As an active athlete in the international wrestling community and Group leader for Rainbow youth alliance Akil is unlike many of his counter parts. His focus in life is making a change in the way LGBT youth are seen and the life that athletes are sometimes seen to be forced into to make. Akil works as a youth advocate when he is not on the wrestling mats trainning for the Olympics.
Jose Gutierrez is founder of the Latino GLBT History Project, the DC Latino Pride and co-founder of the Rainbow History Project and Diccion Queer. He worked for seven years as a medical case manager at La Clinica del Pueblo helping clients living with HIV/AIDS. In 2014 he received the Jose Sarria medal of honor from the DC Imperial Court for his multiple contributions to our LGBT community and in 2015 contributted to the book Queer Bown Voices, with an essay entitled ” We must preserve our Latino LGBTQ history”. Currently Jose is pursuing his BS in psychology at the University Ana G. Mendez, in 2014 and 2015 he served as a Latino Commissioner for the Office on Latino Affairs, OLA.
Manuella Hancock is a lawyer who has worked on issues of discrimination in the workplace, and tax, health care and retirement planning for LGBT families and individuals. Manuella also has significant experience as an advocate and counselor on the issue of same sex domestic violence. As a daughter of an immigrant, Manuella has worked with the mono-lingual latino community to make legal issues accessible through language and cultural translation.
Born and raised in the nation?s capital, Ben Privot unavoidably discovered his interest in social issues at an early age. Throughout his educational career, Ben had always found school to be a great place to start making civically-minded strides. The unique social atmosphere unifying a classroom education with extracurricular activities provides students a continual praxis where they can find success upon many platforms. So, he put the formula to the test. Ben majored in Women and Gender Studies and one extracurricular dedication after another eventually culminated in one of his greatest achievements: an award winning workshop which gets students excited about exploring consent. Now Ben is going back to school: this time to impact schools the way they have impacted him.
Clarence J. Fluker is a renaissance man who weaves his words and actions into the discourse on social justice, art & culture and civic engagement in the 21st Century. For several years he served in the Mayor?s Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Affairs in Washington, DC. He worked among community organizations, government agencies and constituents to improve, transform, and ensure the delivery of culturally competent services to thousands of GLBT District residents and employees. Clarence uses his dynamic voice as a tool to advance the dialogue about issues of GLBT people of color. An accomplished writer, he served as a contributing writer to SWERV magazine and has been published in ARISE, and The Life magazines, the acclaimed anthology Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Lesbian/Gay Identity from Redbone Press, and the Journal of Intergroup Relations. Online, he has contributed to TheRootDC.com, a subsidiary of The Washington Post and the Gay Life section of About.com. On the topic of race and sexual orientation, he has been an invited speaker to several universities across the United States including Columbia University, George Washington University, Howard University and Ohio University. In September 2010 and 2011 he was as a panelist for the 105 Voices of History Diversity and Inclusion Forum addressing students from each of the 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States. He has served as a panelist at the national conference for the National Black Justice Coalition and True Colors, the statewide conference for GLBT young people in Connecticut.
Dr. Ruthie is dedicated to spreading sex-positive information, advocacy and community building to all adults. No matter where you live or the nature of your sexual experiences, Dr. Ruth Neustifter is a recognized relationship expert specializing in sexual communication and education as well as recovery from intimate partner violence. University instructor, published author, respected presenter and dedicated activist, Ruth Neustifter holds a doctoral degree in Child & Family Development with specializations in Couples and Family Therapy and Qualitative Research.
Star Peterson (ze/zir) is a non-binary, pansexual diversity trainer who is multiply neurodivergent. Star is passionate about helping healthcare workers, mental health professionals, and allies be more welcoming to the LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent communities. Star gives talks on pronouns, gender-neutral language, avoiding microaggressions, and unpacking cishet privilege.
Jessica McKinnon is recognized and respected in the transgender community as a inspirational speaker and advocate for transsexual and transgender people. Having successfully transitioned in her gender role with her employer in 2006, Jessica has made numerous public and media appearances. Jessica McKinnon is the Chair of Capital Trans Pride 2009. She also serves on the Out&Equal Capital Region Affiliate Council and moderates the DC Metro Area Gender Identity Connection (MAGIC). Jessica was interviewed by CNN and Fox News regarding ENDA, featured in Marie Claire Magazine, and is a regular DC101 radio personality.
