CasSandra is a 26-year-old Black-Cuban healer in Richmond, VA, who is passionate about spirit work, mental health, indulgence and pleasure, and sustainable diligence. CasSandra currently serves as the Youth Resource Advocate at Side by Side, a center dedicated to creating supportive communities for Virginia’s LGBTQ+ youth, and has worked in youth healing and mental health since 2011.

CasSandra's passion for social justice keeps systemic and institutional forms of oppression at the front of her mind when thinking about how best to heal and liberate queer and trans Black and Brown people. She is overjoyed to be a part of Soulforce's work to sabotage Christian supremacy, in all the ways that it conspires with capitalism and white supremacy, by bring a trauma informed and culturally responsive lens and supporting an organizational culture of steadiness, sustainability, and spirit. CasSandra was a member of the 2015-16 Soulforce Southeast House Fellowship and understands firsthand the power of reminding LGBTQ+ people that we have unlimited access to divinity because we are a manifestation of it.

When she is not working or drooling over Soulforce, she pursues creative hobbies as a writer and songbird and has recently started to explore knitting and painting.

Jason Tseng has devoted his professional and personal life to empowering ordinary people to make extraordinary change. Splitting his time between serving the arts and queer communities of color, he has worked for organizations like Theatre Communications Group, Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Fractured Atlas, and currently serves on the steering committee and chair emeritus of GAPIMNY, the second oldest queer Asian community organization in the nation. Before moving to New York, he grew up outside Washington, D.C., in Maryland and graduated from the University of Richmond studying Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Theatre. In his spare time, Jason creates plays, stories, comics, and illustrations (usually about queer people and people of color). He now lives in Long Island City with his husband and their rabbit, Turnip Cake.

Jelani is a queer, black, southern organizer and creative who is passionate about social change.

Jelani is a graduate of VCU’s Master’s of Social Work program as well as an alumni of the Kairos Fellowship. Their organizing accomplishments include successful campaigns around racial justice and the accountability of Big Tech. Currently, Jelani is a digital organizer and strategist providing mentorship to new digital organizers, as well as managing campaigns and building community power both online and on the ground.

Cole Parke is a queer & nonbinary trans person, rooted in Durham, North Carolina. Soulforce became their first political home when they climbed onboard the 2008 Equality Ride bus, and they've been learning, growing, and transforming alongside the organization ever since. They subsequently participated in a second Equality Ride in 2012, and joined the Board in 2020.
 

Cole currently works as a statewide community organizer for Carolina Jews for Justice, dedicated to building a powerful progressive Jewish justice movement in the South. Prior to joining CJJ, they spent five years working as a research analyst at Political Research Associates, a social justice think tank dedicated to understanding and interrupting right-wing extremism, including white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, antisemitism, and the christian supremacy that fuels it all.

Carol Lautier is Associate Director at Demos and brings a rich blend of fierce activism in the academy and in the non-profit sector that centers the lives of marginalized people. Since 2017, Carol has managed the Inclusive Democracy Project (IDP), a majority-person of color, national cohort of powerful state-based organizers. 

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Carol is an ordained minister and was the Faith Work Coordinator and Senior Faith Fellow at the National LGBTQ Task Force for 6 years.. She was a Robeson Fellow at the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, where her Master’s thesis on early Christian AIDS Ministries in Harlem won the Zora Neale Hurston Award for Excellence in Writing in the Social Sciences. Carol has a B.A. with honors in Women’s Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.A. in African American Studies from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University.

Rev. Rhina Ramos leads Ministerio Latino in Oakland, CA. Her call to ministry was to create a space where Latinx LGBTQI immigrants are welcomed and loved and started Ministerio Latino in December 2011. Rhina has 25 years of experience in non-profit work. Before being a full-tme pastor, Rhina has been a lawyer, a community organizer, a facilitator and instigator. Originally from El Salvador, she is proud to come from the land of volcanoes.