Toni Kokenis, ’14, MA ’15 (Sociology)

National Center for Lesbian Rights, San Francisco, CA

A three year varsity women’s basketball letter winner, Toni is majoring in human biology and sociology, with an honors thesis in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. She is president and co-founder of Stanford Athletes and Allies Together and received the 2014 Campus Pride Voice & Action National Athlete Award. She will return to Stanford next fall to pursue a co-terminal master’s degree in sociology.

Toni's fellowship project is at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), specifically with Sports Project working to eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in sports through advocacy, outreach, and litigation.

Her main project will be working with a think tank called “Seeking Common Ground: Creating Respectful Athletic Climates for Athletes and Coaches of All Religious Perspectives, Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities or Expressions.” In addition, she will work with NCLR to create more inclusive policies state-by-state for transgender high school student-athletes, as well as expand her honors thesis.

Jason Galisatus '15 (Political Science)

Equality California, San Francisco, CA

Jason is the Executive Director of the Bay Area Youth Summit, the first completely youth-led LGBT organization in the world. The BAYS Board consists of around 7 Stanford students and 7 high school students. For more information, visit their website at www.bayareayouthsummit.org.

Jason has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Gay Straight Alliance Network, and is a current Board member for the Pye-Harris documentary project in which he interviews a number of historical LGBT figures includes Phyllis Lyon, the founder of the Daughters of Bilitis.  He also worked with San Francisco Mayors Ed Lee and Gavin Newsom as the LGBT Community Liaison.  Jason was named Best LGBT youth activist for the Bay Area Reporter's 2013 Readers Choice Awards, and both he and BAYS were nominated to be Grand Marshals of the San Francisco Pride Parade.  Outside of activism and political advocacy, Jason loves music, and is a former member of the Stanford Fleet Street Singers and the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

As a Huffington Pride Fellow, Jason was working with Equality California. Jason's main goal is to bring more visibility to youth within the LGBT community and  create strategic cross-generational partnerships.

 

Carolina Ornelas '15 (Human Biology)

Project HEALTH, San Francisco, CA

Carolina Ornelas hopes to become a physician who serves the LGBT community, and plans on being an advocate for increasing access and quality of medical care for the LGBT individuals. Her ultimate goal is to reduce LGBT health disparities. On a sunny day, you can find her lying on the grass, playing her guitar and reading poetry.

Her fellowship consisted of interning with the Transgender Law Center and Lyon Martin Health Clinic on Project HEALTH, or Harnessing Education Advocacy and Leadership in Transgender Health. The goal of this project is to increase the quality and access of medical care for transgender individuals through policy change and through the training and education of medical professionals. To help reach this goal, she was involved in investigating the progress of transgender health legislation, reaching out to clinics and health care professionals for transgender health training, and updating and restructuring the training materials for medical students and physicians.

"I am very excited to work with Project HEALTH, because the LGBT, especially transgender, community is suffering from severe health disparities that are reducing the health and vitality of this community. In working with Project HEALTH, I hope to help reduce these health disparities and create a medical system where anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, can receive the basic human right of excellent and adequate medical care."

Laura Potter '14 (Human Biology)
The Fenway Institute, Boston, MA

"I will immerse myself in two clinical research projects on and with the transgender communities of Boston. For the multicenter study MOBICOHORT3, I will conduct an exhaustive chart review of Fenway’s trans patients to investigate the side effects of hormone treatment and organize these data for submission to the first international database of its kind. For more direct engagement with the Boston LGBTQI community, I will also join LifeSkills, a NIH-funded study both run by and for young trans women. By screening potential participants, spearheading outreach and recruitment efforts, securing sponsorship for community-building events, running quality control checks on study files, and working closely with the study team, I hope to humanize my chart review experience and support these very brave and beautiful young women through this empowerment and sexual risk reduction study."

Andres Gutierrez '13
Immigration Equality, New York, NY

"By working with the legal team at Immigration Equality, I hope to learn more about the obstacles that LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants and bi-national couples face. I also hope to help individuals who are seeking asylum. I am excited to learn about how the organization works to help individuals who are vulnerable and find themselves in difficult situations. I look forward to helping with various projects such as creating documents for asylees, reaching out to individuals who may be eligible for deferred action based on the recent policy changes, and participating in meetings with the legal team and clients. I have worked in the past with the LGBT community, both on campus and in the larger community: as pride intern at the BT Center in NYC, as a volunteer for the Ali Forney Center, as officer of La Familia de Stanford, and as CASA Mentor at Stanford's LGBT CRC. I've also worked with MEChA de Stanford as an officer, Dance Marathon as a Community Center Outreach Executive, Las Hermanas de Stanford as a member and El Centro Chicano as a student staff member."

