Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza is a cultural commentator, social activist, and attorney barred in Virginia and before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Co-founder of Prism (prismreports.org), she most recently served as Senior Strategist at The Justice Collaborative. Prior, she was Daily Kos’s first Judicial Affairs Editor and a Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Rebecca covered the Supreme Court, judicial nominations, and legal developments, with a focus on civil rights. She is a leading voice on LGBT rights and ongoing litigation. In her capacity as an LGBTQ Latinx activist and storyteller, she has performed in locations from The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the 9:30 Club in her adoptive city of Washington, D.C. Media includes: The Daily Beast, Pacific Standard, The Nation, The Atlantic, Politico, CNN, NPR.

Dr. Melissa R. Michelson (PhD Yale University) is Professor of Political Science at Menlo College. Author of five books, she is a nationally recognized expert in voter mobilization, Latino politics, LGBTQ politics, and California politics. Her ongoing work looks at the politicization of Latino immigrants, how to increase voter turnout in communities of color, and how to increase support for transgender rights. Her books include Mobilizing Inclusion: Redefining Citizenship through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns and Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights. She is a regular guest on local television and has been quoted recently in The New York Times, FiveThirtyEight, and Los Angeles Times.

Dr. Nadine Nakamura is an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of La Verne where she teaches multicultural psychology at the masters and doctoral level. Her research relates to multiculturalism and intersectionality and include immigration, HIV, and ethnic and sexual minority health and mental health, as well as understanding the unique needs of LGBT people of color, LGBT immigrants and asylum seekers, and LGBT international issues. She served on the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration and is currently serving on the APA Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. Media includes: APA Monitor, CNN.

Glennda Testone joined New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center as its first female Executive Director in 2009. Since then, she has strengthened The Center’s programs for adults, youth and families, ensuring all LGBTQ New Yorkers have an opportunity to live happy, healthy lives. Testone helped launch a new Center brand and website, celebrated 30 years of service by the organization and completed a $9.2 million capital building renovation to transform the LGBTQ community’s home on W 13 Street. Testone also spearheaded the launch of innovative and groundbreaking programming at The Center for LGBTQ youth, transgender community members and LBTQ women. Media includes: Vogue, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time Out, W Magazine, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC.

Reverend Irene Monroe is an ordained minister, motivational speaker and she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. An African-American lesbian feminist public theologian, she is a sought-after speaker and preacher. She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in 23 cities across the country and in the U.K, Ireland, Canada. And she writes a weekly column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for The Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her "columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,' by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Media includes: Huffington Post, The Advocate.

Through research, writing, legal services, and organizing, Andrea J. Ritchie has dedicated the past two decades to challenging racial profiling, police violence, criminalization and mass incarceration, with a particular focus on the experiences of women, girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of color. She is the author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color (Beacon Press 2017) and co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (African American Policy Forum 2015), and Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Beacon Press 2011). Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Yahoo News, NowThis, MSNBC, NBC, NPR.

Juhu Thukral is a social justice lawyer and founder of numerous social impact ventures focused on rights and opportunity for women and girls, LGBTQ people, and Black/Brown/Asian/immigrant communities. She is a policy, communications, and advocacy expert who bridges across sectors and engages new audiences to drive social impact and create enduring change. Juhu is Founder and Principal of Apsara Projects LLC, a social impact consultancy that guides and advises clients on strategic direction; builds cross-sector partnerships, programs, and initiatives; designs brand strategy for social justice values; and evaluates outcomes to create enduring impact. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, WNYC, ABC.

Emily Greytak, PhD, (pronouns: she/her) is the ACLU’s Director of Research. She leads the ACLU’s policy research work – partnering with national staff, affiliates, and outside partners to develop, execute, and disseminate rigorous research that drives our policy and advocacy agenda. Greytak has been an applied researcher for two decades, working with a variety of organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, Family Justice, and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Prior to joining the ACLU in 2019, she served as Research Director at GLSEN, the leading organization focused on LGBTQ issues in education. During her tenure there, she ran the biennial National School Climate Survey and spearheaded a diverse array of projects, including the first national study of transgender youth experiences, an assessment of the bullying policies of all U.S. school districts, and examination of LGBTQ youth in the school-to-prison pipeline. Media includes: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Mashable, CNN.

