Her scholarly works analyzes social movement strategies, trans history, and political philosophy. Her dissertation project, Disrespectability Politics, traces what she terms “disrespectable acts” in contemporary trans organizing. Following artist-activist Tourmaline’s writing on disrespectability – rejecting moralistic appeals to power in favor of undermining authority – Erlick contends that these actions are not only effective organizing strategies but also necessary bring social movements forward. She tracks controversial events in trans history to analyze the impact of actions that mainstream pundits regard as going “too far” or “bad representation.” These activists reach beyond the limits of what is deemed sayable within a respectable movement. By doing so, they reveal a need to deeply reconsider how we advocate for our freedoms.
Erlick’s work and writing gained recognition from dozens of institutions around the world. In 2013, Refinery29 named her their youngest “30 Under 30” awardee for her activism. Teen Vogue later named her “The New Face of Feminism,” as a young woman working to improve life for trans women everywhere. She also became the first trans woman to be named Glamour Magazine’s College Woman of the Year in 2017. Her work has also received awards and honors from local to national organizations including Peace First, GO Magazine, LA Children’s Hospital, Davis Projects for Peace, Red Bull Amaphiko, the Westly Foundation, the University of California, and the Social Sciences Research Council.