Dr. Cheryl Healton is an academic, educator, researcher, and public health visionary. As the founding president and CEO of Legacy, a national public health foundation devoted to keeping teens from smoking and helping all smokers quit, Dr. Healton has been the driving force behind effective and award-winning national campaigns that help save lives. Her passion for tobacco prevention and cessation is deeply personal. She lost her mother and other loved ones to tobacco-related disease, and she herself waged a 25-year battle ? ultimately successful ? to overcome her own addiction to nicotine. The award-winning truth? youth-smoking prevention campaign is just one example of Dr. Healton?s public health successes. Eighty percent of smokers start smoking before age 18, and choosing to smoke is often a mark of rebellion as teens grow into adulthood. Recognizing this distinction within behavioral research, Dr. Healton challenged conventional thinking about tobacco prevention by changing its approach: instead of chastising young people, truth? focused on providing information to teens by tapping into their naturally rebellious feelings, enabling them to make their own informed choices about smoking. As the campaign celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2010, a growing body of research has validated the campaign?s approach; a 2009 study found that during the first four years of the campaign, truth? was found to be directly responsible keeping 450,000 from starting to smoke. In 2007, Dr. Healton led the call to action demanding a new cigarette brand be taken off the market. Camel No. 9 featured slick packaging marketed toward young women and was advertised in magazines popular with the same demographic. Dr. Healton rallied more than 45 public health groups to jointly call for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to remove its Camel No. 9 cigarettes from stores nationwide. As a result of these efforts, R.J. Reynolds announced its decision in late 2007 to discontinue print advertising of its cigarette brands in 2008. The fight continues, as Dr. Healton and others continue to monitor industry marketing activities closely with a focus on youth, and young women. She has also been a leading advocate for removing gratuitous smoking in Hollywood films. Dr. Healton has also worked to realize her vision of a national public-private partnership to help smokers quit. For the past three years, a number of state and national organizations have aligned to create a unified voice in educating Americans about smoking cessation through a national quit smoking campaign called EX, which first launched in 2008. EX is designed to help smokers ?re-learn? life without cigarettes, taking an innovative approach to help the 46 million Americans who smoke to quit. The program includes a multi-media advertising effort, a Web site with a quit smoking community feature and grassroots effort support implemented by member groups and states. Currently, more than 220,000 smokers have signed up to Become an EX. Dr. Healton frequently appears in the media, conducts guest lectures, and speaks at conferences and events ? all to further educate Americans about the debilitating toll tobacco use continues to take on our society, killing more than 400,000 Americans each year.
I have been a fierce advocate for social justice and civil liberties issues for 5 very creative years. A sample of issues I have organized around include the reproductive health needs of queer women, sexuality within disabled communities and queer people of color politics. I am a co-founder of American University’s Students for Choice and have served as Treasurer for our queer group Queers & Allies.
Laya Monarez is a transgender bisexual latinx artist, musician and transgender activist. She studied art at the George Washington Corcoran School of Art and Design where she received her BFA in Fine Art focusing on Painting and Sculpture. Laya has had many art shows through the DMV area and has worked on several murals as well. Her artwork is inspired by science, surrealism and social justice movements. Here activism is rooted in her need to uplift transgender people and educate the public on transgender issues.
Laya’s LGBTQ Activism started with her volunteer work with the DC Trans Coalition where she helped to train police on Trans sensitivity. While working with the Human Rights Campaign on their membership and operation teams Laya trained new employees on Transgender issues. Laya has also given presentations at the bisexual Because Conference in Minneapolis, the Capital Building, Princeton University and the White House Among others. One of her proudest moments is helping to introduce a bill to decrminalize sex work in Washington DC. A bill she thinks will especially help keep black and brown transgender sex workers safe and healthy.
Please send her an email if you’d like to invite her to speak at your event or train your team on transgender and gender issues. You can also view her artwork at layamonarez.com