Toward Inclusive Understandings of Gender That Hold and Honor Everyone
Workshop Description
Many professionals want to work more effectively with communities of color and others with multiple identities and experiences of oppression. A crucial part of this is rethinking and learning how we understand and talk about gender. This interactive workshop will be led by a team with diverse experiences and identities related to race, gender, class, and parenthood. Participants will reflect on and explore:
- the need for understandings of gender that are rooted in the experiences of immigrants, indigenous people, and people of color;
- how our understandings of gender have been shaped by histories of violence, genocide, and western clinical thinking;
- affirming approaches, ideas, and resources for supporting young people in exploring their own identities.`
Conference Track
Professional
Primary Contact
Laurin Mayeno, MPH, Mayeno Consulting
Workshop Presenters
Laurin Mayeno, MPH, Mayeno Consulting
Presenter Bio
Laurin Mayeno works with organizations that serve children and families, helping them respond effectively to diversity, with a focus on gender diversity. She supports her clients to build environments where everyone is valued and meet the needs of young people and their families across the gender spectrum. Her work is informed by 18 years of consulting and decades of community activism. She is inspired by her lived experiences as a mixed-race woman and by her son who loved dressing up as a princess. Her bilingual children’s picture book, One of a Kind Like Me/Único como yo, and Proud Mom video series raise awareness and spark dialogue about gender diversity.
Mauro Sifuentes, EdD(cand.), Family Violence Law Center
Presenter Bio
Mauro Sifuentes, EdD (cand.), works as the youth program manager at the Family Violence Law Center in Oakland, California, training high school peer educators on violence prevention strategies. For over a decade, he has worked as a scholar-advocate, mentor, educator, and workshop facilitator in nonprofit, school, and community settings across urban, suburban, and rural California. He specializes in working with diverse groups of adults and youth who are committed to social change around issues of gender, sexuality, race, and immigration. Mauro’s scholarly work focuses on decolonial frameworks of gender, and explores the impacts of culture, education, social support, and medical and mental healthcare on gender self-determination.