Confirmed Speakers
This was the final list of speakers for the New Orleans event.
For Such a Time as This is CANCELED
Due to Hurricane Conditions in New Orleans
- Julie Nemecek
Julie Nemecek
Dr. Julie Nemecek is a former university professor who lost her job for following the treatment protocols for her diagnosed condition. The Christian university where she worked said that following these protocols to reach some measure of congruence between mind and body was “un-Christian behavior”. She is a transsexual. Dr. Nemecek and Joanne, her life partner of 36 years, have been willing to share their story with all who wish to hear it. In the process they have both become outspoken activists for LGBT rights.
- Erin Swenson
Erin Swenson
The Reverend Dr. Erin Swenson is an ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA) and a licensed marriage and family therapist. In 1996 she became the first known mainstream Protestant minister to make an open gender transition while remaining in ordained office. She provides counseling for individuals with gender identity issues and their families from her office at the Morningside Presbyterian Church in midtown Atlanta and lectures nationally on issues of gender and faith. Erin serves on the national board of More Light Presbyterians and is co-founder of the Southern Association for Gender Education, Inc.
- Justin Tanis
Justin Tanis
Justin Tanis is the Community Outreach and Education Manager of the National Center for Transgender Equality. His most recent publication was Opening the Door to the Full Inclusion of Transgender People, written with Lisa Mottet of the Transgender Civil Rights Project of The Task Force. He is also the author of Transgendered: Theology, Ministry and Communities of Faith and contributed to the Queer Bible Commentary and Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible. He earned his Master’s Degree from Harvard Divinity School and a doctorate from San Francisco Theological Seminary.. He has been working in the LGBT movement for more than 22 years.
- Sean Parker Dennison
Sean Parker Dennison
Rev. Sean Parker Dennison was ordained in 2000 and has served as Minister of the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society in Salt Lake City, Utah since 2002. He is a graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees. He also serves as president of the Mountain Desert District UU Ministers' Association. He openly identifies as a transgender man and minister and is particularly interested in celebrating the gifts that transgender people bring to their religious communities and to the ministry.
- Barbara Satin
Barbara Satin
Barbara Satin is a transgender activist involved with both the local and national gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force recently named Barbara the recipient of the 2008 Allan Morrow Community Service Award for her work in educating local and national audiences about aging issues in the GLBT community. Barbara is one of the founders of GLBT Generations, a group working to educate people about the needs of GLBT persons as they grow old. She is currently acting as a faith works consultant to the Institute of Welcoming Resources, a program of the National Gay Lesbian Task Force, working to support the unconditional welcome of people of all sexual orientation, gender identities and their families in the church homes of their choice. Nationally, she serves on the Executive Council of the United Church of Christ becoming the first transgender woman to have a national leadership role in that denomination.
- Allyson Robinson
Allyson Robinson
Prior to her transition from male to female, Allyson Robinson graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, served five years as a U.S. Army officer, received a Master of Divinity degree from Baylor University, and pastored Baptist congregations on two continents. She's proudest, though, of her "thrilling" marriage of 14 years and of her four "mind-bogglingly well adjusted" children. Asked to summarize her life in six words or less, she wrote, "When in doubt, bet on love." She currently works as the Associate Director of Diversity for transgender concerns at the Human Rights Campaign, and blogs on faith, gender, and activism at Crossing the T (crossingthet.wordpress.com).
- Nicole Garcia
Nicole Garcia
Nicole Garcia began her transition, male to female, in 2004. She was able to complete her transition while employed as a law enforcement officer in Colorado. She was welcomed and became a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church in downtown Denver. During the past four years, she has become active with Lutherans Concerned/North America, an organization which is working for the full inclusion of the LGBT community in the Lutheran Church. She was elected to the Board of Directors of LC/NA as the Transgender Representative in July 2008.
- Cameron Partridge
Cameron Partridge
Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge is a transman and Episcopal priest serving St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Episcopal church in Allston/Brighton, Massachusetts. Cameron is also a scholar whose work focuses on the constructions of sex, gender and sexuality in early Christian thought, as well as on the intersection of feminist, queer and transgender studies with the study of Religion. His dissertation, completed in June, 2008, examines how the seventh century Byzantine theologian Maximus the Confessor conceives of sexual difference as subject to transformation.
- Monica Joy Cross
Monica Joy Cross
Ms. Monica Joy Cross serves as a minister at City of Refuge, United Church of Christ and attends Pacific School of Religion where she is working on a Masters of Divinity Degree with interests in Global Justice, Transgender Theology and Ethics. She has served on several dynamic staffs of exciting churches and has been able to hone her skills in many areas of church life including education, mission, spirituality, and leadership development in an effort to minister to God's people. Her most recent endeavor in making a difference for the transgender community is a website called The New Progressive Christian Transwoman. It is a blog dedicated to looking at Church, scripture, justice and authenticity from a transgender perspective. Ms. Cross is a native of Los Angeles, CA, was raised in a Christian household, and has roots in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Seventh Day Adventist Church, and Metropolitan Community Church.
