Bios

Anita Oliver is a 25-year-old unconventional lesbian who has devoted her life to civic service and being involved in any project that promotes true diversity and equality. Somewhat wet behind the ears, Anita has been working continuously to help change the face and identities of our future leaders, one youth at a time. As a Families First of Michigan social worker, she has taken on the intensive job of keeping at-risk families together by working one-on-one with parents and their children, and empowering them to become the most productive, successful citizens possible, and to make a positive impact on the world around them. She loves puppies, reading, music of all genres, and youth and young adults.

Helena Blakemore is a 23 year-old transsexual woman. Her activism started with a documentary, titled A Thousand Masks. Lately, she has worked for Hamtramck United Against Discrimination during their Human Rights Campaign for the election season of 2008. She is currently working on T-Swap.org as an administrator, and heading up the T-Swap program. She has also been working for the Multicultural Advisory Committee at Affirmations. Her specialties include multimedia, new media, videography, photography, and policy writing. She is looking forward to working as the Newsletter Facilitator for GenderSpark.

Julia Marsh is a 21 year old transsexual activist born in Detroit. She has a passion for the arts and community. She hopes to see the day we can look past one's gender and see people for just what they are, humans.

Kati Moore runs her own IT consulting firm, Bits 'n Bytes, and has worked on various community outreach projects throughout the state. She's currently working toward an associate degree in Libral Arts, and works as Impulse Manager at Walmart. She is extremely excited to be a part of GenderSpark and hopes to bring a lot to the table for the program.

Lance Hicks is a grassroots community organizer and Detroit-based activist. He works in mental health services, provides crisis intervention to street-dependant and at-risk youth, and delivers various trainings and workshops on LGBT youth culture and identity.

Lindsay "Pete" Phillips is an activist with a background in political organizing and management. She had the honor of registering 10,000 people to vote during the 2008 election cycle. Pete is very proud to be a part of any organization that shows how bogus the binary gender system really is.

Meldrick Marks is an eighteen-year-old genderqueer FTM activist living in Dearborn, Michigan. He is passionate about educational access for youth of all learning styles, web design, computer security, and cultural/religious studies.