Nick Adams, GLAAD
This media activism training is designed to provide you with the tools necessary to undertake effective work with the media. Learn to: craft persuasive media messages using personal stories; get your message to your target audience; develop a media vocabulary so you can speak clearly and effectively with journalists.
Bio:
Nick Adams works at GLAAD, a non-profit dedicated to ensuring fair and accurate representations of LGBT people in the media. Nick works with journalists and entertainment industry professionals who are creating stories about transgender people. Nick was also a founding board member of FTM Alliance of Los Angeles.
Do you know what rights transgender, gender-variant, and gender-nonconforming youth have in schools and on the streets? Learn and exercise your rights (or ally skills) in this fun and interactive Theatre of the Oppressed workshop! Whether you are a trans* youth or a supportive ally, come join this workshop to play theatre games and gain tools to take back to your communities/schools. No experience necessary!
Bio:
Part of Gender Justice LA Justice campaign, the GJLA Theatre of the Oppressed (GJLA TO) group has been working together for a year to use theatre to eliminate gender-based oppression and elevate the collective power of the Los Angeles transgender/gender non-conforming community. Ezak Perez is an LA-born and raised genderqueer/trans-identified, working-class Latino and Hopi Native American. A proud Brown Boi member, LDIR alumnus of Facilitation for Social Change, a former Americorps Fellow with Public Allies, and a Mark Taper Fellow, Ezak currently works as GJLA’s Campaign Director.
Julianne Gale is a co-organizer with GJLA’s TO group. A biracial, (gender)queer person with an M.A. in Applied Theatre Arts, Julianne has used theatre in anti-oppression work, including youth-led workshops training teachers to intervene in homophobic bullying. Julianne is dedicated to using theatre for personal/political transformation.
Shruti Purkayastha is another co-coordinator of GJLA TO group. She graduated from USC with an M.A. in Applied Theatre Arts and from Scripps College with a B.A. in Theatre and Politics. She works with the Community Rights Campaign and is dedicated to coalition building through community organizing, imagination and art-making.
Efran Chavez and Sasha Navarro
This workshop will explore how an HIV prevention program can go beyond HIV 101 and work to empower Latina Transgender women. We will discuss the obstacles Latina transgender women face in the Los Angeles area, and how the CHICAS programs works to address those obstacles.
Bios:
Sasha Navarro
From 2000-2009 Sasha Navarro worked with developmentally disabled individuals. In 2009 she made a life and career change, which was to begin working with her community of Latina transgender women. She started in 2010 at East Valley Community Health Center, Inc. as a Health Educator for the CHICAS HIV prevention program. Over the past two years Sasha has facilitated over 17 CHICAS group series as well as countless events that focus on empowering the transgender community.
Efren Chavez
Efren is a Health Educator for the CHICAS program at East Valley Community Health Center (EVCHC).Over his past 5 years at EVCHC, Efren has helped to build and strengthen the working relationship with the transgender community. He has centered his work specifically within the San Gabriel Valley, which is an area of Los Angeles County where there are very little services for this community.
This workshop will provide a blueprint of proactive action and steps taken immediately after a tragedy. Communities need to be prepared to respond proactively immediately as soon as a murder or other tragedy strikes their community.
Bio:
Tiffany Woods is the Program Coordinator for TransVision, the county direct service provider serving transgender women in Alameda County. She created the program in 2002.
Zander Keig and Trystan Cotten
This workshop will provide physicians, therapists, counselors, nurses, and others who interact with transmen and their families, to engage in meaningful and knowledgeable discussion as a counter to the negative messages circulating about female-to-male genital reconstruction. [NO SHOW & TELL]
Bios:
Zander Keig, an award-winning educator and speaker, earned a MS in Conflict Resolution, MA in Theological Studies, MS in Social Work, co-edited the Lambda Literary Finalist Letters for my Brothers [www.lettersformybrothers.com], is the Director of Volunteers for TYFA, and serves on the Transgender Advisory Group for the CA-LGBT Reducing Disparities Project.
Trystan Cotten, Associate Professor of Gender Studies, teaches courses on gender, sexuality, and global political economy. He is currently conducting research on transsexual men, masculinity, and race in global contexts, facilitating educational workshops and is the editor of Hung Jury: Testimonies of Genital Surgery by Transsexual Men (Forthcoming: Transgress Press, September 2012).
Participants will gain a deeper understanding of universal tools to replenish our emotional well-being. Together we will address physical and emotional tolls of activism with concrete tools to assess, adjust and replenish our own energies. Hugs, High-Fives & Handshakes intends to challenge participants to engage authentically with our own bodies. Building on philosophies of personal health and well-being, we seek to change our outcomes through intentional interpersonal relationships in all areas of our lives.
