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Billy Bean
Billy Bean solidified his role as a major-league base ball player even as he grappled with a secret that made hitting a Roger Clemens fastball look easy: he was a gay man in a brutally anti-gay world. Ultimately, Billy faced an agonizing choice between continuing to play, in secrecy and solitude, the game he loved and the honesty of a loving relationship. In the prime of his career, Billy walked away from baseball in 1996, in part, because of the sudden death of his former partner, and the frustration of holding onto that secret alone. His desire not to let that happen to anyone else pushed him to share his story. In his best selling book Going The Other Way and in his presentation Billy tells his story, that is at times heartbreaking and farcical, to ruminative and uncensored. He is a testament to the power of a single voice, and is the exemplary American tale, in that he points the way toward a more perfect game, one in which all men and women can pursue their dreams free of prejudice and discrimination.
Sabrina Sojourner
Congresswoman Sabrina Sojourner is the first open lesbian to be elected to the United States Congress. Having been elected by a whopping 83% of the vote, Sabrina represented the District of Columbia in the U.S. House of Representatives where in her non-voting position she lobbied not only for Statehood for the District of Columbia, but impacted other legislators on a whole spectrum of issues. Sabrina is also a nationally recognized educator on diversity and multiculturalism. As past Director of Diversity Programs and Woman of Color Programs for the National Organization for Woman, she has developed a variety of programs, workshops, and presentations that focus on building bridges of understanding across differences, including race, gender, and sexual orientation. A widely published author, Sabrina's latest work is a collection of poems and narratives entitled Psychic Scars and Other Mad Thoughts.
Steven Capsuto
Let's watch TV! Media historian Steven Capsuto brings you the history of queer images in American television, interspersing a well-researched lecture with 50 minutes of video clips. How did America see gay people in the 1950s? The 1970s? The 1990s? Trace the path from Bob Hope's "fairy" jokes to today's reality TV, ER and Queer as Folk. Capsuto, the former director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Archives of Philadelphia, is the author of Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images in Radio and Television. The book was a semifinalist for the American Library Association's 2001 GLBT Book Award. For more than a decade, he has presented these video-illustrated lectures at colleges, community meetings and film festivals in the U.S. and abroad.
Mike Wilke
Business journalist Michael Wilke has charted the emergence of gay marketing and advertising since 1992. His work is widely cited by college textbooks and news agencies, and he is credited with coining the popular term "gay vague." Wilke is founder and Executive Director of the Commercial Closet Association, launched in New York City in 2001 to educate advertisers for more informed representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in mainstream advertising. He has lectured to hundreds of major corporations and universities internationally since 1997. Wilke was a business reporter at Advertising Age for four years, has written for The New York Times, Adweek, Brandweek, and was an editor for WNBC.com, and has penned a nationally syndicated ad column since 1999. Wilke has appeared widely on national TV news, internationally on CNN and the BBC, as well as "Entertainment Tonight" and VH-1. Wilke lead the New York chapter of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association as president from 1998 to 2000.
