Tash Shatz, Trans Justice Manager.
Tash loves cooking, the night sky, spoken word, and organizing. Tash began working with BRO as a volunteer in 2007 through a partnership with the Oregon Student Association. After two cycles as a New Roots youth fellow, tash now co-coordinates the Trans Justice work at BRO by collaborating with community leaders to increase access to health care, legal rights, and safety in legal custody for trans, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming folks in Oregon. tash is honored to work every day for trans justice, racial justice, and basic rights for all.
Joe LeBlanc, Development Coordinator.
Joe is a Cajun Genderqueer Poly Butch who believes in personal story-telling as a significant method for people to share experiences and solidify a better understanding about LGBTIQ identities, issues, and concerns. Joe is the Founder and Board Chair ofBUTCH Voices. He has served as a member of the University of Michigan’s Spectrum Center Speakers’ Bureau and TransGender Michigan. A graduate from the Out in Front Seattle LGBTQ leadership program, Joe has served as an Advisory Board member for TransActive, a founder and coordinator for Q Patrol PDX, and currently serves as Assistant Citizen Co-Chair for the Alliance for Safer Communities. He has developed and presented workshops at various conferences on issues around identity, community building, event planning, and advocating for trans-inclusive health care. Joe is currently working as the Development Coordinator for Basic Rights Oregon and was awarded the 2011 Pride In Action Award by Pride NW. He also enjoys writing poetry, road trips, coffee, taking way too many pictures, and a wide variety of music.
Brennon Ham is a queer, mixed, person of color from the DC/Baltimore area with a sharp social justice lens. He studied English and triple minored in Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and Studio Art at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH and sometimes finds himself [still] talking like a Buckeye. Brennon works on the weekends for Cafe Flora and on during the weeks for various temp jobs around Seattle. He loves it here and was brought to Seattle thanks to Camp Ten Trees. Brennon has been volunteering for Camp Ten Trees for three years as a cabin counselor, lifeguard, and creative writing intensive instructor using the camp name Hashbrowns. He has since continued volunteering year‐round by joining the board of directors and has been serving as Secretary for the past year.
Airen Lydick is a queer farm kid living in the city. Since he believes that one‐on‐one connections and intimate community conversations are the building blocks of social change, Airen is deeply honored to be a part of Camp Ten Trees and to come together with children, youth, and other adult allies to create a “mini‐world” at the camp sessions where they can share stories, make connections, and build and practice skills to take out into their communities.
Airen has been a part of the Camp Ten Trees community since 2006 when he joined an organizational transition team that eventually became an advisory committee working on creating sustainability for the project and helping it on the path to becoming a non‐profit organization. Airen spent a year on the advisory committee and facilitated a 2007 retreat of summer camp volunteers and former campers that produced the language of the current organizational Mission and Values. He has also served as a summer camp volunteer (camp name Panhandle), leading the kitchen in 2007 and developing and coordinating the junior staff team in 2008. Airen is currently the executive director of Camp Ten Trees and, since early 2009, has been facilitating year‐round fundraising, outreach, community building, and infrastructure development for the organization as well as supporting essential services and logistics for the summer camp sessions.
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Episode 32:Identity Documents 101, QLAW Interview
Denise Diskin volunteers as the chair of the GLBT Bar Association of Washington Foundation (QLaw Foundation)'s GLBT Legal Clinic, where she coordinates a free legal clinic providing 30 minute consultations to queer and trans folks in King County on all sorts of civil legal issues, including advising on identity documents and their legal impact. In her paid work, she is an attorney with Teller & Associates, PLLC, where she works on behalf of individuals facing discrimination in the workplace, as well as families experiencing divorce and negotiating child custody. Her practice focuses on furthering the rights of GLBT individuals in the workplace and representing transgender clients and survivors of sex or gender-based harassment.
Selma Al-Aswad is a queer Palestinian living in the diaspora committed to connecting queer and Palestinian anti-occupation struggles in her home community in the Pacific Northwest. Utilizing media to discuss queer contemporary issues, Selma is a part of the Reteaching Gender & Sexuality campaign and seeks to highlight the inextricable link between reteaching gender and sexuality with breaking down borders and binaries of all kinds. She works as a community advocate for The Northwest Network, supporting queer survivors of dating and domestic violence.
Episode 30: Athens Boys Choir, GC Performance Series 1
Guest Bio (from Athens Boys Choir) see
website for full bio.
Katz's spoken-word is raw, unapologetic,
witty, and soulful. As Out Magazine wrote in 2006, "Katz avoids falling
into the common spoken-word trap... and instead uses engaging wordplay,
razor-sharp wit, and hip-hop rhythms." He has had the honor of sharing the
stage with such artists as Ani Difranco, Indigo Girls, Bitch, The Butchies,
Danielle Howle, and Michelle Malone. He has also opened for poets of HBO's Def
Poetry Jam on more than one occasion.
Being a out Transsexual, Katz's
spoken-word often becomes a platform for education and activism, but all work
and no play makes for one intense performance so he lets loose with sarcasm,
pop culture references, and video's featuring Barbara Streisand as Yentl and
sassy footwork by the stars of the 1979 hit "Roller Boogie."
Camp Ten Trees is committed to ending
homophobia and gender variant phobia by addressing, through a Social Justice
lens, the interconnected issues of oppression and privilege that foster
inequality and thrive on keeping people divided. Social Justice includes full
and equal participation of all groups in our community, where individuals are
safe, self-determining and interdependent. We hold each other accountable with
regard to all issues of equality, accomplished through education and advocacy.
