Location

GLBT Historical Society Museum, 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114

Admission

$5.00 | Free for members

RSVP and purchase tickets here

Rooted in a history of resistance, LGBTQ Latinx people in the Bay Area have created numerous activist groups and institutions that have built a strong foundation for subsequent generations. Over time, they have forged personal and community bonds that create familias, or chosen families. This intergenerational panel brings together Latinx activists, artists, performers and community leaders to discuss the unique ways they have mobilized by building strong bonds of kinship. The event is being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Chosen Familias: Bay Area LGBTQ Latinx Stories,” now on view at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.

PANELISTS

Foxxy Blue Orchid is San Francisco's newest gender-bending glam-bear queen! She is the hostess of the Humboldt Burlesque Festival and is the newest member of Sin Sisters Burlesque in Santa Cruz. She has hosted and performed on stages across Texas and beyond. As her literary alter ego, Dino Foxx, she is the coauthor of Tragic Bitches: An Experiment in Queer Xicanx Performance Poetry and the author of When the Glitter Fades (Kórima Press).

Karen Aguilar is a Mexican immigrant trans woman who has been a community health worker and leader since 2000. Karen started her activism/work for the Latinx community as a volunteer at Shanti Project, and then she was staff at the Transgender program at Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida. Today Karen is the lead patient navigator for Gender Health SF, where she works with most of the program's monolingual Spanish-speaking patients, who represent almost 40% of GHSF's patients.

Luis Gutierrez-Mock is the project director for the Triunfo/TRIUMPH Project, a community-led PrEP demonstration project at the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at UCSF. He holds an M.A. in sexuality studies, a second M.A. in ethnic studies, an M.P.H. with an emphasis in community health education and is completing his doctorate in the medical sociology program at UCSF. He spends his free time dancing and preparing for the 2019 World Latin Dance Cup competition in Colombia.

Jesse James Johnson is the cofounder of the legendary Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida, which later morphed into El/La Para TransLatinas. He has deep cultural, political and spiritual roots in the Chicano, Queer and other liberation movements. He is the proud inheritor of a literary tradition that believed poetry to be a tool for liberation.

MODERATOR

Shane Zaldivar is a performer and actress residing in San Francisco for the last 4 years. Since moving out of Florida to attend Oaksterdam University, their art therapy has been drag. For Shane, the performer community invites authenticity to shine beyond the stage. They feel lucky to be a part of the community to showcase fun and genuine expression.

Image credit: One of the pages in the family albums displayed in the exhibition “Chosen Familias: Bay Area LGBTQ Latinx Stories,” now on view at the GLBT Historical Society Museum, photograph by Nalini Elias.