Keynote Presenter

 

Tiq Milan

Tiq Milan is a sought-after host and strategic media consultant. He has moderated conversations about LGBT representation in media for HBO’s Newfest Film Festival, The Toronto Film Festival, LOGO and MTV. He’s hosted authors in conversation at The Schomburg Center for Research, NYU and Princeton. This spring he will be hosting an evening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York city.  As a media consultant, he guides organizations and companies in creating detailed media. campaigns that engage diverse audiences in ways that are inclusive and authentic. He’s worked with HBO, NBC News and various film and television producers on the rollout of several projects including the documentaries HBO’s Suited and Netflix’s The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson. Tiq also served as the Senior Media Strategist and National Spokesperson for GLAAD using data driven strategies to engage various media in appropriate and honest LGBTQ representation and creative direction.

Special Presenters

Angel Simone (they/she) is passionate about community mobilization & engagement.  As a person with a marginalized identity, she is dedicated to creating spaces where people from diverse backgrounds and experiences can come together in ways that foster meaningful connections.

 As a speaker, trainer & coach, they have a passion for empowering others to discover their unique potential and becoming the next best version of themselves. Angel is a certified DEI consultant, and enjoys conversations on identity & belonging, inclusive leadership and how we can build more inclusive spaces where more of us can feel welcomed, valued, respected, and heard.

Angel has captivated audiences as a TEDx speaker, keynote speaker and podcast guest. Angel has corporate training experience in both non-profit and for-profit sectors. She currently volunteers on the advisory board of Elephant in the Room for New Hampshire Theatre Project.

Originally from Liverpool, England, Angel now lives in Portsmouth, NH with her children and holds her Masters in Engineering.

Raquel Willis is an award-winning activist, journalist, and media strategist dedicated to collective  liberation, especially for Black trans folks. She is the author of The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life  and Liberation. She is also an executive producer with iHeartMedia’s first-ever LGBTQ+ podcast  network, Outspoken, and the host of Afterlives, a podcast centering the lives and legacies of trans  folks lost too soon to violence. 

Raquel has held groundbreaking posts, including director of communications for Ms. Foundation  for Women, executive editor of Out magazine, and national organizer for Transgender Law  Center. She co-founded Transgender Week of Visibility and Actionwith civil rights attorney Chase  Strangio. She is the president of the Solutions Not Punishments Collaborative’s executive board  and serves on the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art board. 

She published the GLAAD Media Award-winning “Trans Obituaries Project,” in 2022, she  executive-produced and hosted “The Trans Youth Town Hall” with Logo. The work was nominated  for the GLAAD Awards and won Gold distinction in the Shorty Awards. She was also honored as a  2023 ADCOLOR Advocate. 

Her writing has been published in Black Futures by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham, Bulgari  Magnifica: The Power Women Hold edited by Tina Leung, The Echoing Ida Collection edited by  Kemi Alabi, Cynthia R. Greenlee, and Janna A. Zinzi, and Four Hundred Souls: A Community  History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha Blain. She has also  written for Essence, Bitch, VICE, Buzzfeed, The Cut, and Vogue. 

Raquel is a thought leader on gender, race, and intersectionality. She’s experienced in online  publications, organizing marginalized communities for social change, non-profit media strategy,  and public speaking while using digital activism as a major tool of resistance and liberation.

 

Harold Steward (they/he) is a cultural strategist from Dallas, TX. They joined The Theater Offensive in Boston as the managing director in June 2017. They currently serve as executive director for the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA).  Steward most recently served as manager of the South Dallas Cultural Center, a division of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, which provides instruction and enrichment in the arts, emphasizing the African contribution to world culture. Harold served as a cultural equity facilitator with Equity Quotient and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Theater Studies at Emerson College where his current research interests include The Queer Trap Aesthetic in American Theatre and Identity Reclamation-The process in which oppressed individuals reclaim agency over their identity through cultural production.