Marcus Busby ’13
Gay-Straight Alliance Network, San Francisco, CA

“I hope that my experiences in high school won’t go to waste and that I can use these experiences to increase awareness and help support the LGBTQA communities in high schools across the nation.”

Hometown: Gloucester, MA
Service interest: LGBT youth; LGBT education
Significant Stanford experience: working on the Stanford campus in the summer
Other service experience: Rotary Club president in high school
Fellowship goal: to learn about differences in LGBT acceptance in high schools across the country and see how particular programs can be improved or expanded to promote LGBT acceptance in high schools.

Christopher Lee ’13
Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline, Taipei, Taiwan

"Many people in the queer community do not realize what other queers in various locations around the globe go through just to be themselves. I feel so fortunate to be able to openly embrace my queer identity here at Stanford University. I would like to utilize my opportunities as a Stanford student to better the lives of those less privileged than myself."

Hometown: New York City, NY
Service interest: helping LGBTQ youth and families, providing a safe and open community for LGBTQ youth
Significant Stanford experience: Stanford LGBT Community Resource Center Frosh Intern; Haas Center Community Service Work Study: New York LGBT Center Pride Intern; core member of Stanford Queer and Asian
Other service experience: leader/active member of Rateen, a Korean youth queer rights group
Post-graduation plans: attend graduate school and do sociology research about the gay rights movement
Fellowship goal: to help the queer community in Taiwan through my previous experiences of being involved in queer communities of other countries. Moreover, I hope to learn many things from Taiwan that can help other gay communities around the world.

Kenzie Seal, '12
National Marriage Boycott, Stanford, CA

"The thing that motivates me, despite recent setbacks, is the knowledge that LGBTQ have a suicide rate that is four-times higher than that of their heterosexual peers, due largely to social devaluation. This fight is about more than just marriage rights—it's about life and death."

Kenzie spent the summer working with the National Marriage Boycott (NMB), a grassroots coalition of allies and LGBT people that stand in solidarity against the legal discrimination faced by LGBTQ individuals. Boycott participants sign a pledge not to marry until all Americans have the right to do so, and in the process raise awareness of equality issues in their communities.

Kenzie is a founding member and active participant in NMB, and the Stanford Pride Fellowship has allowed him to focus on leadership of the organization and expanding its reach, increasing NMB's presence on campuses across the state.

Patrick Cordova, '09
Bronx Pride Center, Bronx, NY

“The Fellowship gave me an opportunity to observe, learn about, and serve folks whose needs have fallen under the gay community's radar. The Center's LGBT clients were far more concerned with death threats from homophobic neighbors than with the progress of litigation or legislation to secure equal marriage rights. From this exposure, I have become passionate about and driven to serve underrepresented communities and causes. Since the Fellowship, I've been heavily involved in improving college student access to mental health resources, to empowering young people to become involved in the political process, and to electing LGBT folks to public office.”

Patrick recently finished work as Finance Director for Steve Pougnet for Congress, the campaign to elect Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pounget the first gay parent to Congress. He is currently in the process of studying for the LSAT, while simultaneously searching for the next employed capacity to support the LGBT community.

While at the Bronx Pride Center, Patrick created and implemented a Community Advisory Board of leaders to help shape the organization's future, re-started and upgraded the Center's HIV testing and counseling program, managed a case management load, facilitated youth group sessions, and helped to identify and cultivate donor prospects.

One of his case management clients was a 65-year-old lesbian and recovering alcoholic living in a residential treatment program. Through their case management relationship, Patrick and his colleagues developed the tools for her to properly explain her sexuality to some of her homophobic neighbors in the treatment program, rather than the physical altercations that she was accustomed to. She graduated from the program at the end of the summer and was thrilled to witness so many of her previously homophobic living mates embrace her as a friend, and potentially the only LGBT person they knew.

