Hello, my name is Sara Cahanin. I am a licensed therapist in Maryland and currently, I work at Cheltenham Youth Facility in the school as a therapist. I also have a private practice. In addition to my work as a therapist, I have been a high school English teacher and also, have taught writing at a community college and private college in New York State. In 2006, I started a non-profit organization called, Martin Lyon Lesbian Support Services in Ithaca, New York. It was very successful and met the unmet needs of the lesbian community. We had planned to open it up to all GLBT people, but due to the economy the organization ceased operations. I feel that I have a lot to offer the GLBT community as a speaker and look forward to speaking soon to our community. Thanks for reading!
For more information, please visit my website at http://www.saracahanin.com.
Sean Bugg is co-publisher and editorial director of Metro Weekly, Washington, D.C.’s gay and lesbian news magazine. A founding writer for the 14-year-old publication, Bugg took the editorial helm in 2000. During his tenure, Metro Weekly has grown into a major voice for the LGBT community, winning numerous awards for writing, design and community service. In addition to his journalism career, Bugg has worked in social marketing and HIV prevention programs for the Whitman-Walker Clinic and the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors. A member of the D.C. chapter of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, Bugg received his journalism degree in 1989 from Washington & Lee University in Virginia.
A Veteran who transition while on active duty, a Friend of our communities, and Advocate for LGBT+ Rights.
Mia Mason has successfully served for twenty years with the United States Navy, the United States Army, and the District of Columbia National Guard.
Throughout her career, she has served onboard USS Kitty-Hawk CV-63 for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom for three tours of duty. She also served onboard USS Bataan LHD-5 for aid in efforts of Hurricane Katrina. Her previous units included AIMD Oceana and Mid Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center (MARMC) Calibration Center. Her daily skills of responsibilities included testing, troubleshooting, 3M repair, calibration and preventive maintenance for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) equipment that is used with any aircraft to include the Consolidated Automated Support Systems (CASS) variants. Overall, she completed three years of oversea duty and sea duty. Her efforts awarded her the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (NAM), Afghanistan Campaign Medal with Arrowhead Device and Humanitarian Medal for her efforts.
Thus, with her broad skill set, she quickly adopted various technical expert jobs within the Army as Company Intelligence Analyst for counterinsurgency or counterinsurgency (COIN) Operations. Therefore, during mid-deployment, she focused her role toward Fire Command Controls to assist in aid of countering any Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) Emplacements with Area of Operations. With this success, she became employed as the Battalion Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO/EW) to provide Joint Tactical Operations Command training, Expert Infantry Badge (EIB) Training, and EW protection to counter against Remote Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices (RCIEDs). During her two deployments to Afghanistan, SGT Mason received the Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB), several Army Achievement Medals and Army Commendations, while protecting and aiding Commands with Afghan-partnerships against any IED threats.
Upon return home from deployment and discharge, she became a Contractor for the United States Coast Guard. There she served as Item Manager and Equipment Specialist to oversee and manage any C4ISR equipment to include induction, replacement, procurement, and budgeting for Long Range Enforcers.
SGT Mason joined the District of Columbia National Guard in 2013 and served as Calibration Technician with the 104th Maintenance Company before she transferred to the 352nd JAG Team Support and later to the National Guard Bureau, Legal Support Office to head up international operations.
Mia has previously run for Public Office in Maryland and supports Women rights, Poly-relationships, and anyone with disabilities.
I am an experienced writer and public speaker currently obtaining my Master of Public Administration at American University. I am an occasional blogger for the Raspberry Mousse website and have also written for the Family Tree LGBT Community Newspaper in Tallahassee, Florida. Much as lesbians, gays, and transgender people have worked hard to educate the LGBT community and the wider public about their issues and concerns, I strongly believe that bisexual people must also step up to the plate and do so as well. I am interested in speaking to organizations and gatherings of all sorts about bisexual issues, LGBT history, rural issues, political issues, youth issues, and issues pertinent to women.
As an active athlete in the international wrestling community and Group leader for Rainbow youth alliance Akil is unlike many of his counter parts. His focus in life is making a change in the way LGBT youth are seen and the life that athletes are sometimes seen to be forced into to make. Akil works as a youth advocate when he is not on the wrestling mats trainning for the Olympics.
Manuella Hancock is a lawyer who has worked on issues of discrimination in the workplace, and tax, health care and retirement planning for LGBT families and individuals. Manuella also has significant experience as an advocate and counselor on the issue of same sex domestic violence. As a daughter of an immigrant, Manuella has worked with the mono-lingual latino community to make legal issues accessible through language and cultural translation.
Guy-Oreido Weston has worked full-time in HIV/AIDS programs since1986. At present, he is a consultant in private practice that assists community-based organizations with developing and evaluating organizational infrastructure and programs. He is also a writer of essays, op-ed, and short stories about HIV and LGBT issues, whose work appeared the Philadelphia Gay News, Arise Magazine, and the Washington Informer, among others. As a speaker and workshop facilitator, he has presented on a broad array of topics, including, but not limited to various HIV/AIDS issues, cultural competency, HIV and LGBT issues with faith communities, community mobilization, and community planning.
Kevin Nunley serves as the Senior Director for Internships and Student Services at The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars. He has spent over 15 years in the Higher Education arena working with college students in advising and counseling roles. His areas of emphasis are on GLBT Identity Development, Coming Out Process, Leadership Development, and other topics of Diversity.
