Join us for a discussion on the threats and impact of current U.S. governmental policies on the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans populations. Experts Dr. Aurelis Troncoso and Louis Ward will engage in a conversation centered on how policies around the country are destroying decades of advancement for LGBTQ+ rights, and what we can do to fight back.

This event will be virtual.

Join us: https://bit.ly/wednesdaygatherings25

A Miriam Jiménez Román Fellow (2024-2025) through NYU’s Latinx Project, Dr. Aurelis Troncoso (they/she) was a Doctoral Candidate in the American Culture Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Troncoso’s fields of study include intersectionalities of race, gender, (queer) sexuality, Afro-Latinidad in the Caribbean and the United States, Black feminist theory, queer and trans theory, and Afro-Caribbean religions. Their dissertation project focuses on the transnational experiences of women, femmes and LGBTQ+ practitioners of Santeria and Espiritismo in Puerto Rico and how practitioners negotiate race, nationality, queerness and transness within sacred spaces. Their work also extends to Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Troncoso is a Solidarity Fellow of the Diaspora Solidarities Lab, a multi-institutional Black feminist partnership that supports solidarity work in Black and Ethnic studies led by Drs. Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez and Jessica Marie Johnson, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is also a coordinator of the Cuban and Cuban Diaspora Studies Rackham Workshop at the University of Michigan.  Troncoso joins a legacy of scholar-practitioners committed to centering Blackness, queerness and spirituality in a larger effort to advance Afro-Latinx studies, queer and trans studies, and religious studies.

Louis Ward* (they/them) is a Southern genderqueer person currently living out west. They hold a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Howard University and two Masters degrees in Public Health and Applied Gender Studies from Claremont Graduate University. During their public health master’s program, Louis joined the Transmasculine Health Justice: LA advisory board and research team to deepen their personal and professional research on transgender health. Louis has a strong commitment to ground public health in radical compassion and acceptance. Outside of work, they are an Ifa and Osun initiate and working toward priesthood.