- Kathy Randall
Kathy Randall
Kathy is an artist and teacher in San Francisco Bay area. Married for over 25 years with three children, Kathy has been active in the transgender community since 2000. Kathy is a commissioned Stephen Minister and a lay-counselor to other transgendered individuals, and their spouses, who are coming to grips with their transgender issues. She is published on the on-line publication "Grace and Lace" under the heading "Olive Garden." Kathy is forming a new ministry called "Light in the Closet." This ministry offers a safe place for individuals to discuss, with confidentiality, personal issues, desires and fears related to gender identity issues. In 2007 she presented at Southern Comfort Conference a new website being developed called, Gender Spectrum. She is attempting to create new non-polarized gender model for the western culture.
- Angel Collie
Angel Collie
I'm just a simple southern guy with a passion for Jesus and Justice. I'm on staff with MCC as a Program Assistant as well as Co-Lead of the Transgender Resource Team where I serve with Melanie Martinez. Additionally, I am a Junior in the Religious Studies program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During my free time I enjoy going to church, getting inked, and, doing social justice... all in the same day if possible. I draw my inspiration from Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Troy Perry, Nancy Wilson, Cindi Love, Jay Bakker, and the Team that beats with one heart.
- Vickie Boisseau
Vickie Boisseau
A. Vickie Boisseau AIS is an activist/speaker with SpeakOut Boston a Boston-based GBLTI speakers bureau, and is cofounder of The Annual Intersex Day of Awareness which started at the University of Montana in 2003, and has now gone national. She is on the Member Services & Steering Committee of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and serves as mentor and facilitator for several transgender and intersex support organizations (You Are Not Alone - Worcester; Oxford Teen Club; and Parents of Intersexed Children).
- Sean Delmore
Sean Delmore
Sean Delmore is a doctoral student of sociology and feminist theology at Boston University's School of Theology. He became a Christian and joined the United Methodist Church (UMC) during the process of transitioning from female to male. Sean is pursuing ordination as a Deacon, and is a member of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries, a queer mission of the New England Conference of the UMC. In his work as the Program Coordinator for the Rainbow Lounge, a GLBTQA space at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sean is a facilitator of a young adult trans support group.
- Melanie Martinez
Melanie Martinez
Melanie “Mel” Martinez is the Director of Online Services at Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), a Co-Lead for MCC’s Transgender Ministries and a final-year seminary student at Perkins School of Theology. Mel has worked with transgender resource development, research and programming since 2005. In addition to local church and denominational ministry, Mel hopes to engage the subjects of gender and spirituality in doctoral study. After many years of exploring self and spirit, Mel celebrates a diverse gender identity including genderqueer, trans-identified, and female.
- Tara Wilkins
Tara Wilkins
Rev. Tara Wilkins serves as Executive Director of the Community of Welcoming Congregations in Oregon & SW Washington. Born into an Anglican family, she spent most of her young adult life in the Presbyterian Church. Seeking a more inclusive faith, Rev. Tara was ordained in 1998 into an interfaith association and is now seeking standing in the United Church of Christ. As a person of faith, she is an ardent activist for Trans-Les-Gay-Bi inclusion and equality. She has a passion for working with youth and young adults as they explore the links between their gender, sexuality and spirituality. Rev. Tara has earned a solid reputation in the Pacific Northwest as an inspiring speaker, workshop leader and preacher. She and her wife, Carole, have 6 adult children and 4 grandchildren.
- Peterson Toscano
Peterson Toscano
After 17 years of struggling to accept his gay orientation and gender differences, Peterson Toscano finally came to his senses. He then tumbled out of the closet onto the stage where he shared his story internationally through his one-person comedy Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House--How I Survived the Ex-Gay Movement! In unpacking his own story, he began to explore gender in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and those individuals who have transgressed and transcended gender. He now shares these insights through his new production, Transfigurations--Transgender Bible Stories.
- Chris Paige
Chris Paige
Chris Paige is the founder of TransFaith On-line (http://www.transfaithonline.org), a website dedicated to supporting Transgender folks in our faith journeys, while providing useful resources to help Church folks become better educated trans-allies. Formerly publisher of The Other Side magazine, Chris has been involved in LGBT Christian organizing for more than a decade and believes that gender variant folks have many spiritual gifts and insights to offer a world that depends entirely too much on binary categories.
- Michael Schuenemeyer
Michael Schuenemeyer
The Rev. Michael “Mike” Schuenemeyer is the Executive for Health and Wholeness Advocacy in Wider Church Ministries in the national offices of the United Church of Christ. Mike is a trans-ally who served as executive director of the documentary, Call Me Malcolm and continues to work for the inclusion of transgender people in society and within the United Church of Christ.
- Bruce Parker
Bruce Parker
Bruce Parker is the Director of Curriculum Development for TransYouth Family Allies and the Louisiana State University Safe Space Campaign Coordinator. He also is pursuing his Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory and Women’s and Gender Studies. He has been active in the transgender community as an ally, partner and advocate for ten years.
Pat Bumgardner
The Rev. Pat Bumgardner is the Pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of New York. She also currently serves as the Chair of the Moderator's Global Justice Team for Metropolitan Community Churches.
And more!
We also expect Malcolm Himschoot and Crystal Little.
New Orleans Speakers
