Yuba City honored a local transgender woman’s life at first ‘Pride Walk.’ This is her story
A few years ago, Mia Alaina-Lorene Knight shared with some family a dream: Leading a pride parade in her hometown.
A 20-year old transgender woman from the Yuba-Sutter area, Knight died on May 31 by suicide, her family and friends said. Many in the area say she brought light to a community where LGBTQ+ people are still finding their footing.
She was a dancer. She sang. She was known for her unapologetic attitude, and though she had her struggles, Knight’s community of family, friends and supporters chose to honor her legacy at Yuba City’s first “Love is Love” walk in mid-June. She wasn’t involved in organizing the celebration, but her family and friends were at the forefront, carrying a banner with her name amid chants and music. All in all, the walk drew over 100 attendees and organizers later brought in vendors, booths and resources for LGBTQ youth.
“To have that all come together was just really heartwarming, but it was also heartbreaking,” said Rachel Madrigal, a co-organizer of the parade. “It was just even more important to do what we did.”
In Yuba City, the city’s first Pride parade was peaceful despite concerns about violent backlash, said Amy Johnson, owner of local business Rockabetty’s Hair Parlor and organizer of the event.
“There’s allies and people that love and care about the community and are seeing the struggle,” said Johnson.
In California, reported events of gender-based hate crimes increased by nearly 56% from 2021 to 2022, according to a report from the state’s Department of Justice. That increase comes as rates of suicidal thoughts among LGBTQ youth trend upward year by year, and their communities consider how best to support them.
Johnson was already planning to put on the pride event when Knight died. Around half of her clients are LGBTQ+, Johnson said, and she strives to make her salon an inclusive space.
Knight’s network intersected with Johnson’s, and news of her death led Johnson to want to bring everyone in the community together in a safe environment, not just LGBTQ people. “We called all the local police departments in town. We invited a couple local politicians. I was like, ‘OK, come on Yuba City, get it together.”
Finding community
Those politicians never showed up, Johnson said. While things are changing, Johnson feels conservative values still take priority for many in Yuba City and the surrounding area.
According to family and friends, Knight experienced rampant bullying and discrimination throughout her childhood. It was also in day to day things like being made fun of in restaurants.
But it never stopped her. Once, when neighbors found a young Knight wearing a tutu, they informed Susan Knight, Mia’s birth mother, the moment she came home. Her response? She chuckled. “I already knew’... I always allow my kids to express themselves.”
From 18 months old, it was clear that Mia Knight knew who she was, Susan Knight said. She found joy dressing up, experimenting with makeup and Barbie dolls. It was at Anna McKenney Intermediate School in Marysville, where Knight would go on to meet her close friend, Kylee Stone, in the sixth grade.
“She was very open with me,” Stone said. The two confided in each other and found friendship, Stone said. They hung out after school regularly, and Knight once told Stone her family felt like her own. She even helped Stone, a member of the LGBTQ community, work through her own suicidal thoughts. “She’s had a very rough life ... but when she was young, we were just always together.”
Friends and family said the power structures that were supposed to help did not always step up to protect Mia Knight. Her middle school principal did attempt to address the bullying Knight faced, Susan Knight said, but Knight had her own personal struggles, too, and ended up in foster care.
That was where she came into the care of Opál McCartney and Jennique Lee, two sisters who had been in the foster care system themselves. McCartney, her foster mother, was originally Knight’s teacher. She saw how time after time, Knight lost out on a chance to be placed in a foster family.
Official programs for youth in Mia Knight’s situation catered to cisgender girls and boys, which left her to fall through the cracks, her family said. LGBTQ youth are over represented in the foster care system, but many advocates believe the California could strengthen existing protections for them.
McCartney chose to look beyond the statistics and saw something different.
“I can still picture her in the outfit she was wearing the day I met her,” McCartney said. “I just remember seeing such an ability and a potential in her. The only thing I wanted is for her to be able to tell her story and to be who she wanted to be.”
‘Not as widely accepted’: How things could be changing
Knight’s smile was radiant and she could often be found dancing or singing to her favorite artists, McCartney and Lee said. But when she struggled with bullying or finding safe spaces for her community, there was less specific support in the Yuba-Sutter area.
“When you have that much light, you also have that much dark,” Lee said.
Efforts to support LGBTQ+ students are ongoing, said Zachary Pless, director of student welfare and attendance for Marysville Joint Unified School district, which oversaw Knight’s middle school. The district didn’t respond to a 2022 statewide survey scoring policies based off of inclusivity for LGBTQ students, conducted by the Equality California Institute. (District officials said they were unaware of why but are open to responding to similar surveys in the future.)
Being LGBTQ is “not as widely accepted” in the Marysville area in comparison to places like the Bay Area, Pless said, but the school district has been able to individually support some of its trans students.
Pless, who joined the school district last year, also helped start the first Gay-Straight alliance in Solano County in the early 2000s. It was at a time he said the word “gay” was deployed as a commonplace insult and adjective throughout middle school. He’s now held multiple stints in various education roles, putting the onus on those who teach young LGBTQ people to set a standard that adults in their lives will have their backs.
Many tell Pless they are concerned about their parents’ response to them being trans or gay, sometimes just because they don’t know how they’ll react. At the school district, some high schools and middle schools do have support groups for LGBTQ students, but those are limited since they often require student initiative: “There’s not the same group of students around who are keeping it up and keeping it going,” he said. “That’s hard to see. I’d like to see more to be honest.”
Many youth were in attendance at the Yuba City Pride Walk. Some were afraid and decided not to go for fear of revealing they were part of the LGBTQ community or experiencing violence, Johnson said, but others were empowered by Knight’s story and the community’s willingness to come together. Her family and friends brought her ashes and carried a banner designed with her photo and the pride flag colors in the background. “Dont you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can’t be exactly who you are,” the banner said, quoting from Lady Gaga.
Knight was in close contact with McCartney and Stone before her death. Her relationships with her family weren’t always perfect, McCartney and Susan Knight said, but they always found a way to heal, much like any other family.
“The greatest thing about love is the opportunity to give it to whomever you choose. I’m grateful for the opportunity to give my love to Mia. ” McCartney said. “There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind there are things that I would do differently, because I know better now than I did then, but I would still do it in a heartbeat.”
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides confidential assistance to anyone in crisis and their loved ones through a live chat and free 24-hour hotline: 800-273-8255. WellSpace Health operates the Sacramento region’s 24-hour hotline: 916-368-3111 or text HOPE to 916-668-4226.
