American performer and activist Octavia St Laurent was BOTD in 1964. Born in New York and assigned male at birth, she identified as trans from early childhood, and was largely accepted by her family. She became involved in New York’s Black/Latino drag ballroom scene in the early 1980s, helping popularise “voguing”. She was prominently featured in the influential 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, a spirited profile of New York City’s vogueing scene. Diagnosed with HIV, she became an educator to spread awareness about the disease. She appeared in the 2006 documentary How Do I Look, discussing her experiences living with HIV. Later changing her name to Heavenly Angel Octavia Saint Laurent Manolo Blahnik, she died in 2009 of cancer, aged 45. One of the inspirations for the television series Pose, she is quoted in an episode in Season 2: “Gays have rights, lesbians have rights, men have rights, women have rights, even animals have rights. How many of us have to die before the community recognises that we are not expendable?“