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RiseOut Advocacy Council

The RiseOut Advocacy Council works in collaboration with RiseOut, The Center’s statewide LGBTQ advocacy initiative, as a cohort of diverse thought leaders across progressive sectors. Council members convene monthly to support organizational partners and volunteer initiatives on behalf of RiseOut’s advocacy objectives. Together, council members provide feedback and help to ensure that advocacy mobilization efforts can effectively reach and broadly engage the LGBTQ community statewide.

Council members will:

  • Act as ambassadors of the RiseOut advocacy initiative to support the advancement of LGBTQ rights in New York
  • Leverage professional and community relationships to build broad public support for advocacy priorities
  • Share public education campaigns through digital engagement to further campaign objectives
  • Provide feedback on emerging advocacy strategies, trends, and challenges

Council members also have opportunities to connect with policymakers and advocates across the progressive landscape, and are offered an honorarium for their participation.

For more information about the RiseOut Advocacy Council, please email advocacy@gaycenter.org.

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ADVOCACY COUNCIL MEMBERS

Dorcas Adedoja

Dorcas Adedoja (they/them) is a Nigerian-American nonbinary transmasculine public health architect. They are a Human Rights Campaign ACTIVATE Fellow, DotDash Anti-Bias Review Board Member, and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Accountability Cabinet Member dedicated to centering Black and LGBTQ+ people as they work to improve healthcare for all.

Okporo Edafe

Edafe is a global gay rights activist and the executive director of the RDJ Refugee Shelter in Harlem. The shelter helps refugees transition to life in America. His memoir “Asylum,” by Simon and Schuster, will be out in 2022.

Steven G. Fullwood

Steven G. Fullwood is an archivist, editor, and cultural worker. His published works include “Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call” (2014) and “Carry the Word: A Bibliography of Black LGBTQ Books” (2007). Fullwood is the former assistant curator of the Manuscripts, Archives & Rare Books Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 1998, he founded the In the Life Archive (ITLA) to aid in the preservation of materials produced by LGBTQ people of African descent. Fullwood is the co-editor (along with Miranda Mims) of the forthcoming anthology, “The Evidence: Black Archivists Holding Memory” (NAP Press, 2023).

Jasmine Hearn

Jasmine Hearn is from the occupied land of the Karankawa and Atapake people, now known as Houston, TX. A performer, director, choreographer, organizer, teaching artist, and a 2017 Bessie award winning performer with the collective Skeleton Architecture, they have crafted and shared solo and collaborative dance theater performances rooted in identity, memory, and the facilitation of creative space for feelings and fantasy. They are currently a company member with Urban Bush Women and a 2019 Jerome Foundation Jerome Hill Fellow.

Jia Hurd

Jia is a Black non-binary femme from the South Bronx leading a COVID-19 response FREE mental health project that has served 500+ QBIPoC across the USA and around the world. They/She is a mental health advocate, suicide attempt survivor, creative, social worker, and community organizer.

She has 6 years of events/project management experience in wellness, and art for NYC museums, nonprofits, art collectives, and universities. She has had 3 years of mental health advocacy experience for NYC grassroots organizations. Additionally, they worked for 6 years on successful social justice movements for Black Womxn and Queer liberation with The New York Transgender Advocacy Group, Hetrick-Martin Institute, The Audre Lorde Project, BUFU, Equality 4 Flatbush, Sadie Nash, Black Lives Matter, BYP 100, and F2L. She has 3 artists’ scholarships at Parsons The New School, and they are currently pursuing a Master’s in Social Work at Hunter College. They are also a 2020 advocacy fellow of New York Transgender Advocacy Group.

It is important to center their/her work around Queer and Trans People of Color, particularly Black and Indigenous people.

Elijah Li

Elijah Li, a New York native, is an LGBT advocate, community business owner, writer, designer, and engineer. Elijah’s advocacy centers on marginal identity, community development/empowerment, and visibility as it relates to LGBT minorities. His work in the community came as a natural extension of his work in engineering, where there was an implicit commitment to identify issues and solve them in unique ways.

Kylie Madhav

Kylie Madhav currently serves as the Mental Health Services Manager at New York’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. She has spent nearly the entirety of her career working in various human rights-oriented capacities in the United States, India, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. In her professional capacity, she has collaborated closely with queer, immigrant, and economically vulnerable communities. She holds an MBA from Yale and an MSW from New York University, and is fluent in French, English, Spanish, and Haitian Kreyòl.

Major Nesby

A multidisciplinary creative, Major started his career as a dance artist performing in New York City and on global stages. A graduate of Point Park University, he has also had the opportunity to act and appear in several web series, commercials, and movies. Along with dancing and acting, Major is currently working as a producer, content creator, host, and correspondent. He has worked with outlets such as GLAAD, Google, and HBO, and has interviewed prominent leaders in entertainment, including award-winning writer-director Lee Daniels as well as Pulitzer Prize winners Jericho Brown and Michael R. Jackson.

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