Ginger Chun (she/her) is the Education and Parent Outreach Manager for Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT). She has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Most recently, she has served as a case manager supporting adults experiencing homelessness, with a program creating opportunity and support for foster youth, and as a parenting educator and coach. She has been an active ally in the LGBTQIA+ community since her daughter came out as transgender and lesbian, serving on the board of TENT and PFLAG San Antonio, as a founder and facilitator for TransAllies SA, and on the Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Sarah Mountz(she/her) is an assistant professor at University at Albany School of Social Welfare. Her research, teaching, and practice focus on the experiences of LGBTQ youth in child welfare and juvenile justice systems using an intersectional lens. Dr. Mountz is particularly interested in LGBTQ, systems impacted, and other youth activism and organizing, and issues of educational access for youth and young adults with foster care experience. She utilizes participatory, arts-based, and other qualitative methods in her work with the aim of amplifying youth voice and promoting intergenerational community building. Prior to entering academia, Dr. Mountz practiced in the child welfare system in New York City for several years,  and was a caseworker in a congregate foster care facility for LGBTQ youth. Her work has been featured in peer reviewed journals and books, including Child Welfare,Affilia, Children and Youth Services Review, the Journal of Public Child Welfare, the Journal of the Society of Social Work and Research,the Sage Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies, andCase studies for Affirmative Social Work Practice with LGBTQ+ Individuals and Communities. Dr. Mountz’ work has also been featured on WAMC’s the Academic Minute and PBS SoCal’s To Foster Change Initiative.She teaches, trains, and consults on issues pertaining to systems impacted youth and families and the intersections of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other axes of identity.  

Rae Caballero Obejero (he/they) is a Filipinx transgender social worker. Rae graduated from the VCU BSW program in 2014 and has been working in the field as a case manager, counselor, community organizer, and policy advocate. His professional background is in housing direct service work, queer and transgender advocacy, and providing crisis counseling. Rae is passionate about decolonizing and queering all social work spaces he enters. His research is published in the International Journal of Qualitative Research. Rae enjoys foraging for and identifying mushrooms with his dog.

Raye Dooley, MPH, MSW (they/them) is a trans social worker from the South. They currently work as a therapist in private practice, where they focus on serving two-spirit, trans, and intersex clients, as well as other LGBQ folks. In addition to doing direct clinical work, Raye also provides case consultation, training, and organizational development services that are intended to improve the material conditions in which trans people live. Previously, Raye has worked as a domestic violence advocate, a data nerd, a bicycle salesperson, and many vocations in between. One of their greatest passion projects was a statewide evaluation of the impact NC’s notoriously cruel and transphobic HB2 had on trans North Carolinians. They hold an MSW and an MPH from UNC Chapel Hill and are passionate about social work that falls at the intersection of clinical practice and social justice. While attending UNC for their MSW and in response to their own experience of transphobia in social work education, Raye had the opportunity to create a trans-competency training for social work field instructors. Raye also holds a Certificate in Therapeutic Horticulture from the NC Botanical Garden and particularly loves thinking about how trans people can heal from oppression by connecting to the earth we inhabit.  They are a new parent and spend most of their downtime alternately singing Raffi songs and trying to rid themselves of Raffi earworms. They live in Durham, NC with their partner, baby, dog, and three-legged cat.  

Darren L Whitfield is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Dr. Whitfield’s research interests include health and mental health disparities among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities, biomedical HIV prevention among gay and bisexual men of color in the United States, and intersectional measurement development. His research is grounded in an intersectional framework, where he specifically examines the impact of intersectional identity on psychosocial, sociocultural, and structural factors associated with health and mental health outcomes of LGBTQ communities of color and biomedical HIV prevention among Black and Latino gay and bisexual men.

 Dr. Whitfield has more than 10 years of practice experience working in the HIV/AIDS field working at the AIDS Project of Central Iowa, The Virginia Department of Health, and The Kansas City Free Health Clinic. He is a previous commissioner for the Pittsburgh City Commission on AIDS. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Persad Center Inc and is an advisory board member for AIDS Free Pittsburgh.

Dr. Whitfield received his MSW and PhD in Social Work from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.

Sarah Mikhail(she/her) relocated to Charlotte after spending 15 years in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MSW from New York University and has spent her career working at the intersection of LGBTQ community and youth. Prior to coming to Time Out Youth, Sarah worked at A Way Home America, a national initiative focused on ending homelessness for LGBTQ youth and youth of color, and at The LGBT Community Center in New York. Sarah is passionate about queer liberation, nature, and spending time with her partner and their dogs.