Zahara Green is the Founder and Executive Director of TRANScending Barriers, a trans-led group whose mission is to empower the transgender and gender non- conforming community in Georgia through community organizing with leadership building, advocacy, and direct services. Zahara is the board President of Black & Pink Inc a prison abolitionist organization supporting LGBTQ and HIV-positive prisoners. Zahara is the Deputy Director of Witness to Mass Incarceration, where she works to improve the PREA auditing process to eliminate sexual abuse in confinement. Zahara is a formerly incarcerated trans women of color who spent 5 years incarcerated with most of her time in solitary confinement. Media includes: Buzzfeed, Rolling Stone, Into.

Charlene A. Carruthers is a political strategist, cultural worker and PhD student in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her research includes interrogating historical conjunctures of Black freedom-making post-emancipation and decolonial revolution, Black governance, Black feminist and queer theory. Charlene is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements. Her work spans more than 15 years of community organizing across racial, gender and economic justice movements. As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. Her passion for developing young leaders to build capacity within marginalized communities has led her to work on immigrant rights, economic justice and civil rights campaigns nationwide. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Reader, The Nation, Ebony, Essence Magazines, MSNBC, CNN.

Marisa Franco is a Phoenix-based organizer, writer and strategist. She is the Director and co-founder of Mijente, a digital and grassroots organizing hub for Latina/o and Chicana/o people. In her over 15 years of work as an organizer and movement builder, Marisa has helped lead key grassroots organizing campaigns rooted in low-income and communities of color, characterized by their innovation and effectiveness. She is a trusted collaborator with grassroots leaders across the country spanning across the immigrant rights, civil rights, women’s, LGBTQ and labor movements. Media includes: Poltico, The Washington Post, Univision, MSNBC, CNN.

Quita Tinsley is a fat, Black, queer femme who writes, organizes, and overall works to build sustainable change in their home, the South. Quita served as the Deputy Director of Access Reproductive Care - Southeast, where they focused on strengthening ARC-Southeast's operations, programs, and organizational voice. As a fat femme, feminist, and queer Black non-binary person, it is through their lived experiences and identities that Quita has come to believe in the power of storytelling and the validation of lived experiences. And through their work, in all of its forms, they hope to continue fighting oppression and uplifting the voices of silenced and marginalized people across the Southeast and beyond. They are also an alum of Echoing Ida, a Black women and nonbinary folks' writing collective of Forward Together. Their writing and thoughts have been featured in The Body Is Not An Apology, Feministing, Scalawag, USA Today, Ebony.com, The Cornell Policy Review.

Ana L. Oliveira became the President & CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation in 2006. Ana has worked in the health and human services field for over 22 years, developing programs for vulnerable populations throughout NYC. She served as the Executive Director of Gay Men’s Health Crisis for over seven years, overseeing a complete turn-around of the agency. Before working at GMHC, Ana directed innovative community-based programs at Samaritan Village, the Osborne Association, Kings County and Lincoln Hospitals. Ana has served as a member of the New York City HIV Planning Council, in the New York City Commission on AIDS, chaired the NYC Commission for LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless Youth, and Co-Chaired Mayor Bloomberg’s Young Men’s Initiative. Extensive media experience.

Professor Nancy Williams is an inorganic chemist specializing in organometallic chemistry and the teaching of inorganic chemistry at the undergraduate level. Williams came out as a queer, transgender woman in 2013, and has been active in voter canvassing efforts intended to protect trans rights and reduce prejudice against trans people in Los Angeles, Miami, and Tacoma. She is also proud to sing with the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles and has been singing in choirs for thirty years; for trans women, whose voices do not become higher when they transition, vocal performance is an act of public visibility and broadens our conception of what women's voices sound like. TCLA is dedicated to being a visible example to trans youth of the beauty of the transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender non-conforming community. Media includes: New York Times Magazine, Pride, NPR.

AnneMarie McClain is a doctoral candidate in Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Communication Arts), the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Human Development & Psychology), and CUNY-Hunter (Childhood Education). AnneMarie’s work explores how to best design and leverage media to promote positive outcomes among children – particularly children of color, of LGBTQ+ identities, and of lower-income backgrounds. Her current research examines the media content and strategies (e.g., conversations, media literacy skills) that parents and educators can use with children to foster outcomes such as self-esteem, resilience, and inclusivity. She also explores the developmental implications of media messages related to diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. Media includes: Business Insider, NBC.

