Pride Speaks July: Demystifying Gender - Meet the Panel

Seattle Pride’s next Pride Speaks community conversation will cover the complexities of gender identity and gender expression, and gender roles in LGBTQIA+ communities.

Our panel of experts include: Beau Bradley (he/they), emergency manager and host of the podcast Beau My God; Dean Kumiko Ninja Kawena Kubota (she/he), adult sex educator and transgender activist; Kalisto Nanen (they/them), ecological land steward and artist; and Joe Nasta (zir), writer and mariner.

The panel will be moderated by Sonj Basha (they/them), a creative director, facilitator, and consultant.

The event will take place from 7-9 p.m. on Wednesday, July 28th. Free event registration is now open. For more information about the speakers, you can read their bios below!

Moderator

Sonj Basha (they/them) is a creative director, facilitator, and consultant based out of Seattle, WA. For ten years, Sonj has been working with teams, movements, and organizations, building capacity to bring forth a more thriving, just, and sustainable world. Thirty two years of living as an underserved queer & Muslim immigrant has elicited a lifetime of learning how to bring deep cultural strategy to the forefront of their solutionary leadership.

Connect with them on social media at @sonj.basha

Panelists

Beau Bradley (he/they) is an emergency manager during the day and podcast host and queer educator by night (and weekends)! With a background in public safety and public health, Beau enjoys speaking on and learning from the intersectionalities of the queer community and why they are so important. He aims to bridge the gap between the Trans and Queer communities and the cis-het portion of the world.

Connect with them on social media at @beaubrads and @beaumygodpod

Dean Kumiko Ninja Kawena Kubota (she/he) is a republican nightmare. He is an amount other things: an adult sex educator, an Asian American transgender activist who is not submissive, and a professional Shinto Witch. His Community projects include: Save Our Seniors Vaccination Project where he and Ms. Nora Chan mobilized to vaccinate all of the seniors and restaurants in the CID. He is also the director of the mural project which boarded up all of the CID last summer for free in partnership with Walter from SPU and the dedicated artists and volunteers and of course his radical trans activist cousin Jade Black.

Connect with Dean on Instagram at @witch.for.hire and their website - Witch4Hire.gay

Kalisto Nanen (they/them) affectionately known as Listo, is a black ecological land steward, death guide and artist. Kalisto takes pride in serving their community, and also focuses on self care and safe spaces. Kalisto has a background in anthropology and journalism and serves as a core member from afar for queer the land and gathering roots. During the pandemic he founded his full spectrum death guide project, syzygy passings; in May he relocated to Maine after six years in Seattle. And continues to thrive unapologetically.

Connect with them on Instagram @Kalisto_Nanen and @deathanthropologist, on Facebook - Kalisto Zenda Nanen, on YouTube - Nambazi, and their Twitter @Blackhoodoo

Joe Nasta (zir) is a queer writer and mariner who splits zir time between Seattle, Guadalajara, and the Ocean. Joe is one half of the art and poetry collective Eat Yr Manhood and runs a communal studio at the Sun and Moon House. Zir work has been published in The Rumpus, Yes Poetry, Pidgeonholes and others. Ze co-curates a zine of unconventional art and writing at stonepacificzine.com <http://stonepacificzine.com/> and served as prose reader for The Adroit Journal. Find Joe on Instagram and Twitter @roflcoptermcgee and at joenasta.com <http://www.joenasta.com/>, or at UW Bothell: Joe studies at the MFA program in Creative Writing and Poetics!

Connect with them on Instagram and Twitter @roflcoptermcgee