Mara Keisling is an American transgender rights activist and founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). She is currently consulting around trans policy and messaging.
She was the founder and executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, the nation’s leading social justice advocacy organization winning life-saving change for transgender people. Mara’s strategy and vision guided NCTE’s work from 2003 until the summer of 2021. She led organizational and coalition efforts that won significant advances in transgender equality, including the inclusion of gender identity in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act from 2007 onward and countless other federal- and state-level wins.
A proud Pennsylvanian, Mara received her bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and did graduate work in American Government at Harvard University, stopping a dissertation short of a PhD. Prior to founding NCTE, Mara worked for 25 years in social marketing and opinion research.
Mara has served on the board of directors of LGBTQ youth group Common Roads and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara is currently on the Board of Trustees for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Mara also co-authored Injustice at Every Turn, the groundbreaking 2009 report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, and the report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey.
As one of the nation’s leading voices for transgender equality, Mara is regularly quoted in national and local print media and has appeared on major television networks, including being part of the first all-transgender panel on a national news show in 2012.
In recognition of her activism, Mara has won awards from PFLAG; the Equality Forum; GayLaw; the Transgender Law Center; the Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance; and Out for Work, among others.
