C. Riley Snorton is professor of English Language and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the author of Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low and Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, which won numerous awards including the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, the Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, and an honorable mention from the American Library Association Stonewall Book Award Committee.

Darius Bost is Associate Professor of Black Studies and Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Bost is the author of the award-winning book, Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and The Politics of Violence (University of Chicago Press, 2019).