Alexandra is a Policy Advocate at Protect Democracy, where she leads the National Election Advocacy Team and coordinates the activities of the National Task Force on Election Crises, a cross-ideological group of over 50 civil society leaders who worked to ensure free and fair elections in 2020 and 2022, and now seek to prevent election crises in 2024 and beyond. Previously, Alexandra was a career national security professional for 13 years. Inspired by living in NYC as a law student through the 9/11 attacks, Alexandra started her career as an intelligence analyst in 2004. In 2006 she was the first employee ever to complete a gender transition while working at the Office of Naval Intelligence. She ultimately led the Intelligence Community analytic effort to disrupt the proliferation of WMD by sea, and supported many successful U.S. policy initiatives while working at ONI and at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. After leaving government in 2017, Alexandra was the first openly transgender candidate to run for Congress from Massachusetts.
Alexandra enjoys providing her perspective on leadership and communication as a transgender woman, mentoring younger LGBT and national security audiences, and discussing the stakes of the U.S. and global effort against authoritarianism. She has presented on leadership, career development, LGBT and transgender issues for private corporate clients as well as the Out and Equal Executive Leadership Forum, Leadership Summit For Women in National Security, the Rainbow Families conference, Columbia University SIPA, Rutgers University, Yale University, and Capital Trans Pride.
Alexandra is a board member of GLBTQ Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), a member of the Truman National Security Project Defense Council, and previously served on the board of Whitman Walker Health and the Steering Committee of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. Alexandra was named by Out in National Security and New America as an Out Leader in 2021, and her writings have been published in the Washington Post, The Hill, the Yale Journal of International Affairs, and the Boston Globe. Alexandra is a graduate of Brown University with an A.B. inInternational Relations, and received her law degree from Brooklyn Law School.
Dr. Cheryl Healton is an academic, educator, researcher, and public health visionary. As the founding president and CEO of Legacy, a national public health foundation devoted to keeping teens from smoking and helping all smokers quit, Dr. Healton has been the driving force behind effective and award-winning national campaigns that help save lives. Her passion for tobacco prevention and cessation is deeply personal. She lost her mother and other loved ones to tobacco-related disease, and she herself waged a 25-year battle ? ultimately successful ? to overcome her own addiction to nicotine. The award-winning truth? youth-smoking prevention campaign is just one example of Dr. Healton?s public health successes. Eighty percent of smokers start smoking before age 18, and choosing to smoke is often a mark of rebellion as teens grow into adulthood. Recognizing this distinction within behavioral research, Dr. Healton challenged conventional thinking about tobacco prevention by changing its approach: instead of chastising young people, truth? focused on providing information to teens by tapping into their naturally rebellious feelings, enabling them to make their own informed choices about smoking. As the campaign celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2010, a growing body of research has validated the campaign?s approach; a 2009 study found that during the first four years of the campaign, truth? was found to be directly responsible keeping 450,000 from starting to smoke. In 2007, Dr. Healton led the call to action demanding a new cigarette brand be taken off the market. Camel No. 9 featured slick packaging marketed toward young women and was advertised in magazines popular with the same demographic. Dr. Healton rallied more than 45 public health groups to jointly call for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to remove its Camel No. 9 cigarettes from stores nationwide. As a result of these efforts, R.J. Reynolds announced its decision in late 2007 to discontinue print advertising of its cigarette brands in 2008. The fight continues, as Dr. Healton and others continue to monitor industry marketing activities closely with a focus on youth, and young women. She has also been a leading advocate for removing gratuitous smoking in Hollywood films. Dr. Healton has also worked to realize her vision of a national public-private partnership to help smokers quit. For the past three years, a number of state and national organizations have aligned to create a unified voice in educating Americans about smoking cessation through a national quit smoking campaign called EX, which first launched in 2008. EX is designed to help smokers ?re-learn? life without cigarettes, taking an innovative approach to help the 46 million Americans who smoke to quit. The program includes a multi-media advertising effort, a Web site with a quit smoking community feature and grassroots effort support implemented by member groups and states. Currently, more than 220,000 smokers have signed up to Become an EX. Dr. Healton frequently appears in the media, conducts guest lectures, and speaks at conferences and events ? all to further educate Americans about the debilitating toll tobacco use continues to take on our society, killing more than 400,000 Americans each year.
David is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Kalorama Wealth Strategies, LLC, a fee-only investment advisory and financial planning firm focused on the needs of members and allies of the DC Metro area gay and lesbian community.
With more than 15 years experience in the financial services industry, David is uniquely qualified to advise individuals regarding their investments and financial planning matters. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER (CFP)TM professional and a member of the Financial Planning Association and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder, with membership in the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Washington, D.C.
Since 1999, David has been an adjunct professor in the Department of Finance and Real Estate in the Kogod School of Business Administration at the American University. Teaching assignments have included an under-graduate personal finance course, as well as graduate and under-graduate courses in real estate principles and investments.
David frequently volunteers for Metro DC GLBT non-profit organizations through Burgundy Crescent Volunteers, including One In Ten, Gay Men?s Chorus, Food and Friends, Mautner Project, Equality Maryland, and HRC. He also helps The DC Center?s Elder Think Tank with its GLBT Financial Education Series including retirement planning, insurance, real estate, and estate planning.