Evie Litwok is the Founder and Executive Director of Witness to Mass Incarceration (WMI). WMI’s mission is to end mass incarceration by placing formerly incarcerated women and LGBTQIA+ experiences at the center of the fight for alternatives to mass incarceration. Evie works to change the narrative from invisibility and victimization to empowerment through documentation, leadership training, organizing and advocacy. Litwok walked out of prison homeless, jobless, and penniless. Despite the lack of resources, she began speaking about her experiences in prison and formed WMI. Her hard work has led to a growing network. Litwok is a part of the National LGBT/HIV Criminal Justice Working Group who meets regularly with the Bureau of Prisons to discuss increasing safety and dignity for LGBTQ prisoners. Media includes: The Nation, The Heat, Forward, Talk Poverty.

Alexis Clements is an award-winning writer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. Her feature-length documentary film, All We've Got, which focuses on LGBTQ women's spaces at a time when many are closing, premiered in October 2019 at NewFest. In addition to her creative work, her nonfiction writing and filmmaking primarily focuses on the arts, the arts economy as experienced by artists, the intersections of arts, culture, and social justice work, as well as LGBTQ arts and culture. She is currently serving on the Coordinating Committee of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. A regular contributor to Hyperallergic, her writing has also appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, Bitch Magazine, American Theatre, The Brooklyn Rail, and Nature.

Jae Lin is the Programs Manager at Feminist Frequency, advocating for a more just and equitable media landscape and the end of abuse in the games industry. They helped to launch Feminist Frequency's latest initiative, the Games and Online Harassment Hotline, which offers free, confidential emotional support to anyone who makes or plays games. Jae is also an artist, graphic designer, and queer & trans community arts space-holder in Austin, TX. They create custom hand lettering as Doodle Me Alive, and they currently work as a freelance graphic designer for clients doing community-centered and nonprofit work. Jae is the visual arts curator for Gender Unbound Art Festival, which features exclusively trans and intersex artists, and they also host biweekly Queer Art Nights in Austin. Media includes: Austin Chronicle, The 1099, Mxiety.

s.e. smith is a writer, agitator, and commentator based in Northern California, with a journalistic focus on social issues, particularly gender, prison reform, disability rights, environmental justice, queerness, class, and the intersections thereof, with a special interest in rural subjects. smith delights in amplifying the voices of those who are often silenced and challenging dominant ideas about justice, equality, and liberation. Riling people up while also informing them about ongoing issues in the world around them is a favorite activity, along with taking any and all opportunities to discuss pop culture. International publication credits include work for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, and AlterNet, among many other news outlets and magazines.

Helen Zia is a writer, community activist, and Fulbright Scholar. She spent 12 years researching and writing Last Boat out of Shanghai, visiting China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan on numerous occasions. A longtime journalist, she is also the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. She coauthored, with Wen Ho Lee, My Country Versus Me, which reveals what can happen to Chinese Americans who are falsely accused of being a spies for China. She was Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, books, and anthologies, receiving awards for her ground-breaking stories. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Essence, The Advocate, OUT.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning Black feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, activist, cultural worker, writer, and international lecturer whose work, for the past 25-years, examines the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and sexual violence. Her work is informed by her lived experiences as a child sexual abuse and adult rape survivor. Previously, Simmons produced, wrote, and directed the 2006-released, Ford Foundation-funded, internationally acclaimed film, NO! The Rape Documentary. Over a decade in the making, NO!, which is subtitled in Spanish, French, and Portuguese, broke taboos that hid heterosexual rape and sexual assault in African-American communities. The film brought together leading and emerging Black scholars, theologians, artists, activists, men, women, and survivors to break silences and commit themselves to reshape patriarchal cultures of violence against women and queer communities. Media includes: Essence, All in the Family, ColorLines, NBC.

Daniela Capistrano is the Founder & CEO of DCAP Media LLC, an agency specializing in strategic rebellion—with measurable results. She had worked with organizations such as The New York Women’s Foundation, PBS series REEL SOUTH, Ace Hotel New Orleans, TransLash, MTV, and more on their digital strategy, audience development, branding, and virtual events production. As the founder of POC Zine Project, she has been a featured speaker and guest lecturer at over 20 universities & academic spaces nationwide since 2010, and her work has been archived by the Library of Congress. Before pivoting into entrepreneurship, Daniela worked as a digital producer and journalist with MTV News & Current TV. She is a Queer, non-binary Latinx storyteller based in New Orleans, where serves as a board member with the New Orleans Film Society. Media includes: New York Mag, Entertainment Tonight, Vulture, WNYC, MTV.

