Speaker, Author, Advocate
Transgender and LGBTQIA+ Inclusion Public Speaker
As a veteran public speaker, I've given hundreds of different speeches for an international variety of audiences. I've spoken everywhere from college classrooms to pulpits in packed churches, from stages at major conferences to Zoom calls for global corporations and ERGs. I've given keynotes, facilitated breakout groups, and created custom workshops for specific events. Whether it's a trans allyship 101 session or a workshop on exploring LGBTQ+ history, my sessions are designed with accessibility in mind; I firmly believe it is never too late for someone to decide to begin their journey as an ally. Using a mix of poignant stories, impactful statistics, and plenty of humor, I can help create a meaningful event for teams of any size or background.
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Click to view sample speech outlines in my most common speaking categories, or reach out about a custom event!
101-Level Speaking Engagements
Trans 101 - A classic 60-minute talk that reviews vocabulary, personal stories, and tips for practical allyship with plenty of time for Q&A. This speech is perfect for everyone from long-time advocates to those learning the phrase "transgender" for the first time.
The Role of Joy in Social Movements Through History: Bury your friends in the morning, protest in the afternoon, and dance all night. This was the mantra of the queer organizers living through the horrors of the AIDS epidemic. Somehow, in the face of profound and constant tragedy, they carved out space to celebrate, come together, and recoup their energy to continue fighting for incredible progress we now enjoy. Throughout history, social movements have relied on joy, gathering, music, food, art, and more to sustain us through challenging times. This session will give an overview of the power of joy in LGBTQ+ social movements through history, and what we can learn for the challenges we are facing today.
Choosing Joy, Resource Mapping, and Resilience Building: Though many of us feel a strong urge to stick our heads firmly in the sand and leave them there for the next four years, this is ony going to further cement feelings of isolation, anxiety, powerlessness and defeat. We'll talk through important strategies for avoiding burnout and empathy fatigue and build our emotional capacity muscles. We’ll review how to locate and support local resources, as well as how to engage with the news in a way that balances staying informed with maintaining our sanity. Through this, we'll create action plans that empower us to get involved and build community.
Building a Joyful World for Trans Youth: a A 60-minute session reviewing the content of my book, this conversation will walk participants through the basics of creating supportive environments for transgender and nonbinary youth and is a perfect collaboration for LGBTQ+ and Parents ERG's!
Trans 101 - Industry Specific: There are many different ways an individual or organization may engage with the trans community, and this session will make sure your group is prepared for that. I am able to design sessions for any group, and have significant experience facilitating sessions designed for:
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HR professionals and company leaders
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Medical professionals
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Financial services professionals
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Educators or those that work with LGBTQ+ youth
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Parents and families of LGBTQ+ youth
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High school, middle school, and elementary school youth
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Customer service teams
Fireside Chat: a 15-minute presentation with key identities and vocabulary words pertaining to the trans community, followed by a 45-minute fireside chat and Q&A with a leader at your company about a topic of your choice (pronouns, expression, experiences, etc.)
Parent and Support Group Presentations
My Child is Trans, Now What?: A 60-minute session reviewing the content of my book, this conversational workshop will create space for parents, caregivers, and loved ones to learn more on building a joy-centered world for their transgender and nonbinary loved ones.
Home for the Holidays: a 90-minute session focuses on showing up for transgender and LGBTQ+ family members at family holiday gatherings that might have a wide range of support. Whether it's helping grandma remember the right pronouns, figuring out what to say about Uncle Joe's openly transphobic comments, or finding a way to make the gathering bearable for a closeted youth, I'll share a variety of helpful tools.
If you are a member of a support group that would like a presentation, click here to learn more about my work with PFLAG and other parent resource groups.
201 - Level Speaking Engagements
Trans 201 - Structural and Cultural Support: This 60-minute session will walk participants through practical steps for building a trans-inclusive future by making both structural and cultural changes in their workplaces, their lives, and the world around them.
Future Dreaming and your Advocacy Superpower for Queer Folks and Allies: This session will be highly actionable, giving you lots of ideas for how to use the skills you already have—be it conversational, organizational, educational, or something else—to build a world worth living in for yourself and those you love. We'll walk through a "Future Dreaming" exercise, in which we ground ourselves in the world we want to build, to prevent our advocacy from coming from a place of fear, pity, or anger. We'll also get very real with each other and ourselves about the barriers to participating in advocacy initiatives. To close out the session, we'll also talk through a number of critical self-care and community-care strategies for advocates to ensure that we can avoid burnout as much as possible.
