J Mase III is a Black/trans/queer poet & educator based in Seattle, by way of Philly. He is the author of “If I Should Die Under the Knife, Tell my Kidney I was the Fiercest Poet Around,” as well as “And Then I Got Fired: One Transqueer’s Reflections on Grief, Unemployment, and Inappropriate Jokes about Death.”

As an educator, J Mase has worked with thousands of community members in the US, the UK, and Canada on the needs of LGBTQIA youth and adults in spaces such as K-12 schools, universities, faith communities, and restricted care facilities among others.

He is the founder of awQward, the first ever trans and queer people of color specific talent agency. Currently, he is co-editing The #BlackTransPrayerBook with awQward artist Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi.

As a performer, he has shared stages with world renowned artists like Chuck D and the Indigo Girls. His work and musings have been featured on MSNBC, NBC OUT, Essence Live, Atlanta Black Star, GO Magazine, Believe Out Loud, Everyday Feminism, Black Girl Dangerous, Upworthy, the New York Times, Buzzfeed, the Root, the Huffington Post and more.

Check him out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and of course: awQwardtalent.com!

Jordan Green is a researcher and designer from San Francisco, CA.

By the time he had graduated high school he had worked for organizations like Community United Against Violence and Lavender Youth Recreation Information Center (LYRIC). He had also served on LYRIC’s Board of Directors for five years, serving as co-chair of the board for four of those years. After LYRIC, Jordan worked at the ACLU as the Outreach Coordinator, where he designed statewide promotional materials and conducted educational workshops for teachers and students.

He graduated from Portland State University with a Bachelors of Science in Community Health Education where he focused on epidemiology and the social determinants of health. While in college, he founded, designed, and executed the first and second Queer Students of Color Conference (QSOCC) as the school’s first ever Queer Students of Color Resource Coordinator. QSOCC was the first ever regional conference focused specifically on Queer Students of Color needs, attracting international attendees its first and second years.

After college, he went on to work with the Oregon Health Authority, Multnomah County, Cascade AIDS Project, and Portland Community College. At Portland Community College, he worked as the Program Assistant to the Multicultural Center where one of his primary responsibilities was coordinating the PCC WACIPI Winter Powwow.

Jordan works at the University of Washington as a Research Coordinator for a Mobile Health App. Before working at University of Washington, Jordan worked at Gay City: Seattle’s LGBTQ Center as their Communications Designer and HIV Tester.

He currently lives in Seattle with his partner and two cats.

Stacy Torres is a somatic healer, a health justice organizer and facilitator.

Her practice Everyday Medicine offers culturally relevant healing in Queer, Trans, Disabled, Black and Indigenous/People of Color communities (QTDBIPoC) in Seattle.

Her practice centers developing a liberated legacy of changemakers, caregivers, activists/ organizers, healers, artists, spiritual and thought leaders. She is a founding member of The Well on Beacon, a POC centered Health Justice Collaboration Project in Seattle, WA.

Her one-on-one healing work integrates systems change theory, somatic coaching, curanderismo and other relevant modalities. Her approach is vitalistic and collaborative- reconnecting survivors to their bodies, power, and aliveness. Stacy facilitates a body-based transformative process that develops the connective tissue between values, vision and actions.

Stacy’s community and cultural work is deeply rooted in Transformative Disability and Healing Justice lineages. She address the impacts of systemic oppression, historical trauma, and the legacy of violence that challenge her communities. She is committed to building skills, providing access, and developing transformative opportunities for QTDBIPoC folks to heal and shift the oppressive systems they are surviving inside of. She believes we are an embodiment of our ancestors survival, we are responsible to restore balance, connection and dignity to ourselves, our communities, and the land that we stand on.

Patricia is a founder of NDNs for Justice, a women-led Indigenous civil rights organization in Seattle, has served for 4 years on the Old Growth Alliance in Abolish Columbus Day March planning, and is an Elected Tlingit and Haida Central Council delegate.

She is also a member of 206 Zulu and is the newest member of Women of Color Speak Out. She worked at the Northwest African American Museum and has many connections with Seattle’s historic central district. Patricia has spent many years studying the intersectionality of human, environmental, and Indigenous rights in relationship to reconciliation and healing during her undergrad at UW. Canoeing in Tribal Canoe Journeys in BC, Washington and Alaska since 2011.

After returning from Standing Rock, she focused her grassroots organizing in the Seattle communities of color around solidarity, accountability, and healing.

She is mostly Tlingit, Mohawk, Seneca, AfroCaribbean and Irish.

Luzviminda Uzuri Carpenter (pronounced Loose-b-min-dah ooh-zir-e car-pen-ter) aka Lulu, is a cultural worker and producer that has resided in Seattle, WA for over (12) years and has made a commitment to the 206 being her home base. She has shown that commitment through space-making and place-making projects locally that develop art and artists locally and nationally focused on marginalized communities, voices, images, and visibility, such as Washington Hall and youth mentorship within organizations such as the Service Board (tSB) and YouthSpeaks, to name a few. Currently, she works at Seattle Girls’ School for the past two and a half years, as the 5th-8th Performance Studies and Production teacher. Lulu is the creator, Producer, and Host of “#LuluNation + Crew with Mr. B” on Hollow Earth Radio, a Talk Show on air at KHUH LP 104.9 FM in the Central District and online at www.hollowearthradio.org.  She works with Seattle Women Who Rock Community who focuses on an annual (Un)Conference & Film Festival and grassroots archiving of community artists stories and is the former Co-Chair of the City of Seattle LGBTQ Commission. In 2018, she started a policy project called Alphabet Alliance of Color which focuses on the story gathering and grassroots archiving of Queer and Trans People of Color in Seattle and King County in order to envision a different future based on the documentation of our collective resilience and started her first LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE QUARTERLY SHOW at the Northwest Film Forum called “Seat @ the Table with #LuluNation + Mr. B.”