Erica Smiley is the executive director of Jobs With Justice. A long-time organizer and movement leader, Smiley has been spearheading strategic organizing and policy interventions for Jobs With Justice for nearly 15 years. As one of the few queer Black women leaders in the labor movement, Smiley has helped to seed numerous initiatives that position and prioritize the demands and voices of vulnerable working people in socio-economic and political decisions that directly and indirectly impact their individual lives, families, and communities. As a seasoned organizer she has been a vocal advocate for mobilizing our movements to be aligned around a common agenda for working families. Media includes: Chicago Tribune, Bill Moyers, The Washington Free Beacon, Reuters, MSNBC.

Pita Juarez is a filmmaker, journalist, and political communications strategist in Arizona. Pita Juarez is a queer immigrant woman from Guatemala who works to uplift the story of marginalized people through effective and compelling storytelling. Pita received critical acclaim as the director and producer of the award-winning documentary “You Racist, Sexist Bigot.” The documentary tackles the complex identity issues of race, sexuality, and feminism in a patriarchal world from the perspective of marginalized people who harness their power by telling their story and upending stereotypes. Media includes: National Geographic, Remezcla, Univision, CNN Latino, NPR.

Kersh Branz is a professional photographer, artist, and collaborator with 14 years of industry experience. They have worked with a variety of publications, organizations, and individuals throughout the U.S. and the world. Their photography work focuses on portraiture, weddings and events, the arts, and curated projects. Kersh is a passionate advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, the arts, education and inclusion and is available to speak to both large and small groups about identity, creating art through trauma, healing, and other topics relating to gender and sexuality. They have collaborated on podcasts, world premiere ballets, projects large and small, and is currently working on a forthcoming book about gender and identity. By 2014 Kersh had created their first independent portrait series called, The Pride & Joy Project that focuses on queer mothers, transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary parents and their families. The work seeks to increase visibility and social equity for queer parents. Media includes: O! The Oprah Magazine, San Francisco Magazine.

Tope Fadiran 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, and give voice to her experiences as a Black, 1.5 generation Nigerian immigrant growing up in predominantly white, conservative, patriarchal churches. She is a former Associate Research Fellow at Political Research Associates, tracking pushback from the U.S. Religious and Political Right against racial, gender, and LGBTQ justice. Media includes: The Guardian, Salon, Religion Dispatches, R.H. Reality Check, Ebony.com.

Rev. Marie Alford-Harkey is the former president and CEO of the Religious Institute, a national multifaith nonprofit dedicated to advocating for sexual health, education, and justice in faith communities and society. She was the lead author of the Religious Institute publication Making the Invisible Visible: Bisexuality in Faith Communities. Marie leads workshops, writes, preaches, and teaches to promote a progressive vision of faith and sexuality on such issues as access to abortion and family planning, LGBTQ rights, comprehensive sexuality education, and prevention of sexual abuse, misconduct and harassment. Media includes: State of Belief, Believe Outloud, RevGalBlogPals.

Kyla Bender-Baird is a visiting assistant professor of legal studies and sociology at Kenyon College. Her research examines the ways in which law produces identities and shapes institutional experiences. Bender-Baird’s projects seek to bring the perspectives of trans people to inform broader understanding of workplace inequality and legal consciousness. In doing so, her research provides new insights into how people in the U.S. think of law, legitimacy and social change. Bender-Baird, is the author of Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law. Extensive media experience.

Yesenia Chavez, a daughter of Mexican immigrants, is a Manager at Purple Strategies where she develops strategic campaigns to build and protect clients’ reputation. Most recently, she led issue campaigns at the American Civil Liberties Union. Having worked in federal advocacy for eight years, she has a track record in building effective coalitions and implementing successful insider and outsider strategies. Yesenia was deemed the Washington Blade’s Best Hill Staffer twice, one of D.C.’s 40 Under 40: Queer Women of Washington by the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, and is a New Leaders Council fellowship alumna. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and on the board of Q Street, an association for LGBTQ lobbyists and advocates. Media includes: The Atlantic, Good Morning Washington.

Andrea L. Pino-Silva is a public scholar on issues of global gender based violence, media framing of violence, portrayals of gender and sexuality and Latinx identity, and narratives of survivorhood. She is a policy and media strategist committed to bringing together grassroots organizing and radical storytelling to build intersectional and accessible social movements. The daughter of Cuban refugees, Andrea attended The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a first generation college student. She is co-author of We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out, and Co-Founder of the national survivor advocacy organization End Rape on Campus, where she worked for over five years to support students in learning their rights under Title IX, and in changing their campus sexual assault and harassment policies. Media includes: Vogue, The New Republic, New York Magazine, MSNBC.

