A message from the invited speakers:
Dear registrants,
We want to thank you for supporting our speaking engagement at Harvard. While conversations around anti-Black racism at the intersection of transphobia in sports and fitness are deeply needed, we recognize that the current moment is calling for unprecedented global solidarity. Due to Harvard University suspending the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, Interim Harvard President Alan Garber remaining open to using police violence against students of conscience protesting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians (with such actions garnering international disapproval from the United Nations), and more recently the Harvard Chan Student Association refusing to initiate a referendum or heed student calls for Chan to pass a schoolwide resolution to disclose and divest--we must decline this speaking opportunity and stand in solidarity with students of conscience taking action around the world.
We encourage you to show up and provide support for the student encampments at Harvard and across Boston until their demands have been met. Additionally, you can sign
this letter.
In solidarity,
Justice, Ilya, and Roc
While the speakers’ views do not represent the views of Harvard, they do align with my own as a co-organizer of this event and they align with the views of the student organization I lead, the Harvard Chan Intersex + Trans Justice Student Society. - Nepantla
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Join us for a panel discussion with powerful guest speakers Justice Roe Williams, Ilya Parker, and Dr. Roc Rochon, followed by a Q&A.
With the Olympics approaching, it is a crucial time to reflect on what types of bodies are welcome to participate in sports vs. those that are not, how structural barriers and discrimination shape sports culture, and what public health and social justice implications this engenders.
Date: May 2, 2024*
Time: 1-1:50 pm
Location: FXB G11 (The FXB Building 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA) or Zoom. This event takes place on the unceded land of the Massachusett and Wampanoag people. We recognize their stewardship and uplift their ongoing presence.
Register: Below
Co-organized by:
- WGH Concentration
- Harvard Chan Office of Diversity and Inclusion
- Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights
- Harvard Chan Intersex + Trans Justice Student Society
*Raffle prizes of COOP Harvard gear and lunch provided to in-person attendees!
This is an independent, student-led event. Speakers do not represent Harvard.
Justice's Bio:
Justice is an intersectionality consultant with a focus on dismantling patriarchal masculinity as defined by bell hooks. He has been a facilitator for over 20 years and has facilitated trainings that build a sense of belonging, contribute to leadership development, and highlight the importance of justice and equity within work culture. As a black man of transgender experience, he interweaves his personal narrative while helping individuals think critically about how intersectionality is a part of their personal experience and the importance of making social justice a daily ritual. He is a poet, writer, author and co-editor of his anthology, Deconstructing the Fitness Industrial Complex: How to Resist, Disrupt, and Reclaim What It Means to Be Fit in American Culture. Justice is excited about his forthcoming manuscript focused on masculinity and healing (2025, North Atlantic Books). He is a body-positive activist who creates safe spaces for all bodies through his work with Fitness4AllBodies (F4AB). F4AB provides social justice education for all those within the fitness industry. He advocates for fitness being for everybody and the importance of trainers and fitness professionals using their status as gatekeepers to “act as a shield” to protect their clients and create safe, affirming practices and spaces. A key component of his work has been working with people of all backgrounds to address and dismantle toxic masculinity and how it operates within white supremacist patriarchal culture. His work has been featured in Men’s Fitness, African Voices, NPR, Refinery29, Good Housekeeping, Pink News, the Boston Neighborhood Network News, and more.
Ilya's Bio:
Ilya (he/they) is a Black, non-binary, fat, movement practitioner and founder of Decolonizing Fitness. They are also a Physical Therapist Assistant and an ACE certified Medical Exercise Specialist. Ilya is deeply invested in creating more access for queer, trans and gender expansive people to engage in intentional movement. While drawing wisdom from community-led solutions that are rooted in body liberation and involve the revitalization of Black and Indigenous ancestral approaches.
Roc's Bio:
Roc Rochon is a cultural worker and founder of Rooted Resistance a grassroots-based community of practice that
reimagines movement and physical activity for transgender, queer, nonbinary,
intersex people in the United States.
Rochon is currently a
Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Sport Management Program in the Neag
School of Education at the University of Connecticut (ancestral territory of
the Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill, Paugussett,
Nipmuc, and Lenape Peoples). Roc
completed their BS from Eastern Connecticut State University, M.Ed. from the
University of South Florida, and their Ph.D. from Florida State University in
Sport Management with a focus in Cultural and Media Studies. Their
dissertation titled “Reimagining ‘Bodywork’ in the wake: A collection of
Black Queer, Transgender, and Nonbinary Body Autonomy Oral Testimonies explores
the liberatory modalities that BQTN people practice for collective
transformation and freedom praxis in the wake of the afterlives of slavery. Rochon takes an
interdisciplinary approach to explore the intersections of sport, race, gender,
and place. Most importantly, Rochon’s interest is in the ways that Black queer,
trans, and nonbinary folk re/make bodywork and movement cultures which tend to
collective Black life.
