Ms. Chamblee is an Executive and a seasoned advocate within and for the Transgender community, having served as a mentor, life coach, and consultant.  Ms. Chamblee brings over 20 years of solid community-based organizing and data collection experience to bear on issues that include Gender Identity, transition and health, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse prevention, mental health, and transformative social justice issues.

Currently, Ms. Chamblee serves as the Executive Director of LaGender which she founded in 2000, the first agency created by and for the Transgender community.  As Executive Director, she supervises 20 volunteer and paid staff members who provide education, intervention and outreach services to the Transgender community in the Metro Atlanta area, a community where Transgender people number in the thousands.

Prior to founding LaGender, Ms. Chamblee served as a Peer Counselor at Grady Memorial Hospital’s Infectious Disease Program, for more than a decade. Ms. Chamblee was the first transgender peer counselor to be hired by Grady Memorial Hospital and, during her tenure, was responsible for teaching professional staff about the needs and perspectives of diverse populations through trainings, workshops and symposiums. She also provided counseling and advocacy for members of the transgender community seeking support and services from service providers and as an advocate for Transformative Justice.

Since 1994, Ms. Chamblee has been a lecturer and consultant to numerous agencies and organizations regarding the unique needs of Trans and gender-nonconforming people.  She has also served on a number of boards and councils including the Ryan White AIDS Council, Atlanta GLBT Task Force and the National Advisory Board for The Center for Excellence in Transgender Health.

Transgender Advocate Tracee McDaniel is motivated by a strong desire to ensure that all transgender and gender non-conforming people receive equality, justice and human rights protections. Tracee was born and raised in South Carolina and supported by her spouse of almost two decades. Tracee became the first transgender person in 2007 who was invited to deliver a key-note speech at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration march and rally in addition to lobbying the United States Congress in 2008 to support a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and increased HIV/AIDS funding.

Her personal motto “Show Up and Participate for Equality” attributed to her becoming the Founder and Executive Director of the 501(c)(3) tax exempt Juxtaposed Center for Transformation, Inc., an advocacy, consulting, and social services referral organization specifically designed to empower the diverse transgender and gender non-conforming community. Juxtaposed Center’s vision is to act as a collective body to provide basic, necessary, and fundamental services to the transgender community.

Juxtaposed Center is also an anchoring organization of the Transgender Housing Atlanta Program, which provides transitional and emergency housing to transgender and gender non-conforming people. Juxtaposed Center is the official organizer of Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is an annual vigil that memorializes transgender and gender non-conforming people whom were either murdered or committed suicide due to hate and violence against community members whom may identify as a gender that’s opposite their birth sex. Additionally, Tracee has served on the Atlanta Police Department’s LGBT Advisory Board and Mayor Reed’s Working Group on Prostitution (WGOP) and is a Vetted Trainer for the United States Department of Justice.

Tracee has served on the Board of Directors for several community initiatives, facilitated Transgender cultural competency training for Atlanta Police Department Academy recruits, and helps coordinate Atlanta's observation of Stonewall weekends, which include convening speakers' panels and marches. Currently, Tracee is a Board Director for Transgender Health and Educational Alliance, and a Transgender Housing Atlanta Program Committee Member. Most recently, Tracee was invited to brief the inaugural White House “Trans Women of Color Women’s History Month Briefing” on Employment and Economic Equity and how those inequities affect Trans Women of Color.

Tim'm T. West is a poet, scholar, rapper, and youth activist who was born in Cincinnati and raised primarily in rural Arkansas. A contemporary Renaissance man, he is a featured voice in multiple documentaries about hip hop and masculinity because of his groundbreaking work as a gay-identified hip hop artist, AIDS activist, and youth advocate, among other affiliations. A teacher and cultural producer at a number of secondary and post-secondary institutions, as well as a former varsity basketball coach, West has a B.A. from Duke University and graduate degrees from The New School for Social Research and Stanford University.

He is author of several books (Red Dirt Revival: a poetic memoir in 6 Breaths, BARE: notes from a porchdweller, Flirting, and pre|dispositions). As a writer, West is widely anthologized and published. As a recording artist, he has  produced and released nine hip hop albums, the first several with iconic queer rap group D/DC. In 2013 he released his fifth solo project snapshots. 

Tim'm West travels and lectures widely, professionally serving as Senior Managing Director for Teach For America's LGBTQ Community Initiative, which advances educational equity for LGBTQ kids and youth K-12 as well as their educators. In July 2015 he decided to set roots in Atlanta, Georgia, with the understanding that advocating for safer schools in the South and rural areas is particularly critical.

As Archivist for Women and Gender Collections at GSU, Morna Gerrard collects, preserves, and makes available the records of women and the LGBTQ community in Atlanta, Georgia, and the South. Morna serves as vice president of the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project, and in that role, she provides professional expertise and guidance, and supports the president’s outreach efforts by attending Archives Project’s presentations.

A native of Scotland, Morna was educated at Edinburgh University, Western Washington University, and Clark Atlanta University, and she has worked as an archivist at the National Archives of Scotland and Georgia State University. She has written two articles that were published in the professional journal, Archival Issues: “Putting the Georgia Women’s Movement Oral History Project on the Web: A Case Study in Collaboration and Innovation,” and “Engaging Communities: Public Programming in State Universities’ Special Collections and Archives,” (co-written with Kevin Fleming).  She has also written an essay, “No Fame Required: Collaboration, Community, and the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project, which will be included in a forthcoming “Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections” book about acquisitions and appraisal. She is a past president of the Society of Georgia Archivists, and a Georgia Archives Institute board member. She lives in Decatur with her husband and two cats.

