Dante Alencastre is a working artist/filmmaker/activist who makes his living from his artivist work. His imagination envisions projects and sees the potential in individuals and the importance of stories and combines this with the courage and conviction to tell them, often beginning before any organizational structure or financial assurance is in place, but with a trust that their inherent importance to the community will allow them to come into being. He directs and produces LGBTQ+ documentary films with a particular focus on the social justice and visibility of the Transgender community. Previous films include EN EL FUEGO (Peru, 2008), EL FUEGO DENTRO (Peru, 2011), TRANSVISIBLE: BAMBY SALCEDO’S STORY (Los Angeles, 2013), RAISING ZOEY (Los Angeles, 2016), and AIDS DIVA: THE LEGEND OF CONNIE NORMAN (Los Angeles, 2021).

Rabbi Robin Podolsky is the Los Angeles Program Manager for At The Well, a Jewish women’s wellness organization. She serves on the Board of Governors for the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din, writes at TribeHerald and jewishjournal.com, and serves as writing facilitator and dramaturg for Queerwise, a spoken word and writing group. Her most recent academic article, “Sumud Freedom Camp: Levinas’ Face-to-Face in Praxis” was published in Religions, Vol.10, No. 4. She conducts workshops, rituals and study sessions, for Jewish holidays and other occasions, that combine modalities: text study, personal work and small group sharing, writing (except on Shabbat and Yom Tov), prayer and meditation.

Josslyn Glenn (Moderator) is a Southeast Los Angeles-born Black Latina transgender producer, writer, spokesperson, and film festival programmer dedicated to promoting nuanced representations of queer and trans people of color that have historically been under- and misrepresented in media. While studying at UCLA, she wrote her first book, She Rotates with Pluto: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems. She has produced award-winning branded, editorial, scripted, and unscripted projects screening internationally, such as PeroLike’s “Being Queer in the Latino Community,” ABC’s “Soul of a Nation Presents “Pride: To Be Seen” and “Soul of a Nation Presents The Freedom To Exist with Elliot Page.” She has worked on the likes of Netflix’s Disclosure, and Con Todo’s Visions of Us. When she is not craving nachos, she is writing her second book, Tranny Pants, a collection of diary entries, essays, interviews, poems, and short stories detailing the familial and romantic lives of trans people she has come across.