Chief Advancement Officer

As the Executive Director of Family Equality Council, Jennifer Chrisler works to support, represent and connect the one million families in the U.S. with parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and their two million children. In 2012, Chrisler was invited to lead dozens of LGBT parents and children to the NYSE to ring the closing bell on the same day that President Obama issued an historic statement in support of marriage equality. Media includes: MSNBC, NBC, CNN, the New York Times, USA Today, NPR, the Huffington Post and Out Magazine.

Former Executive Director

Rea Carey is one of the most prominent leaders in the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights movement and the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Some of the Task Force’s successes during Carey’s tenure include being a key player in passage of the LGBT-inclusive federal hate crimes prevention law; the defeat of multiple anti-LGBT ballot measures across the country; and the creation and implementation of the New Beginning Initiative coalition, which secures federal administrative policy changes to improve the lives of LGBT people and their families. Media includes: USA Today, the New York Times, MSNBC, LA Times, NPR, the Huffington Post, and many other media outlets.

Psychotherapist, LCSW, Relationship Specialist, Media Spokeswoman

Lisa Brateman, LCSW, is a practicing therapist, relationship specialist and an expert in LGBT issues. She is an internationally recognized expert in her field and was a featured expert on conversion therapy of LGBT youth. Media includes: CBS Evening News, WPIX-TV Evening News, Arise America–TV, CC-TV, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS News-Money Watch, MSNBC, Fox, PBS, U.S News & World Report, WSJ Market Watch, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Huffington Post and TODAY.com.

Interim Chief Legal Officer

Kate Kendell leads the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. Kate is a nationally recognized spokesperson for LGBT rights and has an active voice in major media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Advocate, NPR, CNN, and many others.

Founder/Distinguished Lecturer

Shanelle Matthew is the Deputy Director of the Sierra Club. She most recently served as the served as the Communications Strategist for the ACLU where she engineered the development, implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive strategic communications plans aimed at internally and externally communicating the organization’s goals in the areas of reproductive justice and LGBT rights. Media includes: Al Jazeera, KPFA, RH Reality Check, Feministing, Racialicious, and The Frisky.

Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital

Marie Alford Harkey is the Deputy Director of the Religious Institute and the author of the Religious Institute publication Making the Invisible Visible: Bisexuality in Faith Communities. Marie serves as Vice President for Local Affairs on the Board of Integrity USA, the principal LGBT organization in the Episcopal Church. Media includes: State of Belief with Welton Gaddy Believe Out Loud blog Women's Alliance for Ritual, Ethics, and Theology.

Writer, Editor, Researcher

T.F. Charlton is a writer, editor, and researcher whose work focuses on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in American culture. She is the editor of Are Women Human?, which she founded in 2010 to bring an antiracist and queer feminist perspective to critiques of misogyny in U.S. Evangelical Christianity. Media includes: The Guardian, Salon, Religion Dispatches, R.H. Reality Check, Ebony.com, and other outlets.

Executive Director

As the Executive Director of the New York LGBT Community Center, Glennda Testone strengthened The Center’s programs for adults, youth and families, ensuring all LGBT New Yorkers have an opportunity to live happy, healthy lives. Prior, Testone was the Senior Director of Media Programs for the national Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Media includes: Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time Out and W Magazine.

Executive Director

Maria Cadenas is currently the Philanthropy Manager for Driscoll's, where she supports an employee-led regional philanthropy focused on farm workers and their families. Cadenas served as the executive director for Cream City Foundation and sits on the board of Funders for LGBTQ Issues and formerly hosted a radio show on WMSE. Media includes: NBC, About.com, Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel and Milwaukee Public Radio.

Sexologist Minister

Debra Haffner is the director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing. Rev. Haffner was the chief executive officer of SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, from 1988 through May 2000. Media includes: the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Fox News and programs such as Nightline, PrimeTime Live, 20/20, Dateline, Crossfire, Good Morning America, Oprah and Today.

Executive Director

Kierra Johnson is the Executive Director of URGE, a leading pro-choice organization that works to mobilize and provide support for diverse, upcoming leaders. Kierra is a board member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and frequently speaks out on issues regarding the LGTB community. Kierra has contributed to the New York TImes, RH Reality Check, Feministing.com, Newsweek, Fox News, the Nation and NPR.

