ATRW is proud to announce this year's keynote speaker: Mara Keisling!
http://atrw.weebly.com/Mara Keisling is the founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, based in Washington, DC. She is a graduate of Penn State University and did graduate work in American Government at Harvard University. Ms. Keisling works towards the goal of transgender equality through lobbying, public education, and building coalitions with other progressive organizations and causes. Mara Keisling and NCTE were among the leaders of UnitedENDA, a coalition of over four hundred LGBTQIA organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, opposing the move led by the Human Right Campaign, the largest LGBT advocacy organization in the United States to gut the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to a draft that excluded protections for gender identity, effectively leaving out transgendered individuals and, potentially, other gender non-conforming people regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. We at ATRW are thrilled (and some of us a bit star-struck) to welcome Ms. Keisling to Asheville!
