How do you measure impact? By its reach. By the lives it affects. By the allies brought into the movement.

When a parliamentary standing committee in Namibia agreed in 2017 to address anti-trans discrimination in the southern African country, it was a long-awaited milestone for Jholerina Brinette Timbo, a trans resident of the country’s capital Windhoek. “It was very emotional for us; we’ve been waiting for it to happen,” says Timbo.

As soon as the existence of a new Indonesian orangutan species was confirmed by scientists in 2017, it became clear that all 800 individuals are in immediate and long-term danger from a major project to build the island of Sumatra’s largest hydroelectric dam. The dam builder, PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy, backed in part by the Bank of China, is moving quickly to clear significant areas within the pristine forest home of the newly discovered so-called Tapanuli orangutan.

Two days after the June 12, 2016, massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Marco Quiroga was on a plane back to the central Florida city where he grew up. “The shooting felt like that safe space was robbed from me,” says Quiroga, who in August of the same year helped to establish the Contigo Fund, a project of Our Fund, to channel donations for medical and legal services to the families of the 49 people killed and more than 50 injured or affected.

When workers at the Chimpanzee Conservation Center saw their former resident Annie thriving in her natural forest home in 2016, they raised a cheer.

Muhsin Hendricks,imam and founder ofThe Inner Circle Bullied at home, at school, and in the workplace, Khartini Slamah blamed God for giving her a male body which led those around her to misgender her. “My father wanted me to become a perfect boy… Being Muslim and transgender was not easy at that age.

With LGBT protections coming under increasing threat in the United States during the summer of 2017, growing alliances are forging all over the U.S.