Bios:
Upon honorable discharge from the United States Navy on Sept. 5, 2005, Terrance received his BA in Human Services and Management in 2010. He most recently worked as a Qualified Mental Health Professional at a non-public school serving students with a primary disability of emotional disturbance.
Young Mr. Pulskamp is known in Sacramento as an advocate for Deaf accessibility in queer spaces. Active in spiritual communities serving queer and transgender youth and adults, Pulskamp cohabitates with Service Dog Oliver, and spends free time leading mini-foothill-excursions to visit the Pulskamp-Family Farm and Cafe in Jackson, California.
Mitch Austin lives in Sacramento where he has been serving the Center for Spiritual Awareness for four years. Mitch is a licensed spiritual counselor. Mitch has spent more than 25 years in civil service and currently consults for local government agencies and non-profits in Northern California.
Adrian Lawyer
How-To-Build
Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (TGRCNM) has a thriving Education Department, with a Speakers Bureau of more than fifty volunteers. Some but not all of the aspects we could assist participants with are: building the incredibly diverse group of speakers, getting invited to many classrooms, professional settings and cooperative agencies and groups, creating a program that reaches as many audience members as possible. This workshop would be for local and regional advocates, activists and directors of transgender advocacy agencies.
Bio:
Adrien Lawyer is the Director and co-founder of The Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico. In this capacity he manages fundraising, operations, volunteers and staff, as well as providing many of the direct client services. He is a transman, spouse and father and works for equality for the transgender communities.
This session will provide a comprehensive overview of fundraising for people with very little exposure or experience in the field and a specific focus on funding projects that are outside traditional outlets of capital.
This workshop will provide information on how three trans-inclusive human rights bills were passed in Nevada’s 2011 legislative session. We will discuss the history of Nevada’s efforts to pass such laws and share lessons learned in the areas of strategizing, information sharing, coalition building, community mobilization, perseverance and self-care, and the importance of telling our stories and caring for our collective histories.
Bio: Jane Heenan has worked as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice since 2002, and has taught at the College of Southern Nevada since 2001. Ze was intimately involved in the bipartisan 2011 passage of human rights protections for Nevada’s transgender citizens in employment, public accommodations, and housing. Mel Goodwin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and a Certificate in Non-Profit Management from UNLV. They have worked with trans* persons and communities since 2005.
This workshop will teach participants effective youth-driven advocacy through social media. The focus will be on sharing proven tools utilized with trans youth in Los Angeles. TransYouth Speaks is a joint venture project between Survivors’ Truths’ and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. The project aims to support transgender youth in challenging stereotypes, encouraging respect and promoting equality in their communities through their stories of strength and capacity through Social Media and Social Action.
Bios:
Dove Pressnall, Founder and Executive Director of Survivors’ Truths’ (www.survivorstruths.org) and licensed Marriage and Family therapist, started her counseling career in 1993 on a national hotline for kids involved in prostitution. Since then, she has worked with a range of populations, including people with disabilities, survivors of sexual assault and violent crime, gay men in the process of coming out, children, senior citizens and survivors of war crimes. Dove’s work 2005 through 2006 training social workers and community-based mental health counselors in post-conflict Liberia led her to initiate what would become Survivors’ Truths’ first project . It wasn’t until 2009, following her relocation to Los Angeles, that Dove established Survivors’ Truths, Inc. as a California nonprofit corporation.
Gizelle Santana, Youth Advocate and Member of Survivors’ Truths Youth Leadership Development Project is an L.A. native who persevered through severe bullying and discrimination. Gizelle is passionate about advocating for transgender youth safety and inclusion in our communities.
Tash Shatz
Many statewide LGBT organizations don’t focus on – and even exclude – the “T”. At Basic Rights Oregon, we’ve committed to doing things differently. In 2009, the Trans Justice program began with an organizing model centered within trans communities. Today, the program is racking up wins for trans-inclusive health care. Join us to learn how we did it, why we love community-centered organizing, and the resources we’ve developed along the way!
Bio:
Tash Shatz has been honored to organize with groups ranging from the Oregon Student Association to Portland Women’s Crisis Line. Currently, tash coordinates the Trans Justice program at Basic Rights Oregon, working alongside community leaders to increase access to health care, legal rights, and safety in legal custody for trans Oregonians.
Diane Klein, Axil Cricchio, Devon Guidox, Lee Maranto, Sonny Nordmarken, Anais Surkin, Cassidy, and Sara?
How do we get from abstract commitments to trans inclusion in institutions of post-graduate education, to making them a reality in actual practice? Recruiting, admissions, curriculum, classroom/institutional climate, records/Registrar issues, relations with LGB/queer student groups, career services and placement — we want to get down to the nitty-gritty and come up with concrete suggestions participants can employ in dealing with Deans, administrators, professors and students to improve the post-graduate experience for students.