Western to Host LGBTQ Activist Sabina Neem Oct. 20

Western Washington University’s Counseling Center is partnering with the Queer Resource Center, LGBT Advocacy Council, Equal Opportunity Office, Prevention and Wellness Services and Team for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students club to bring LGBTQ activist Sabina Neem to campus at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct 20, in Arntzen Hall Room 100.

Neem will discuss building solidarity with LGBTQ peers in the current context of social movements with particular awareness of institutional racism, homophobia, transphobia, and class consciousness. She will address how we can create transformational spaces and communicate across differences in a way that is inclusive of all.

This event is free and open to the public.

Neem has been involved in transgender liberation and racial justice work for two decades. She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and works at Wellspring Counseling. She received her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Barnard College, Columbia University and a dual master’s degree in Social Service / Law and Social Policy from Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research.

During her seven years in Seattle, she has held a mayoral appointment and co-chaired the City of Seattle LGBT Commission 2013-2015 and has served on numerous boards including Zenyu Healing, Trikone Northwest and the National LGBT Access Project.  She's served as the associate director at the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Seattle University. Prior to coming to Seattle from Philadelphia, she was as a therapist at GirlSpace, a residential treatment facility, program manager for the Asian Arts Initiative, an HIV tester and counselor / case manager at the Attic Youth Center (an LGBTQ youth center) where she co-led “Young, Trans, & Unified,” and was a founding staff member for the Trans-Health Information Project.

For more information, contact Ian Vincent, Western Washington University’s Men Resiliency specialist, Counseling Center, at (360) 650-2127 or Ian.Vincent@wwu.edu