Bobbi Jean Baker

During a multi-day bus ride back to San Francisco following completion of her prison sentence, Baker decided to focus her life on advocacy. In 2001, a supervisor at the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center gave her a paid position to lead transgender groups.^[4] She served as a case manager, domestic violence specialist, housing manager, and peer advocate.^[3] Additionally, she was a lay minister at Transcending Transgender Ministries and an ordained minister at City Refuge United Church of Christ, and the West Coast Regional TransSaints Minister of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.^[5][1] She served as an adjutant to Bishop Yvette Flunder, who said the following of Baker: "she believed her ministry was to help transgender people reconcile their spirituality but also to help provide practical assistance, such as food housing, and self-care."^[4] For over ten years she was part of the transgender group Transcendence Gospel Choir.^[1][6]

She died at age 49 on January 1, 2014, on New Year's Day after a car crash.^[5][1] After leading a New Year's Eve service at the City of Refuge Oakland, Baker went to deacon Bobby Wiseman's home for a meal. As Wiseman was driving Baker home later that night, their car was hit by another vehicle and Baker was killed.^[4]

Footage of an interview with Baker was included in the documentary film Major!, about the life of transgender activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.^[7] Baker was later portrayed by Jazzmun in the 2017 miniseries When We Rise.^[3]