Publishers Note: This is the first in a series of Commissioner Profiles in WEHOville. Our goal is to introduce you to the Commissioners appointed or elected at-large by your City Council members.
Mallery Jenna Robinson is the newest direct-appointee by Councilmember John D’Amico to the Transgender Advisory Board. Mallery lives in Mid-City outside of West Hollywood. She is excited to serve ‘to teach and to learn’. She wants to teach empathy so that all members of our community can understand each other. And she wants to learn because all of us bring our own unique journey and to take all of our journeys to create understanding among people within our community and our world.
Its a pleasure to introduce you to the Biography of Mallery Jenna Robinson
Mallery Jenna Robinson born January 13, 1990 in Montgomery AL is an AfraCarribean-American Transgender Advocate and Activist and openly HIV positive since 2011.
She is the only daughter to Terese Robinson and George Brown. Mallery began her gender journey from male to female on April 28, 2006 at the age of 16 during the Bush Administration in Montgomery AL. Mallery’s high school allowed her to present female and take her senior pictures as female.
Her high school classmates got her a date for prom in support of her transition. Mallery’s classmates also selected her as the Most Friendly. She went to Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School and founded the first LGBTQ club on the school’s campus. She returned to her hometown of Montgomery, AL graduating from her alma mater Huntingdon College in 2014 with her Double Bachelor of Arts in Biology and History.
Mallery moved to Florida in 2014 to begin teaching middle school Science and History in Jacksonville Florida. While working with Duval Charter Baymeadows the school selected her out of 80 teachers to attend the prestigious Ron Clark Academy teacher development program due to her remarkable skills in excelling her students’ knowledge. In 2019 Mallery moved to Los Angeles, Calif., getting into Transgender Advocacy and Healthcare by first working with The LGBTQ Center Long Beach from 2019-2021 as the Engagement Specialist and Service Navigator for their Transgender Health Program.
In the summer of 2019 she began working at The LGBTQ Center Long Beach as the Engagement Specialist and Service Navigator for The Transgender Health Department. While at The LGBTQ Center Long Beach Mallery implemented several successful essential programs such as: Rack and Roll (a clothes closet), Snack Shack (food pantry), TRANSport ( an essential items delivery service,) and events such as: Come OUT and Pose, ValenTrans Day, and a The T-Report Red Desk Diaries a panel for National Transgender HIV Testing Day. She has also presented several Transgender Empathy Trainings (TET Talks) presentations to Sony PlayStation, and Long Beach Vocal Rehab to list a few.
Mallery has also spoken publicly for The Long Beach Transgender Day of Remembrance at Harvey Milk Park in November 2019 and for ALL Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and co-hosted several LGBTQ virtual award shows such as Unique Woman’s Coalition Our Honors Award. On Transgender Day of Visibility.
Mallery launched her true crime podcast A Hateful Homicide covering the homicides of transgender, gender non-binary, and gender diverse community members you can follow on Instagram @ahatefulhomicide and find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Anchor A Hateful Homicide • A podcast on Anchor , Spotify A Hateful Homicide | Podcast on Spotify.
Mallery was directly appointed as a member of The West Hollywood Transgender Advisory Board on May 5, 2021 by Councilmember John D’Amico. She was also nominated into The Los Angeles County HIV Commission by Dawn McClendon. She is now working as The Prevention Specialist with APLA Health Trans Connections in Los Angeles California since February 2021.
Mallery’s favorite song is “Without Me” by Halsey, she stated in an interview with the Daily 49er that this song motivated her to reevaluate her life and motivated her to move to Los Angeles and pursue transgender healthcare and advocacy. Her parents have always supported her gender journey, HIV status, she admits she is a daddy and mommy’s girl.
Mallery aspires to be an international leader for the transgender community by emphasizing her mantra “Unity in Community” and that by standing in your truth the transgender community will continue to excel with increased visibility, equity, and accessibility. Mallery hopes to work with local, state, and national leaders on developing and implementing a definitive plan that can align with her vision of visibility, equity and accessibility for the transgender community. Mallery hopes to see an increase in visibility in media outlets, entertainment platforms, healthcare seminars for transgender people to be part of and to stop restrictive access to certain spaces for being transgender and she believes with empathy and compassion from cisgender allies the chances of visibility, equity, and accessibility for transgender individuals will increase for the better.
Thank you Mallery for sharing your story. WEHOville is actively seeking Community Members, Commissioners and Board Members to share their story. Please email to [email protected]
Great to meet this extremely accomplished woman.
Your journey is so touching and heartfelt. Thank you for sharing
This feature is very important. All too often the commission and board members are practically invisible and often not all-known to the community as a whole. (I’d also like to see more about the folks at City Hall – along these lines). Residents should feel more able to contact the commissions and boards and the individual members who are composing our future – and spending our money..