Hillery Rink serves as president of The Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project.  In that role he focuses on outreach to LGBTQ groups and individuals in order to arrange presentations introducing The Archives Project and its work to their organizations and social networks. In addition to his responsibilities with The Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project, Hillery works at StoryCorps, conducts oral history interviews for Georgia State University’s Special Collections & Archives, and does event management at The Fox Theatre.

Hillery grew up in North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill, graduating with degrees in history and economics.  Graduate school brought him to Atlanta, and he obtained his MBA at Emory University.  For 20+ years Hillery spent time in the business world, focusing on market research and consulting for such industries as telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, restaurants, candy, retail, and consumer packaged goods. Coming of age as a young gay man in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Hillery is particularly interested in documenting the decade of LGBTQ life between the Stonewall Riots in 1969 and the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s. Hillery and his husband Sean legally tied the knot in California in September 2014 after 26+ years together.

Kaden Borseth is a trans-masculine identified advocate for LGBTQ social justice issues. He has been actively involved in the LGBTQ community since 2002. During college, he served as President of the University of Northern Iowa's Pride group for three years, helping it grow from just a few individuals to a thriving and active group. Today’s UNI Proud organization is well integrated into the university culture, offering educational, social, and activist-oriented activities to its members and the broader campus.

After graduating, he worked for several years as an Alumni Chair for Iowa Pride Network (IPN), an organization that educates and mentors middle school through college-aged LGBTQ youth. IPN empowers LGBTQ youth by cultivating their leadership skills and guiding them to create safe and accepting school environments. Kaden currently leads a support group for gender variant and transgender teens in Atlanta. 

Letitia Campbell is the Director of Contextual Education I and Senior Program Coordinator for the Laney Legacy Program in Moral Leadership at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. A teacher, researcher, and administrator, her interests focus on religion, ethics, engaged pedagogy, and the role of religion in movements for social justice. A native Atlantan, she is proud to be associated with the Solutions Not Punishments Coalition, the #KellyOnMyMind Collective, and other grassroots justice-makers. Her academic research focuses on the history of Christian internationalism and the impact of religious activism on the movement to end human trafficking.

Previously, Letitia was the Coordinator of Community and Strategic Partnerships for Emory University’s Master’s Development Practice (MDP) program and a Lead Organizer for the Atlanta Table to Action Project. She has taught religious studies at colleges and universities, and as part of the Certificate for Theological Studies at Lee Arrendale State Prison. She has also worked as a journalist, and has experience helping grassroots and religious groups develop capacity for faith-based anti-racism organizing.  Letitia holds an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a B.A. in Political Science and Gender Studies from Davidson College, and a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Oxford University. She is a doctoral candidate at Emory University, and a candidate for ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Dr. Michael D. Shutt is the Interim Sr. Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) at Emory University. Prior to his current role, Michael served as the Assistant Dean for Campus Life and Director of the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Life at Emory University and was the Founding Director of the University of Georgia’s LGBT Resource Center, the first LGBT Center at a public university in Georgia.

Michael is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Counseling and Human Development in the University of Georgia’s College of Education. He served as a Co-Chair of the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals and is currently a member of the Georgia Equality Board of Directors. Michael works with institutions of higher education throughout the country in their development of LGBT support services and social justice education. Michael received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Public Administration from Michigan State University and Doctor of Philosophy in Student Affairs Administration from the University of Georgia.

Holiday Simmons is the Director of Community Education and Advocacy located in the Southern Regional Office of Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. With a background in social work, education and performing arts and activism, Simmons has worked with youth in foster care, taught GED, managed education initiatives and facilitated numerous creative writing and spoken word workshops with groups of youth, LGBT people, women and Africana and Latino communities both in the United States and abroad.

Prior to coming to Lambda Legal, Simmons was the psychiatric social worker at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where he led a program for homeless people with mental illnesses. Before relocating to Atlanta, Simmons served as community initiatives manager for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in New York, where he gave national support and training to community members on safer schools for LGBTQ and ally students. While at GLSEN, he organized Summer Start, a week-long student training event. He also managed their national days of action including his creation, TransAction, the first national in-school student-led action focusing on gender and the larger transgender umbrella. Holiday is the former board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice. He is the former coach of the Atlanta Youth Spoken Word Team where he helped to develop the writing and performance skills of metro Atlanta youth and took a contingent of them to HBO's Brave New Voices, the International Youth Poetry Festival each year.

E.R. Anderson is the Executive Director of Charis Circle, the non-profit programming arm of Charis Books and More, the South's oldest independent feminist bookstore. E.R. manages the programming, fiscal, and daily operations of Charis Circle and is always interested in the ways our communities can more creatively share skills and resources. An in-town Atlanta native, E.R. received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Bard College and a M.A. in English from the University of Mississippi. E.R. was a 2009 Hambidge Center Fellow and a 2011 Lambda Literary Emerging LGBT Voices Fellow.

E.R. has served on the boards of Vox Youth Communication, the Ole Miss LGBTQ Alumni Association, Georgia Shares, the Decatur Book Festival Programming Committee, and as a judge for the 2012-2015 Lambda Literary Awards. E.R. was a 2013 Atlanta Pride Marshall for Charis Circle and a 2014 recipient of HRC Atlanta's Leon Allen and Winston Johnson Community Leadership Award. E.R. is at work on a novel, Paradise Park.