I'm trans, genderqueer, queer, white and Native, disabled, and neurodivergent. I come from farm folk, left the middle for the East Coast. I’ve worked service, arts, blue collar business, finance, organizing, and political advocacy. I'm a spouse and a parent and deeply connected to my parents. And every one of these identities is part of the lens I bring into every room I work in — not background, not a footnote, but the source of the analysis itself.

Here's the short version of a very long career.

I've been a campaign strategist, federal lobbyist, community organizer, advocate trainer, curriculum designer, facilitator, coach, consultant, artistic director, published author, professor, and board president. Sometimes several of those at once.

I've worked for the ACLU, GLSEN, Race Forward, and the Center for Racial Justice in Education — as a trainer, organizer, strategist, and the person who would not let anyone off the hook. I served on the editorial team of Colorlines Magazine, wrote and produced films, built training programs, and ran campaigns at the local, state, and federal level.

From 2008 to 2015 I was the Executive Director of The Forum Project, a Theatre of the Oppressed organization in New York where we ran over 100 programs, workshops, and performances — building the practice, building the organization, and building a community of artists and activists committed to using creativity as a tool for real change.

I've written learning guides for the award-winning documentary Disclosure, provided audience support for the world premiere of the Tony Award-winning Slave Play at New York Theatre Workshop, and served as DEI advisor for the Sundance film Heightened Scrutiny. I co-founded the TransMasculine Community Network, directed Occupy the Stage, co-directed the Kingsmen, and produced F*ck Your Health — a comedy performance about reproductive health for queer folk — at the Stonewall Inn. Because of course I did.

I've published two book chapters — one in the Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed, one in Come Closer: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of the Oppressed, both co-authored with Alexander Santiago-Jirau. I've taught feminisms and queer and gender studies at SUNY New Paltz, served multiple terms on the board of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed including multiple terms as Board President, and trained with Augusto Boal — the creator of Theatre of the Oppressed — multiple times.

I've worked with thousands of people across more than 100 organizations worldwide — from small grassroots collectives to large global nonprofits.

If you made it here from the homepage, you already know the broad strokes — 25 years, liberation strategies, causing joyful trouble and so on.

Here's a little more about how I got here.

I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Came up in theatre. In college, in the late 90s, I was introduced to Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) and started organizing against the so-called Defense of Marriage Amendment — almost at the same time. Those two things were never separate. I was learning how to crack open power and oppression creatively at the exact moment I was learning how to organize against it.