Welcoming Our Differences:
An Interactive & Intersectional Speaker Series
In this three-part speaker series, you will engage in learning activities and discussions related to implicit bias, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the intersectionality of race, gender identity, sexual identity, spirituality, and disability. Join us for one or all of the three, two-hour events in the series between January-March 2021. Individuals of all backgrounds and abilities are welcome to attend this free, virtual event.
Thursday, January 14, 5:30-7:30pm: Implicit Bias with Gretchen Mollers
Thursday, February 11, 5:30-7:30pm: Queerness and Spirituality with Parker Davis & Emily Win
Thursday, March 11, 5:30-7:30pm: Intro to Disability Justice with Rebel Sidney Black & Deanna Yadollahi
Registration for this event is required. Please follow the link below to register for one or all events.
Closed captions will be provided during the event.
Our Facilitators
Gretchen Mollers
Gretchen Mollers is a teacher and educational professional in the Beaverton School District. Her focus is supporting students who are pushed out of the education system. Gretchen also supports LGBTQ+ students and staff within the district and leads professional development on equity topics including anti-bias, anti-racist education.
Emily Win
Emily Win (she/her/hers), as an Enneagram 4, wears many hats in her life including teacher, writer, podcaster, caretaker, and poet. She recently earned her MA in Creative Writing and Critical Life from the University of Leeds where she studied the function of poetry as a subversive mediator between spiritual and queer communities. She now works in ESL education management and attempts to keep up with the freelancing lifestyle. Her passion projects--including her podcast, Our Daily Beard--all explore intersections between queerness and spirituality.
Parker Davis
Parker Davis (he/they) grew up in Missouri where they attended Saint Louis University. After finishing their studies in Theology and Communications, Parker shared life in intentional community with L'Arche in both Nandi Bazar, India and Portland, OR. Today, Parker lives in Los Angeles, CA and works as the Digital Communications Manager for L’Arche USA while also pursuing commissions as an independent artist and writer. Parker's experiences have made them passionate about spirituality, justice, and inclusion and how these intersect with race, disability, and queerness.
Rebel Sidney Black
Rebel's work over the past 15 years has focused primarily on racial and disability justice, transgender rights, and interpersonal violence prevention and advocacy. They have an undergraduate degree in Nonprofit Administration from UMass Amherst. Rebel has worked in both formal and informal capacities in the community to advocate for social change. They helped cross-class nonprofit cafe Sisters Of The Road transition to collective management in 2012-2015. In 2017, Rebel was invited to be part of the Northwest Health Foundation’s Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative. This convening of 14 people of color with disabilities built community and made recommendations to organizations wishing to support civic engagement by disabled people in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
In 2019, they founded the Portland Disability Justice Collective, a BIPOC-led gathering space for disabled people to build community and learn/practice principles of Disability Justice and mutual aid. Rebel is a multiracial, queer, agender femme with multiple disabilities. They live in NE Portland with their spouse, two cats, and a dog. In their personal life, Rebel is committed to providing housing and other supports for low income queer people facing housing insecurity and other systemic threats. They are also interested in increasing connectedness among disabled activists and finding sustainable pathways to social change.
[Image description: A photograph of a young adult named Deanna Yadollahi. Deanna is against a white wall and is smiling. Deanna has light brown skin and short, partially shaved, curly hair with side bangs. Deanna is wearing a light pink top and multiple ear piercings. End description.]
Deanna Yadollahi
My name is Deanna Yadollahi. My pronouns are they/them. I identify myself as a fat, Disabled (Neurodivergent & Mad), gender non-conforming, person of color (child of an Iranian immigrant father and Toltec Indigenous and Mexican immigrant mother). I am a Disability Justice activist. I am passionate about moving towards Liberatory Access (Mia Mingus, 2017) and dismantling Ableism (as defined by Talila “TL” Lewis, Dustin Gibson, and community collaborators, most recently updated 2021; and as further connected to intersecting oppressions by TL, 2019). I am an uninvited occupant of the traditional, unceded, ancestral lands of the Gabrielino/Tongva and Kizh peoples in what is known in colonized terms as being within so-called Southern California. I support the Land Back Movement. I currently do creative access consulting and write about my experiences as a multiply marginalized Disabled person, while studying Disability Studies at the graduate level. My website is bit.ly/D-Y-Scholarship
Thank you to Collins Foundation for providing the support to make this program possible.