Filmmaker/ Director

Donna Deitch segued from documentary filmmaker to producing and directing Desert Hearts, the landmark lesbian love story and hit of the 1986 Sundance, Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals. She has directed the best of one hour television drama including numerous episodes of NYPD Blue, ER, Heroes, Law and Order: SVU, Private Practice,Gray’s Anatomy, Judging Amy and others. She is currently working on a sequel to Desert Hearts. She has been covered by many media outlets.

Head of the Gender and Security Division

Cristina M. Finch has served as the policy director for women’s human rights at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) and as an adjunct law professor at George Mason University School of Law. At AIUSA, Ms. Finch focuses on women’s and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights; economic, social and cultural rights; and multilateral issues. Media includes: Fox News, Al Jazeera, PBS’s “To the Contrary”, Alhurra, National Public Radio, CNN radio, CBS radio, Radio Jamaica and Talk Radio Chicago, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, The Guardian, Reuters, CQ Global Researcher, Casper Star-Tribune and Medill.

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College

Audrey Bilger is Faculty Director of the Center for Writing and Public Discourse and Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College, where she specializes in Gender Studies, LGBT issues, and humor. She is co editor of Here Come the Brides! Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage, author of Laughing Feminism (on Jane Austen and her contemporaries). Media includes: Ms. Magazine, Bitch magazine, The Paris Review, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, KPPC Ponoma College Radio Station and Rock DJ at WTJU in VA.

Senior Rabbi

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum has been the Senior Rabbi of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST) since 1992. Under her leadership, CBST has become an important voice in Judaism, in the world-wide discourse on the nature of religious community, and in the movement to secure basic civil rights for gay people everywhere. Rabbi Kleinbaum has testified in Federal Court and before the U.S. Congress in hearings on the subject of same-sex marriage. Media includes: the New York Times, The Forward, Jewish Week and many other books, magazines, and newspaper articles.

One of the leading progressive, grassroots voices in America

Sally Kohn is a writer, activist and television commentator. A columnist for Salon, and formerly a progressive Fox News Contributor and Sally’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Reuters, USA Today, Politico, Time and more. She was also a distinguished Vaid Fellow at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, where she published a groundbreaking guidebook for organizing campaigns to win domestic partnership benefits.

Founding Director

Valarie Kaur is an award-winning filmmaker, civil rights advocate, and interfaith leader who centers her work around the power of storytelling. She has led national campaigns responding to hate crimes, racial profiling, immigration detention, marriage equality, and solitary confinement. She is a prolific public speaker and frequent political contributor on MSNBC to the Melissa Harris-Perry Show. Other media includes: CNN, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, NPR and PBS.

Co-Founder and former President

Nancy Duff Campbell is is a founder and Co-President of the National Women's Law Center, one of the nation's pre-eminent women's rights organizations. She has litigated in several successful Supreme Court cases in her fields of study. These include establishing that two-parent families with unemployed mothers are entitled to AFDC benefits in Califano v. Westcott, and the establishment of a uniform right to child support enforcement services for all custodial parents without regard to income in Parents Without Partners v. Massinga. She has been covered by many media outlets and has extensive experience.

Attorney

Tanya Acker is a practicing attorney, media consultant and television commentator. While working in the private sector, her work spanned a broad variety of cases, including state Supreme Court matters, corporate litigation involving public and private entities, and various constitutional cases. While at Yale Law School, she represented indigent women in family law cases. Media includes: The Early Show, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, CNN Reports, Anderson Cooper 360, Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, Extra, The O’Reilly Factor, Your World With Neil Cavuto, CNBC Reports, HLN’s Special Report, Great Britain’s GMTV and Sky News, CNBC, the Huffington Post, VH1, CBS and C Magazine.

Trial Lawyer, former prosecutor and Assistant Attorney General for MD Member, Supreme Court Bar

Debbie Hines is a Washington, DC based practicing trial attorney who is a member of the Supreme Court bar and an expert in criminal law, high profile criminal cases, gun laws, death penalty cases and voting laws. She frequently appears in the media as a legal commentator and guest host addressing high profile legal cases and various legal issues on C-SPAN, the Michael Eric Dyson show, the CBS, NBC, Fox 5 News, and ABC Washington, DC TV affiliates, CBC-Canadian, RT America TV, Pacifica and Sirius XM radio. Other media includes: Huffington Post, Politic365, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Afro American, NPR and CNN.