Billie Cooper

Ms. Billie Cooper (born October 29, 1958) is an African American transgender rights activist. She has been advocating for Black, transgender, and HIV rights in San Francisco since the 1980s.

Early life and military service Cooper was born on October 29, 1958 in Philadelphia, one of three siblings in a poor family. Her parents, a mechanic and a vocational nurse, had to work at multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Beginning in elementary school, Cooper realized she was attracted to boys, and that she disliked her body parts; she was "often asking God, 'Why wasn’t I born a little girl?'" As her community had no knowledge of what it meant to be transgender at that time, she was perceived as gay. She was teased and taunted by classmates for being effeminate, and in 8th grade she was angrily rebuffed when she expressed her feelings to a boy she fell in love with. She received an honorable discharge in 1982. Following her discharge from the Navy in 1982, Cooper moved to San Francisco's Tenderloin district, and began doing advocacy work with Miss Major. She became a client of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF), and advocated for Black people living with HIV to receive equal treatment. She ran for District 6 supervisor in the 2022 San Francisco Board of Supervisors election; Cooper and fellow Black trans activist Honey Mahogany both lost to Matt Dorsey.