Ms Billings played Davina on Amazon’s “Transparent”; winner of 15 Emmy Awards, The Critic’s Choice Award, the 2014 Golden Globe Award and the 2014 Peabody Award for most groundbreaking Television comedy. She was nominated for a 2015 SAG Award for her performance, along with the rest of the cast, in the category of Best Ensemble. She is the second transgender actress to play a transgender character in the history of television for her role in: “Romy and Michelle-Behind the Velvet Rope” for ABC Disney costarring Katherine Heigl. Other TV credits include: “How To Get Away With Murder”, “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Eli Stone,” “E.R.,” “Karen Sisco,” “Nurses” and playing opposite Dot Jones in the Ryan Murphy pilot “Pretty/Handsome”. Alexandra has been acting since 1968 and has performed across the United States in hundreds of plays and musicals. She’s played everyone from Mama Rose in “Gypsy,” to Mrs. Lynde in “A Doll House.” Most every stage role is considered to be a first for a transgender actress. She has appeared at The Steppenwolf Theater, The Goodman Theater, Chicago Shakespeare, The Marriott Lincolnshire, Second City, and The Bailiwick Theater. Her critically acclaimed, one-woman autobiographical show: “Before I Disappear,” toured from Chicago to Boston to Los Angeles, and finally, off Broadway at The Producer’s Club. Read more

Amy Dryer, MD

Dr. Dryer is a pediatrician who provides primary care, mental health care and LGBTQIA+-affirming care to children and adolescents at TPG Pediatrics in Northern Virginia.

After completing residency in 2007, Dr. Dryer realized that she was not meeting the needs of many LGBTQIA+ adolescents due to her lack of knowledge and understanding. Simultaneously, Dr. Dryer began facilitating a comprehensive human sexuality curriculum for adolescents where she could better define what she didn’t know. Since then, Dr. Dryer has attended educational conferences from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), read extensively, and fostered relationships with families, activists, community leaders and patients to understand what care her patients want and need.

In 2020, Dr. Dryer became faculty for the 3-day mini-fellowship offered by the REACH institute about comprehensive evidence-based mental health care in primary care and has since taught hundreds of primary care providers nationally and throughout Virginia’s VMAP program to offer mental health care to their pediatric and adolescent patients. In the fall of 2025, Dr. Dryer will step into the role of Course Leader for VMAP.

In 2024, Dr. Dryer joined the Board of Directors of the Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics as a regional delegate. She works to champion the medical and mental health needs of pediatric patients and providers in Virginia.

In her community, Dr. Dryer’s pro-bono work includes teaching about gender, sexuality and radical consent. She has been interviewed by FOX News Houston about speaking to children about Pride Month, published in Psychology Today about Suicide Assessment, and interviewed on SIRIUS XM twice about caring for LGBTQIA+ kids. She is proud to serve on the TGEA Advisory Board.

Elizabeth Ames Fogarty

Elizabeth Ames Fogarty (she/her/hers) is a community connector who became involved in LGBTQ advocacy after her older daughter came out as lesbian when a senior in high school. Elizabeth co-coordinates the Arlington PFLAG Community Group of Metro DC PFLAG and co-chairs the Equality UUCA committee at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, where she is a long-time member. Elizabeth also serves as a board member for Equality Virginia, the leading statewide, non-partisan LGBTQ education, outreach, and advocacy group in Virginia. Previously she served on the organizing team for the Northern Virginia Network of People of Faith for Equality in Virginia (POFEVNOVA), the voice of the faith community in Northern Virginia for welcoming and affirming the LGBTQ communities and promoting equality for LGBTQ people and their families. She is honored to be the recipient of TGEA’s 2018 Ally Award and AGLA:Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance’s 2017 Equality Award.

Gavin Grimm

Gavin Grimm is a trans youth advocate and client of the ACLU in an ongoing court battle about bathroom rights for trans people.
Gavin came out as transgender during his sophomore year in high school. With his principal’s permission, he used the boy’s restrooms at school for almost two months without any problems, but then a handful of parents went to the school board to complain about him. Eventually, the school board voted to ban him from using the boys’ restrooms at school. With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, Grimm sued his school. His case worked its way up to the Supreme Court and was set to be argued in March 2017. However, the Supreme Court sent Grimm’s case back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to be reconsidered in light of the Department of Justice and Education pulling back the previous administration’s Title IX guidance clarifying protections for transgender students.