Responding to Resistance: This 90-120 minute session will walk participants through the wide variety of reasons someone might not feel ready to support their transgender and LGBTQ+ coworkers, from fear to faith, from misinformation to masculinity. After painting a clear picture of the people we hope to reach. we'll talk through strategies for how to reach them in a way that is safe, productive, and sustainable, as well as how to handle when conversation isn't possible.
Trans Liberation - How Did We Get Here and Where are we Going?: a 90-minute session that will walk attendees through the history of the trans liberation movement, starting back long before we used the word "trans" at all, and will share the ways current advocates can learn from the historical heroes in the fight for trans lives.
Storytelling for Social Change: This 90-120 minute workshop is extremely interactive. After introducing participants to the when, why, and how of storytelling for social change, we'll talk through the concept of relational organizing, empathy bridge building, and then open up to a storytelling open-mic.
Understanding Gender Roles: This interactive workshop will walk participants through a series of reflective questions and exercises about their personal gender identity and gender journey. Participants will think through how they learned about their own gender and how they "teach" gender to other people in their lives.
Supporting Employees in the Current Political Landscape: For many transgender people, the past few years have been extremely exhausting. Constantly feeling attacked, targeted, and wondering when we'll need to flee our homes. This feeling of stress follows us into our workplaces, and this session will review cultural and policy changes to help support these employees.
Custom Event: If there is a specific topic, book, bill, or situation you'd like to do an event on, please let me know! I often design new events diving deeper into topics of interest for groups that reach out to me and am always seeking opportunities to educate in new ways.
Political Advocacy Education
As a grassroots political organizer, I am extremely involved in understanding the "behind the scenes" of many social movements. My goal is not to blame, shame or campaign. These conversations, while political in nature, are not necessarily partisan and can be adapted to meet your comfort level with political conversations.
More Than An Ally—Understanding and Acting in the Current Political Landscape: The current landsacpe of US politics is rife with misinformation and rampant transphobia. in 2023 we have already seen over 500 anti-transgender bills proposed. This 60-90 minute session will paint a full picture of the who, what, when, where, and why of this wave of hate, and the how of getting involved in fighting back.
Let's Talk! Having Conversations about Trans Rights: Conversations about transgender people and rights have become extremely contentious, and many people are left feeling unsure about what they can ask, what they can say, or how they can communicate effectively. This session will focus on learning how to have productive, respectful, open conversations—and on being able to understand and act when those conversations aren't possible.
Understanding and Addressing Misinformation Pipelines: While it can be easy to feel like everyone has a strong, negative opinion about the trans community, the reality is that many people have been impacted by a massive misinformation campaign against the transgender community. This 90-120 minute presentation will walk through many of the key misinformation strategies, and will share strategies for debunking and prebunking misinformation around you.
Your Community Organizing Superpower: When you hear the word "advocate", you likely think of a bold, loud leader with a picket sign leading chants outside the capitol. While this is certainly an important role, there are so many other ways to get involved in community organizing. Grassroots advocacy work needs strategists, caretakers, communicators, and so many others to make a movement successful. This workshop will help you discover your strengths!
Custom Event: If there is a specific topic, book, bill, or situation you'd like to do an event on, please let me know!
Three key theories guide my work:
Guiding Principles
1. Contact Hypothesis states that simply meeting someone from a group that you are not part of reduces bias and prejudice towards that group. Showing up with openness and vulnerability as a transgender facilitator in sessions about the transgender community is crucial in helping to build both empathy and understanding. This is also why I frequently include personal stories in all trainings.
2. Judgment-free spaces maximize impact. I strongly believe that it is always the right time to start learning and start every training with foundational square 1 knowledge to make sure that everyone has the language to be a part of the conversation and ensure that no one feels that it's too late for them. I also take this philosophy into my Q&A sessions, in which I allow attendees to ask truly any questions they want.
3. Intersectionality focuses on the fact that historically minoritized identities don't exist in a vacuum and rather compound one another in unique ways. Though I myself am a White transgender man, I am intentional about sharing specific information on the struggles of trans women, nonbinary folks, and trans people of color who have very different experiences of their identities.