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Our Mission
The National Transgender Leadership Council (NTLC) strives to create programming, highlighted by an annual national conference, that brings together trans leaders across the United States in order to build community and drive progress.
– The NTLC Mission Statement
Our People
Senior Leadership
Founder and Executive President Lily E. Rood (she/her) is an activist, writer, and organizer who has led teams that strengthen institutional equity, elect progressive candidates, empower youth leaders, and bring communities together. She was the first woman of trans experience to serve as a class president in the recorded history of Mount Holyoke College. She founded the NTLC in 2024.
Executive Vice President for Partnerships Jay Jones currently serves as the 64th Executive President at the Howard University Student Association, after previously serving as the 63rd Executive Vice President. She is the first woman of trans experience to hold both of these offices at Howard University, and the first trans woman president at any Historically Black College or University (HBCU).
Vice President for Administration Forest Cusolito is a young trans organizer, artist, and researcher. They’re Co-President of Queer Youth Assemble and currently studying at Smith College.
Vice President for Communications Lex Stewart (they/them) is a career coach, social media strategist, and journalist who specializes in empowering individuals through storytelling and strategic communications. Their work spans career management, LGBTQ+ education, and arts journalism. They bring a unique blend of marketing expertise and coaching experience to create engaging, authentic communications that drive meaningful connections.
Treasurer and Vice President for Finance JN Hernández (please ask) is a seasoned queer Chicané activist, having served the queer community through various volunteer roles. From tabling events on behalf of organizations, to serving on nonprofit boards, to founding grassroots organizations, Hernández engages in social justice work through an intersectional lens in order to uplift the most marginalized of the community.
Vice President for Programming AJ Freno (any pronouns) is a social worker, educator, and researcher whose work centers the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. They are a leader in multiple nonprofit organizations that serve queer and trans people, and they educate future social workers as a professor at Rutgers University.
Vice President for Research and Data Steph Skinner (they/them) has nearly a decade of experience in research and evaluation, specializing in working with higher education, nonprofits, and philanthropies to center the lived experiences of queer youth of the global majority. Their approach ensures that evaluation serves communities by addressing root causes of systemic inequities to inform and advance social policy.
Advisory Council
Coming soon!
Leadership
Coming soon!
Staff
Coming soon!
Our Programming
Within programming at the National Transgender Leadership Council, we emphasize three key principles:
- Our programming is community-centering. We strive to create programs that are informed by, representative of, and beneficial to the communities in which we work.
- We operationalize this commitment by empowering a Site Committee based in the host community to ground and guide our programming at that site.
- Our programming is life-affirming. We strive to create programs that go beyond talking about our communities’ needs and into actively building the capacity to meet those needs.
- We operationalize this commitment by publishing an Impact Assessment for each program sponsored by the NTLC, analyzing which needs are and are not met in that work.
- Our programming is values-based. While we empower diverse perspectives in our work, we strive to never platform ideas which are actively in opposition to our core values.
- We operationalize this commitment by naming our core values in our Values Statement.
– The NTLC Programming Statement
Our Values
At the National Transgender Leadership Council (NTLC) we recognize that we must go beyond naming, and into living, our core values; we also believe that publicly naming these values can provide an important starting point for accountability in this work.
Our core values include, and are not limited to, beliefs in anti-racism; disability justice; healthcare, food, and shelter as human rights; anti-carcerality; Land Back; and decolonial collective liberation.
We additionally name our opposition to the ways in which these values are absent at particular sites of violence in this moment: in Palestine, in Sudan, in the Congo, and in countless additional communities.
We will strive to live these values in our work, and we welcome accountability as we strive to do so.
– The NTLC Values Statement
NTLC - The National Transgender Leadership Council 