Lasse Thorenfeldt, '08
Danish National Association of Gays and Lesbians, Copenhagen, Denmark

"My most memorable moment would definitely be the protest that we organization against the reggae artist 'Buju Banton.' He was coming to play at a venue in Copenhagen, and we wanted them to boycott him because of his violently homophobic lyrics. We met with the management of the venue, and actually had plenty of supporters amongst the heavy-metal clientele. When we couldn't reach an agreement, LBL decided to organize a protest outside of the venue which drew quite a crowd. That was one very hectic day - I think I was on my feet for 15 hours or so, barely eating, but it was also very exciting to feel the community organizing around us."

Lasse Thorenfeldt worked at the Danish National Association of Gays and Lesbians (LBL) at their headquarters in Copenhagen. His fellowship experience covered a broad range of activities: from organizing a protest and participating in the Copenhagen Pride Week events to developing study questionnaires and editing educational website content.

Although Lasse is not necessarily going to go work at a non-profit any time soon, he thinks this was one of the experiences that helped start his interest in public health because a lot of the work he did was related to health and sexual health awareness. The following summer he worked writing articles for a gay men's health clinic in the Castro in San Francisco, which he saw kind of as an extension of the line of work he had done at LBL. While he doesn't currently work in a health related field, it's something he would like to see myself getting back into soon, if possible.

Lasse has worked at Google in Mountain View since graduating. He joined as part of a rotational program in HR (PeopleOps at Google), and is now working in his permanent placement in People Analytics, working with a lot of staffing data. He currently lives in San Francisco.

Juan Barajas, '99
AIDS Resources, Information and Services (ARIS) Project, San Jose State University

Juan Barajas, an accomplished LGBT community leader and nonprofit executive, is Senior Director of Regional Leadership Development for GLAAD. Before that, he served as the Executive Director of the Pacific Center for Human Growth, an award winning LGBT community center in Berkeley, CA. During his tenure with Pacific Center, he led the organization towards sustainable growth by more than doubling the individual fundraising program, overseeing a major facility renovation, strengthening existing programs, implementing new communications and branding strategies, and developing an expert team of staff and volunteers to deliver high quality services for the local LGBT community.Prior to working with Pacific Center, he led the successful development of the Outlet Program, a LGBT youth organization in Mountain View, CA. Under his leadership, the Outlet Program grew from a weekly youth group into a multi-service youth organization reaching thousands of people each year through direct service and advocacy. The Outlet Program continues to serve as a powerful support, training, and leadership resource for LGBT youth and their allies in achieving LGBT youth inclusion and visibility in the local community.

Meehan Rasch, '99
Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center (LYRIC), San Francisco, CA

Meehan Rasch is currently a Litigation Associate at Sidney Austin LLP, Los Angeles. Prior to this, Ms. Rasch clerked for the Honorable Ruggero J. Aldisert at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She also served as a Sidley Austin Pro Bono Fellow with the Public Counsel Appellate Law Program in Los Angeles.

As the third recipient of the Huffington Pride Fellowship, Ms. Rasch worked at the Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center (LYRIC), where she helped oversee the Summer of Arts program for LGBT youth, served on the steering committee for the first Young, Loud & Proud queer youth conference, and attended the NGLTF Youth Leadership Training Institute. She also helped run the LGBT organization coalition counter-protests at the Republican National Convention in San Diego that year.According to Ms. Rasch, the fellowship was a major influence in her career path.

After the fellowship, she went on to co-found and lead the first Queer Issues Alternative Spring Break at Stanford along with another Pride Fellow, Sarah (Sam) Guy, served on the LGBT Speakers Bureau on campus all four years at Stanford, and followed the Pride Fellowship experience with a Donald Kennedy Public Service Fellowship the following summer of 1997 as a youth leadership program assistant and grant writer at North Carolina Lambda Youth Network in Durham, NC. Later, a year after graduation, she went to Indiana University for grad school in nonprofit management, and founded and facilitated a queer youth activist organization in Indianapolis called CANDY: Community Activist Network Developed by Youth.

After grad school, she ended up in Los Angeles, and eventually became the ED of Bike Out, an organization promoting health and self-esteem for queer, questioning, and allied youth through challenging wilderness mountain biking expeditions and leadership training. She attended law school at UCLA to study both copyright and sexual orientation law.