IGLHRC at National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change

IGLHRC at National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change
International LGBT Issues and Organizing
01/25/2012

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Speaker Bios

Cary Alan Johnson, Moderator

Cary Alan Johnson, Executive Director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, is an author and activist with more than twenty years of experience in the LGBT movement and in African social and economic development. He has worked in management positions for Amnesty International USA, Africare (Rwanda and Zimbabwe), UNHRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), and Planned Parenthood (Southern Africa). Cary has written numerous articles on gender and sexuality in Africa.

Nisha Ayub

Nisha Ayub works as the Programme Manager of the Transgender Programme of the Pink Triangle Foundation of Malaysia. Since 2006, Nisha has served in various roles at the Pink Triangle Foundation, each in service to the transgender communities. The Transgender Programme builds community by providing safe space, accurate health information, group discussions and support, education about civil rights and basic skills to improve quality of life. Nisha shapes programming and advocacy strategies to combat gender and sexual identity discrimination. The recent rise of boot camps in Malaysia to "correct" effeminate schoolboys, Nisha's own arrest by religious police and subsequent jailing for wearing women's clothing, and the November government ban on the annual LGBT festival, Seksualiti Merdeka, highlight state-sponsored oppression of LGBT and gender non-conforming people in Malaysia.

Joel Simpson

Joel Simpson is a Founder and Co-Chairperson of the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) in Guyana, where he has been actively involved in student politics and civil society for a number of years. SASOD was founded in 2003 to eradicating discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. Joel has worked as the UNESCO Human Rights Researcher at the HIV Education Unit at the University of the West Indies and Human Rights Associate at the United Nations Development Programme country office in Guyana. Joel's work in Guyana has included resisting police crackdowns on transgender people and challenging laws that criminalize cross-dressing, campaigning to repeal a law that criminalizes same-sex sexual behavior, and establishing a support group for HIV-positive gay and bisexual men.

Val Kalende

Val Kalende is a noted Ugandan activist for LGBT people. In 2003,Val helped to launch Freedom and Roam Uganda, the only lesbian organization in Uganda and is in the leadership of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of LGBT groups. She has played a key role as writer, speaker, activist, community organizer and builder within the LGBT movement in Uganda. In 2010, Val travelled to the United States at the invitation of the U.S Department of State to attend the International Visitor Leadership Program, an exchange tour on which she addressed LGBT issues in her country and the role of U.S. right-wing evangelicals in sponsoring homophobia in Africa. A former writer for a national newspaper in Uganda and once jailed for campaigning for the inclusion of LGBT people in Uganda's National HIV/AIDS Programs, Val provides updates and commentaries on the notorious "kill the gays" bill, still being debated by the Ugandan government. Val is currently pursuing a master of theological studies at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Jake Sullivan

Jake Sullivan is the Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Clinton. Prior to assuming his post as Director in February 2011, Mr. Sullivan had served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy since January 2009. He also served as Deputy Policy Director on then-Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign, and as a member of the debate preparation team for then-Senator Obama’s general election debates. Mr. Sullivan previously served as Chief Counsel and senior policy adviser to Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, his home state.

Mr. Sullivan was instrumental in shaping Secretary Clinton’s historic remarks to the United Nations in Geneva on December 6th, 2011. Mr. Sullivan has supported and pushed for much of the progress at the State department on human rights for LGBT people.

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