SlutWalk Philadelphia is excited to announce the addition of our third keynote speaker on Saturday, August 6, 2011 after our march and rally ending at Dilworth Plaza. Joining our speakers, Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Stephanie Gilmore, will be LGBTQ community activist Qui Alexander.
Qui Alexander
Qui Alexander is a black and Latino Trans man, originally from Buffalo, NY. He graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in the Growth and Structure of Cities. Now residing in Philadelphia, he currently works at the Mazzoni Center as a community health educator, teaching adolescents about healthy sexuality. He is very active in Philadelphia’s diverse LGBTQ communities as: a volunteer at the Attic Youth Center and co-facilitates Young, Trans and Unified, a weekly support group for trans and gender variant youth, a member Trans Masculine Advocacy Network for trans masculine folks of color, and he sits on the Grant Making and Outreach committee for the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund.
Qui is an advocate and activist for trans folks in the Philadelphia area. In addition to all the fabulous work he’s doing in his community, Qui is member of the Brown Boi Project—a community of masculine-of-center womyn, men, two- spirit people, transmen, and allies committed to transforming the privilege of masculinity, gender, and race into tools for achieving Racial and Gender Justice. Qui strives to educate and uplift LGBTQ youth, to give them power and agency in their lives and surroundings.
Stephanie Gilmore
Stephanie Gilmore is a feminist activist and assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Dickinson College — at Dickinson, she was named Student Senate Faculty Member of the Year, and has been recognized for her coalition work with students on the issue of sexual violence. She is a prolific author of numerous articles and a book on US feminist activism and coalition building. Her most recent work explores the disappearance of rape in public media and women and LGBT college students’ experiences with sexual violence.
This is a link to Gilmore’s recent article, “The Disappearing of Rape“.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons
Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian, independent documentary filmmaker, international lecturer, and social change agent, based in Philadelphia, PA. For twenty-years, Aishah has been both motivated and engaged as a cultural worker because she believes each one of us has the birth right to live in a world where oppression and exploitation based on gender, race/ethnicity, national origin/ citizenship, sexual orientation, class, and/or religion of anyone is non-existent. An incest and rape survivor, she spent eleven years, seven of which were full time, to produce, write, and direct NO! The Rape Documentary. Subtitled in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, this ghttp://www.slutwalkphiladelphia.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=606&action=editroundbreaking documentary explores the international reality of rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism and cultural work of African-Americans. NO! also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia. A published writer, she is the author of numerous published essays, some of which have been translated into French and Italian, all of which are featured in anthologies and journals in the United States and internationally including Just Sex: Students Rewrite the Rules on Sex, Violence, Equality & Activism; Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue ; INCITE: The Color of Violence; The Black Scholar; Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence; Savoring The Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara ; WHO SHOULD BE FIRST? Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign ; and the forthcoming Black Feminist and Womanist Pedagogies:
When the Personal is Political and Academic. A recipient of numerous awards and grants, Aishah has screened her work, lectured, taught, and facilitated workshops racially to racially and ethnically diverse audiences across the United States, throughout Italy, in Canada, France, England, Croatia, Hungary, The Netherlands, Mexico, Kenya, Malaysia, India, and South Africa.
Here is a link to NO! the Rape Documentary. You can follow Aishah Shahidah Simmons on Twitter andconnect with her on Facebook.