Social Justice is not an outcome, but an ongoing and evaluative process.
Boston Davis Bostian is a nature poet relentlessly bent
on transition. He illustrates, through compositions of color, body, and sound,
the unbounded fluidity of experimental gender. He spent 19 remarkable months
working on the GENDER book, a fun, beautifully-crafted, community-based
resource, which is available online in rough draft form here by creators Mel Reiff Hill, Jay Mays, and Robin
Mack.
He is the manager/facilitator of Genderpedia.net, a resource wiki which began as a component of the GENDER book Project for the purpose of giving community the opportunity of co-authoring the full-length version of the GENDER book. Genderpedia.net is no longer officially affiliated with the GENDER book Project, though a huge fan, always. Boston is currently working on his first poetry collection, TransPoetica_1: The Pre-Op Version, which is the first of a trilogy of poetry manuscripts. Titles for the second and third collections are: TransPoetica_2: The Post-Op Version, and TransPoetica_3: The Final Cut. The trilogy is intended to document Boston’s physical, spiritual, and emotional transition(s) while performing his own personal
He is the manager/facilitator of Genderpedia.net, a resource wiki which began as a component of the GENDER book Project for the purpose of giving community the opportunity of co-authoring the full-length version of the GENDER book. Genderpedia.net is no longer officially affiliated with the GENDER book Project, though a huge fan, always. Boston is currently working on his first poetry collection, TransPoetica_1: The Pre-Op Version, which is the first of a trilogy of poetry manuscripts. Titles for the second and third collections are: TransPoetica_2: The Post-Op Version, and TransPoetica_3: The Final Cut. The trilogy is intended to document Boston’s physical, spiritual, and emotional transition(s) while performing his own personal
Walidah Imarisha is a writer, organizer, educator and performance poet. She is one half of the poetic duo Good Sista/Bad Sista. She has shared the stage with Kenny Muhammad of the Roots, Chuck D, Saul Williams, war resister Stephen Funk, Ani DiFranco, John Irving, dead prez and organizer and revolutionary Yuri Kochiyama. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including the hip hop anthology Total Chaos. Walidah has facilitated poetry and journalism workshops third grade to twelfth, in schools, community centers, youth detention facilities, and women’s prisons. She directed and co-produced the Katrina documentary Finding Common Ground in New Orleans. She has taught in the Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, Oregon State University’s Women’s Studies Department and Southern New Hampshire University’s English Department.
Lucien is a 30-year-old transgender male sex worker. He
uses his work as an opportunity to observe and research gender identities,
sexuality, and so much more (and to help his clients do so as well). He
stumbled upon this work accidentally, although he realized that it was by no
means a coincident. Participating in the sex trade offers him an
experience of a lifetime, a window into the heart of humanity. It is here
that he's found unremarkable truths he would never have anticipated prior to
his work in this industry. Allow him to share these truths in this
podcast, his observations about where the core of humanity exists on its
journey toward healing gender and sexuality on this planet.
Calvin Burnap is a queer
and trans therapist of color in Seattle, Washington, praciticing within a
framework of collective healing and empowerment. He has been wrking as a
service provider since 2007 and frames his work towards the liberation of queer
and trans people of all ages and expressions of gender.
Canelli is a trans/queer
therapist who is also a trans and queer advocate. Canelli's work is based
in Seattle, Washington, but liberation work is portable and can traverse many
spaces.
Gendercast Episode 16: Bisexuality and the Binary or Are We Queer?
Maddox was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He spent much of his life the theatre, and did a brief stint in New York where he studied at an acting conservatory. While in college in San Francisco, he worked doing HIV/AIDS prevention, organizing workshops for survivors of sexual abuse, and facilitated workshops on dating violence prevention, transgender sensitivity. He worked on developing the Gender Diversity Project Resource for Educators, which provides tools for teachers wishing to make their curriculum and classrooms more inclusive for gender variant students. He is currently attending Seattle University, earning his Masters in Psychology. When he can find spare time and energy, he is also a painter and crafter.
Caila is passionate about many things including sex positivity, cooking, dog parks, exercise and volunteerism. She is happy to be living in Seattle and to work with various agencies who promote equality and the worth of all humans. She is thankful to Sean and Jessie for the opportunity to share and for their creating this great podcast.
Amy has a zest for living life full out, with passion, and an open, honest, transparent heart. A creative, multi-talented diva, Amy loves each day as a new opportunity to craft and manifest the life she dreams of!
Sid Jordan is a documentary filmmaker with a background in human rights law, leadership development, and community organizing. Utilizing media to generate dialogue about contemporary issues, Sid’s work seeks to create an essential link between art, education, and community wellness. A director and educator with the Reteaching Gender & Sexuality education campaign, Sid has presented and trained for universities and colleges, government agencies, hospitals, community organizations, cultural centers, public libraries, and centers of faith. Sid is a founder of the Seattle-based THREEWINGS, an Advisor for The Vera Project, and an Inquiring Minds Speaker for Humanities Washington.
Megan Kennedy is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with a private practice in Seattle. Megan provides in depth consultation and training around youth gender and sexuality, and is the co-director and producer of the debut documentary PUT THIS ON THE {MAP} as well as This is Reteaching Gender & Sexuality. Megan co-facilitates the Youth Eastside Services BGLAD support group in Redmond, WA, provides consultation as a regional Sexual Minority Mental Health Specialist, and is on the founding board of Three Wings, a queer youth-led cultural arts and activism center that will open in Seattle by 2012.
