Advisory Board

LaVelle Ridley (she/her) is a queer black transsexual scholar and mentor whose interests emerge from the intersection of transgender studies, black feminist theory, prison abolition, and life writing studies. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Queer/Trans* Studies at The Ohio State University. Ridley earned her PhD in English & Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Michigan and was a 2023-2024 President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley. She has published in academic journals such as GLQ, Feminist Studies, and TSQ, the latter for which she serves as Book Review Editor. Ridley is working on her book Imagining Freedom: Critical Trans* Imagination and Black Trans Life Narratives which articulates how life writing by black trans women functions as tools for political resistance and imaginative freedom-making for the gendered-racially-sexually oppressed in the United States. She is also a co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Paradise on the Margins: Worldmaking by Trans Women of Color and steering committee member for the TEN:TACLES Initiative, a Mellon-funded initiative which brings trans-oriented humanities and cultural studies scholarship to bear on practices of social transformation.

Theo Jean Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1978, and grew up in Saskatoon. Since 1995 he has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals internationally. He has made 32 videos and films and counting. Currently he has a feature film in development. He is a trans man who uses He/Him pronouns. He is of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

Syrus Marcus Ware is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts at McMaster University. A scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator, Syrus uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture, His work has been shown widely across Canada in solo and group shows, and his performance works have been part of local and international festivals. He is part of the Performance Disability Art Collective and a core-team member of Black Lives Matter – Toronto. Syrus is curator of the That's So Gay show and a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. In addition to penning a variety of journals and articles, Syrus is the co-editor of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020).

Shawna Virago is a transgender music pioneer celebrated for her striking lyric-based songs. Her music twists together folk, punk, and trans-americana, offering raw observations about survival in a predatory world, queer love, sticking up for the underdog, and gender rebels. Virago has performed as an out transwoman since the early 1990's. Her music has been profiled in many publications. She had made eight short films which have screened at over 50 film festivals in 15 countries.

Danielle Peers is a Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Disability and Movement Cultures, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta. Peers studies how movement cultures (including art, recreation, and sport) can be used to transmit and transform a community’s values, politics, and (in)equities. Mobilizing embodied disability justice approaches, Peers prioritizes deep, intersectional collaborations in order to co-create knowledges and practices that reduce harm and create more accessible, affirming, and transformative movement cultures. Danielle’s work draws from their experiences as a Paralympic athlete and crip dancer and filmmaker.

Daniel Braun (settler, he/him) is a trans first year student at the University of Ottawa in Visual Arts. He has a passion for the arts and representing various social issues within such as women's rights, LGBTQ rights, mental health, sexual violence, and more. His work has been shown in magazines, murals, and art galleries across Ontario. He aims to educate and advocate for the trans experiences through his art and future goal of being a teacher.