Davina R. Johnson

Davina has worked in the school counseling profession for over 20 years. She has served as a School Counselor, Director of Student Services (in Fairfax County Public Schools and Henrico County Public Schools), and President of Virginia School Counselor Association (various additional leadership positions.) From day one Davina has been an ally and advocate for youth and adults within our LGBTQIA community. Davina is passionate about sharing, supporting, and educating on the concerns and celebrations of our LGBTQIA community. Since 2011, she has advocated for our Trans youth in schools and the community. Davina is a LGBTQIA parent, educator, and advocate. She has been a voice for the quiet and the silent and an echo for those that are standing up for equality! She will challenge the wrong, support the right, and uplift the growing!

Sarah McBride

Sarah McBride is a Democratic member of the Delaware Senate since January 2021. She is currently the National Press Secretary of the Human Rights Campaign and the author of “Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality.”

In 2012, Sarah made national headlines when she came out as transgender while serving as student body president at American University. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Sarah serves on the Board of Directors of Equality Delaware and helped lead the successful effort to add gender identity and expression to her state’s nondiscrimination laws. In 2008, Sarah worked for Governor Jack Markell (D-DE) and, in 2010, for former Attorney General Beau Biden (D-DE). Prior to coming to HRC, Sarah worked at the Center for American Progress and interned at the White House, the first out trans woman to do so.

Sarah became the first openly transgender person to address a major party political convention when she spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Robert Rigby

Robert Rigby has been a special education and general education teacher for 35 years; he currently teachers high school Latin in Northern Virginia. For the past 20 years he has advocated for LGBTQ students, teachers and family members in Northern Virginia, working with GLSEN and other organizations. He is the founding president of “FCPS Pride,” a social welfare and advocacy organization for LGBTQ stakeholders in Fairfax County Public Schools (the largest school system in the DC metro area). During that time he has sponsored conferences (and dances!) for LGBTQ youth, sponsored Gender and Sexuality Alliances (formerly Gay-Straight Alliances) and pushed and prodded school administrators and school boards in the area to enact policies, regulation and create trainings that make schools more welcoming for LGBTQ+ students, staff and families. He meets and support these stakeholders in various roles, but also day-to-day as a classroom teacher. In recent years focus has migrated to policies, regulations and help from school administrators in welcoming transgender binary and non-binary children and trans staff and family member. As part of his this effort, Robert has reached out to leaders in and members of the community, and has developed many essential and close relationships. He says “we have seen a sea-change in our Northern Virginia schools, but we have much work still to do.”

Shawn Rubin

Shawn Rubin is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist whose practice orientation is informed by extensive training in the depth psychologies of humanistic-existentialism, contemporary psychoanalysis, and multicultural/inclusive psychologies, particularly with the transgender and gender-diverse communities.

Dr. Rubin has worked in private practice in Michigan and Virginia since 1998 and specializes in the affirming therapy with transgender children, adolescents, adults, and their families. He serves as a Consultant for companies who are facilitating the transgender emergence of employees in the workplace. A former Board member of the Transgender Education Association, he has served as a volunteer facilitator of the various support groups for children and adolescents. With PFLAG, he led support groups for parents of emerging children and adolescents.

From 2015-2017 Shawn served as President of the Executive Board of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, a Division of the American Psychological Association. He previously served two consecutive terms as Member at Large of this Division (2009-2015).

Since 2012, Dr. Rubin has served as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, previously holding the position of Managing Editor from 2005 to 2012.

Since 2011, he presides as Co-Editor in Chief of University Professors Press and is Co-Editor of “Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice, 2nd Edition” published by the American Psychological Association.

Ellen Shannon

Ellen Shannon is the Area Director of the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and has served in this role since February 2017. She has lived in the DC Metro Area for 20 years, is a graduate of Langley High School, received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from George Mason University (B.A. 2006, M.A. 2012), and has more than a decade of professional non-profit management experience
Established in 1987, AFSP is a voluntary health organization that gives those affected by suicide a nationwide community empowered by research, education and advocacy to take action against this leading cause of death.

AFSP’s mission is to save lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide and they are dedicated to creating a culture that’s smart about mental health by engaging in the following core strategies:
• Funding scientific research
• Educating the public about mental health and suicide prevention
• Advocating for public policies in mental health and suicide prevention
• Supporting survivors of suicide loss and those affected by suicide in our mission