Cister is a Colorado-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit building visibility and belonging for transgender people by mobilizing cisgender allies.
Between 30% and 42% of Americans personally know a transgender person. The majority of cisgender Americans already support trans rights. But most of those allies are invisible. They carry their values privately and have no shared identity, no common signal, and no community of their own. Transgender people cannot see them. Institutions do not feel their presence. That is the gap Cister fills.
We do it three ways:
• Apparel that makes allyship visible in every room an ally enters.
• The Cisterhood: a growing national community of cisgender allies finding and supporting each other.
• “How to Be a Cister: A Visible Trans Ally Training” : an institutional curriculum for workplaces, universities, and healthcare organizations that want to build environments where transgender people are genuinely safe.
Cister is trans-founded and trans-led. Founder Michaela Avis came out as a transgender woman at 61 after decades of masking while raising four children and building a career in corporate tech sales. She built Cister because she knows firsthand what it means to move through the world without visible allies, and what it means when one appears.
Your donation funds Trans Advisory Council stipends, paying TGNCNB community members for governance and curriculum leadership. It also funds ally training in Colorado institutions and the community infrastructure that makes visible allyship a daily practice rather than a private belief.
Wear your allyship. Build the Cisterhood.
cister.community · @cister.community on Instagram
Trans Embodiment Podcast:In the Closet with Michaela Avis
Cister makes cisgender allies visible to each other, so transgender and gender expansive people can see who is standing with them.
Cister was founded by Michaela Avis, a transgender woman who came out at age 61 after decades of masking. She raised four children and built a successful career in corporate tech sales while carrying a truth she could not yet share. When she finally came out, she found something unexpected: most of the cisgender people around her were already supportive. They wanted to help. They just did not know how to show up visibly.
That gap between private support and public visibility is the problem Cister was built to solve.
Michaela travels the country full time from an RV, connecting with LGBTQ+ communities, allies, and organizations across the United States. She has been featured on the Trans Embodiment Podcast, a trans-hosted platform for TGNCNB audiences, and on the Ladies Who Leap Podcast in an episode titled “Coming Out at 61: RV Life, Trans Visibility and the Power of Allyship.” Both appearances reflect what Cister has validated through real market behavior: there is a large, motivated cisgender ally community that wants a shared identity, a shared signal, and each other.
Cister operates three interconnected programs. The apparel line gives allies a visible, wearable signal of their values. The Cisterhood community gives allies each other, with a chapter model designed to build local networks of visible support. And the institutional training curriculum, “How to Be a Cister: A Visible Trans Ally Training,” gives workplaces, universities, and healthcare organizations the tools to make their environments genuinely safer for transgender people.
Every program is governed with trans community input at its center. Cister is developing a Trans Advisory Council of paid TGNCNB community members who hold formal authority over curriculum content and organizational values. Trans people do not advise this organization. They run it.
Cister received its 501(c)(3) determination in 2026 and is registered in Colorado. We are at the earliest stage of what we intend to be a national organization, comparable in scope to what Free Mom Hugs has built for the broader LGBTQ+ community, with chapters in every state and training in every institution that wants it.
The cisgender majority that supports transgender people is larger than it has ever been. Cister exists to make that majority visible.
Organization name
Cister
2024
Tax id (EIN)
99-4465557
Category
Civil Rights, Social Action & Advocacy, Education, Public & Societal Benefit
Address
7721 E PASADENA AVEHeadquarters
556 Wild Ridge LaneUS
CO, US