Multiple Perspectives on Gender
Workshop Description
This workshop will feature a panel of transgender-identified individuals from diverse backgrounds. Each panelist will share the cultural awareness they have learned through authentic living within their gender identity in combination with sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, disabilities, and mental health experiences. The information presented by the transgender panelists will provide cultural competence training to help attendees understand various communities centered around transgender, nonbinary, queer, bi/pansexual, asexual, and aromantic identities, and the intersection of these identities with race, disability, neurodiversity, and mental health. Through attendance of this workshop, attendees will have the opportunity to explore evidence-based training on best practice for mental health professionals, as well as strategies that can be employed by non-professionals such as cisgender (non-transgender) friends, partners, and family members.
Conference Track
Family
Primary Contact
Daniel Au Valencia, Trans Student Educational Resources
Workshop Presenters
Daniel Au Valencia, Trans Student Educational Resources
Presenter Bio
Daniel Au Valencia is an actor, activist, and #ActuallyAutistic. They self-identify as gendervague, and as a member of both the transgender and neurodivergent communities. Daniel Au works as westside event coordinator for Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), computer lab educator at Southern California Resource Services for Independent Living (SCRS-IL), and neurodiversity liaison of Southern California Against Forced Treatment (SCAFT), and founding director of Los Angeles Neurodiversity (LAND).
Skylar Freels, GLAAD
Presenter Bio
Skylar Freels is a GLAAD campus ambassador from the University of Southern California, where he is majoring in philosophy and political science. Skylar is currently working with GLAAD and USC’s IT department, Title IX staff, and LGBTQ Resource Center to create a trans-inclusive server system for student information so that students can update their own names and pronouns without needing legal documentation. In addition to working with GLAAD, Skylar also runs USC’s Transgender Advocacy Group, to provide trans students a safe social environment, and works with the Long Beach LGBT Center’s Speak Your Mind Academy program to provide training and education on mental health issues in the LGBTQ community.
Missy
Presenter Bio
Missy Anderson is a genderfluid trans woman working her way into activism for the queer and trans communities. She recently discovered her trans identity after starting college at the University of Southern California, with support from Skylar Freels’ Transgender Advocacy Group, and has been navigating the intersections of her queer, trans, and Autistic identities ever since. She is working toward getting a bachelor’s degree in political science, with plans to continue her studies into graduate school, with the aim of advocating for trans and queer people via the political system.