Learn more about our panelists for our #TransBodiesTransChoices: Online Townhall, taking place March 23, 2022, at 6:30pm ET — a collaboration with National LGBTQ Task Force.
About Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Online Townhall
As the Supreme Court decision on abortion looms, this Trans Bodies, Trans Choices townhall sponsored by the National LGBTQ Task Force and TransLash Media will unpack the importance of reproductive justice for the trans community. Trans people give birth, need access to trans competent medical care and have abortions but so often transgender peope are erased from the conversation around body autonomy. This virtual gathering seeks to change with an intersectional lens bringing perspectives surrounding race, disability and economic justice. Join us for this powerful and overdue Trans Month of Visibility roundtable.
EVENT LINK (click here on 3/23 at 6:30pm ET): bit.ly/transbodiestranschoices
PANELISTS
Dallas Ducar, CEO Transhealth Northampton
Cazembe Murphy, Black, Southern, queer, trans organizer
Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force
Oriaku Njoku, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Access Reproductive Care-Southeast
MODERATOR
Imara Jones, Founder and CEO, TransLash Media
PANELIST BIOS
Dallas Ducar, CEO, Transhealth Northampton
Dallas Ducar is the Chief Executive Officer of Transhealth Northampton. Dallas is on faculty at Northeastern University, University of Virginia School of Medicine, University of Virginia School of Nursing, Columbia University, and the MGH Institute for Health Professions. She serves as the Vice-Chair of the Primary Care Alliance, is on the LGBTQI Federal Policy Roundtable, and advocates for gender-affirming care nationally. She serves on the Board of Directors for GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and of Healing Our Community Collaborative (HOCC). She has advised international research groups on best practices and has carried out community-based participatory action research programs. Dallas seeks to revolutionize healthcare, building novel systems to provide holistic, empowering, gender-affirming care.
Cazembe Murphy, Organizer
Cazembe Murphy Jackson is a Black, Southern, queer, trans organizer. He believes in working across movements using a multi-tiered approach to ending systemic oppression. Cazembe was recently featured in the TransLash Media Trans Bodies, Trans Choices film series:
Cazembe is a commitment to loving himself so deeply that others are inspired to love themselves just as deep. He is the Membership Organizer for The Rising Majority. He lives in Atlanta, GA.
Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force
Kierra Johnson joined the Task Force in 2018 as Deputy Executive Director but was already engaged with the organization, previously serving on the National LGBTQ Task Force’s board of directors and its National Action Council. Johnson came to the Task Force after serving as URGE’s Executive Director with a wealth of experience in organizational leadership and management, program development, youth leadership and reproductive justice. As a bisexual Black woman, Johnson will become one of few out queer-identified women of color at the helm of a national LGBTQ organization. She is recognized as a national expert on queer and reproductive rights issues and has testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, Fox News, Feministing.com and National Public Radio. Johnson also serves on the boards of directors of the General Service Foundation, Groundswell Fund, and Guttmacher Institute.Throughout her career, she has also served on the boards of Center for Community Change and the Women’s Information Network (WIN).
Johnson has been recognized for her leadership with awards, including the Young Women of Achievement Award for WIN in 2002, the Women of Vision Award for the Ms. Foundation for Women in 2013, and Washingtonian Magazine’s Most Influential Washingtonians Under 40 in 2009.When announced as the next Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, Kierra Johnson said, “Dignity, liberation, joy, freedom, love and resistance are just a few of the words that I associate with the National LGBTQ Task Force. As a bisexual/pansexual woman, I am no stranger to being made invisible, advised to tone down, or trained in the art of the code switch.
As a queer southern mom, it is no surprise why I would be drawn to an organization that touts the tagline ‘Be You.’ In these cultural and political times, it is an act of resistance to live out loud and to lead and love with our full identities. I am excited and honored to be named the next Executive Director of the LGBTQ Task Force! I welcome the opportunity to think strategically with a powerful team of leaders and be in service to those working to ensure that LGBTQ people—especially the most targeted among us—not only survive but thrive. I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and dive in to continue the ongoing and creative work of the Task Force to change hearts and minds, behavior and policies so that justice is no longer a vision but a reality for all!”
Oriaku Njoku, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Access Reproductive Care-Southeast
Oriaku Njoku, Co-founder and Executive Director of Access Reproductive Care – Southeast, works at the intersection of abortion access and reproductive justice. Working as a health worker in abortion clinics in Atlanta, she believed that we could do more to advocate for folks in communities directly impacted by reproductive oppression in more meaningful ways. Currently, she supports Southerners in navigating pathways to accessing safe, affordable, and compassionate abortion care through funding, practical support, and advocacy. Oriaku is also on the Board of the National Network of Abortion Funds. She truly believes that we can and will create a cultural shift around how we talk about abortion in the South and invites you to join her in making reproductive justice a reality. And when she has some free time, she loves indulging in various self-care activities which include but are not limited to cupcakes, bourbon, cuddles, and body rolls. Connect with her @oreawku on twitter – all views her own.
Imara Jones
Imara, whose work has won Emmy and Peabody Awards, is the creator of TransLash Media, a cross-platform journalism, personal storytelling and narrative project, which produces content to shift the current culture of hostility towards transgender people in the US. As part of her work at TransLash, Imara hosts the WEBBY-nominated, TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones as well as the investigative, limited series, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality. This year Politico named her as one of the 40 power players at the intersection of race, politics, and policy. In 2020 Imara was featured on the cover of Time Magazine as part of its New American Revolution special edition. In 2019 she chaired the first-ever UN High Level Meeting on Gender Diversity with over 600 participants. Imara has been featured regularly in The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, Mic, and Colorlines. Imara is a 2021 Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow and a 2019 Soros Equality Fellow. She serves on the New York City Commission on Gender Equity. She also serves on the boards of the Transgender Law Center, Anti-violence Project, GLSEN, the LGBTQ+ Museum, and the New Pride Agenda. Imara is also part of the Move to End Violence.
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