Heidi Peck Breaux, LCSW-R, possesses an expertise in counseling individuals of marginalized identities, training staff that serve diverse populations, and teaching anti-oppressive practice in higher education. As the Associate Director of Adult Services at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Manhattan, she oversaw grant-funded programs, led LGBTQIA+ cultural competency trainings, and provided testimony to the NYC Council Commission on Human Rights. Heidi has helped develop social work best practices. She served on the NYC Department of Health LGBTQ Employee Resource Group as a leader for the transgender and gender non-conforming inclusive sub-group and participated in developing programs for the Women Who Have Sex with Women group and Transgender Practice Patient training. Extensive media experience.

For 22 years, Kate Kendell led the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), 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 stepped down from this role at the end of 2018. She accepted the role of Interim Chief Legal Officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center in August 2019. Under her leadership, NCLR’s programs, budget, and impact grew exponentially, and the issues facing the LGBTQ community—the safety of LGBTQ youth, violence facing transgender women of color, draconian immigration policy, criminal justice reform and the freedom to marry—have taken center stage in our nation’s discussion of civil rights and justice for the LGBTQ community. Media includes: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Advocate, CNN, NPR.

Rea Carey, the former executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, is one of the most prominent leaders in the U.S. LGBTQ rights movement. Carey, who came to the Task Force in 2004 as deputy executive director, served as executive director from 2008 - 2021. Through her leadership, she advanced a vision of fairness and justice for LGBTQ people and their families that is broad, inclusive and unabashedly progressive. 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; the creation and implementation of the New Beginning Initiative coalition, which secures federal administrative policy changes to improve the lives of LGBTQ people and their families; and the release of the largest-ever study on transgender discrimination in the U.S. Media includes: USA Today, The New York Times, LA Times, Huffington Post, MSNBC, NPR.

Audrey Bilger is the vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Pomona College. Prior to working at Pomona, from 1994-2016, she was the Faculty Director of the Center for Writing and Public Discourse and Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College, where she specialized 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). She is the Gender and Sexuality section editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and a member of the Ms. Committee of Scholars. Media includes: Ms., Bitch Magazine, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Times, NPR.

Cori Bratby-Rudd is a second generation queer LA-based writer, poet, and co-founder of Influx Collectiv(e)’s Queer Poetry Reading Series. She graduated Cum Laude from UCLA’s Gender Studies department, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She has been published in Ms. Magazine, The Gordian Review, Califragile, PANK Magazine, Entropy, Crab Fat Magazine, Impossible Archetype, among others and she has been featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel and Montez Press Radio.

Tarah Demant has over twenty years of experience in global gender issues and has advocated for human rights at the United Nations, the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, USAID, Capitol Hill, and with many foreign governments. In addition to her leadership of the Programs Team and Government Relations and Advocacy Team, she heads the organization’s work on women’s rights, LGBTI rights, Indigenous peoples rights, and sexual and reproductive rights. She holds a Ph.D. in English and a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her analysis has been featured by The New York Times, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Time, USA Today, PRI, The Nation, and other media.

Tia Sherèe Gaynor, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) is founding director for the Center for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. Dr. Gaynor’s research examining the perceptions people of color who identify as lesbian, gay and transgender hold of the New Orleans Police Department is currently supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Under the W.E.B. DuBois Program of Research on Race and Crime, Dr. Gaynor (along with research colleague Brandi Blessett, Ph.D.) was awarded $150,000 for her project titled “Intersectional Subjection and Law Enforcement: Examining Perceptions Held by LGBTQ People of Color in New Orleans, LA.” Media includes: Christian Science Monitor, PopSugar, Huffington Post, NPR.

Danielle Joy Healey is senior principal at Fish & Richardson, with over thirty years experience in antitrust and intellectual property law at international and national law firms, experienced in litigation, transactions, FTC and European Commission. She is the only "out" transgender partner at a big firm in Texas. Healey is a transgender civil rights advocate and is active in LGBT cases in federal courts and agencies and lobbying Texas state legislature on transgender issues. She has appeared on Channel 39, and written about in ALM publications, Outsmart Magazine and Houstonia Magazine.