Chastity bowick

Chastity Bowick is an award-winning activist, civil rights leader, and transgender health advocate. She led the Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts INC (TEF) for seven years, which is the leading crisis agency for transgender communities in Massachusetts. During her time at TEF she spearheaded the opening of the first Transgender transitional home in New England. In January 2023, Ms. Bowick launched Chastity’s Consulting & Talent Group, LLC (CCTG). CCTG’s vision is to uplift and guide the transgender and GNC communities, ensuring they have equal protections and opportunities while educating service providers on the needs and wants of the community.

Chastity is currently a board member at the Boston Women’s Fund, LGBTQ Senior Housing, the MA Commission on LGBTQ Youth, and Boston Pride 4 the People. In 2026, she became the Executive Director of Marsha P. Johnson Institute .

Born and raised in Rochester, NY, she began her transition at 18 when she moved to Boston to safely pursue her gender affirmation process. After surviving domestic violence, homelessness, and survival sex work, she proudly obtained a Master’s Certificate in Non-Profit Human Services Management from Clark University.

Prior to her work with TEF and Trans Resistance MA, Chastity served as a board member of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (2014-2018), an organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression. She also led transgender health programming at AIDS Project Worcester, where many of the support groups and health navigation models she founded were the first of their kind in the city.

Because of her trailblazing work and commitment to strengthening marginalized communities, Chastity received the 2016 Belinda Dunn Award at the 27th Annual Bayard Rustin Community Breakfast. She later became the Program Coordinator of TransCEND (Transgender Care and Education Needs Diversity) at AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, a program dedicated to uplifting transgender communities in Greater Boston through health navigation, peer support groups, and social events.

Chastity has received numerous accolades for her dedication to community activism, including the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth 2018 Advancing Equity Award, the 2018 PrEP for Pride Community Service Award (Fenway Health and Lee Entertainment), the 2020 Audre Lorde Trailblazer Award (Fenway Health), The History Project’s 2020 Lavender Rhino Award, and the 2020 Transgender Day of Remembrance Resiliency Award (Trans Resistance MA). Get Konnected also named her one of the 25 Most Influential LGBTQ+ People of Color in Greater Boston in 2020. In 2021, she received Mass Now’s Feminist in Action Award and the Bay State Stonewall Democrats Holly Ryan Spirit of Community Award. More recent honors include the 2022 Ad Equity Project LGBTQIA+ Champion Award, the BLACK Trans Advocacy Conference 2023 Leader Award, the Harvard University Trans Community 2023 Activist of the Year Award, Massachusetts Official Citation 2024 for Extraordinary Service to Transgender communities across Massachusetts and Marsha P. Johnson 2024 Revival of Love Icon Award.

“I feel the most important thing I can do is help to empower and uplift the voices of transgender individuals in our community through support and advocacy,” Chastity often says. “We are doing some great things to move our community forward right here where we live. I hope to see the transgender community in Massachusetts spread its wings and become a force that helps shape the national Transgender Rights Movement. There’s so much more work that needs to be done.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chastity responded to the needs of her community by launching a groundbreaking nutritional program through TEF, providing fresh produce boxes to low-income transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals across the state. TEF partnered with the American Heart Association and About Fresh to sustain this initiative, which continues to operate today. She remains dedicated to providing services for transgender & women survivors of homelessness, domestic violence, drug use, sexual assault, and survival sex work.