​​Raquel Willis is an award-winning author, activist, and media strategist dedicated to Black transgender liberation. She has held groundbreaking posts, including director of communications for Ms. Foundation for Women, executive editor of Outmagazine, and national organizer for Transgender Law Center. She co-founded Transgender Week of Visibility and Action with civil rights attorney Chase Strangio and currently serves as an executive producer for iHeartMedia's Outspoken, the president of the Solutions Not Punishments Collaborative’s executive board, and is a WNBA Social Justice Council member.

Her debut memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation, will be released in October 2023 via St.Martin’s Press. She published the GLAAD Media Award-winning “Trans Obituaries Project,” and in 2022, she executive-produced and hosted “The Trans Youth Town Hall” with Logo. The work won the GLAAD Award and Gold distinction in the Webbys. Her writing has been published in Black Futures by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham, Bulgari Magnifica: The Power Women Hold edited by Tina Leung, The Echoing Ida Collection edited by Kemi Alabi, Cynthia R. Greenlee, and Janna A. Zinzi, and Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha Blain. She has also written for Essence, Bitch, VICE, Buzzfeed, The Cut, and Vogue. Raquel is a thought leader on gender, race, and intersectionality. She’s experienced in online publications, organizing marginalized communities for social change, non-profit media strategy, and public speaking while using digital activism as a major tool of resistance and liberation.

Sasha Wortzel (director, she/they) is a visual artist and filmmaker using film, video art, installation, sculpture, and sound to explore how this country’s past and present are inextricably linked through resonant spaces and their hauntings. Wortzel has screened and exhibited at MOMA DocFortnight, True/False, CPH:DOX, San Francisco International, Wexner Center for the Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, New Museum, The Kitchen, Henry Art Gallery, and Cooley Memorial Gallery, among others. Wortzel has received support from Ford Foundation, Sundance, Field of Vision, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Doc Society, and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. Wortzel's film This is an Address (MoMA Doc Fortnight, 2020) is distributed by Field of Vision, and Happy Birthday Marsha! (2018; co-director Tourmaline), which won special mention at Outfest and is distributed by Frameline. Wortzel’s work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, Leslie Lohman Museum, and Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places.

Noah Schamus (director, they/them) is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker of both documentary and narrative films, passionate about telling stories that deepen and humanize queer and trans narratives. Their first feature “Summer Solstice” will have its World Premiere at Provincetown Film Festival in June. The film was the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker Program grant, was included in the 2021 Outfest Screenwriting Lab as a Notable Writer, and was selected to take part in Us in Progress at the American Film Festival in November 2022. Their most recent hybrid documentary short,“The Script,” was co-directed with Brit Fryer, and produced by Multitude Films, which was supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures and the Ford Foundation. The film premiered at CPH:DOX 2023. Their previous short films have been presented at film festivals including BFI Flare, Outfest, Inside Out, NewFest, Indie Memphis, Maryland Film Festival and New Orleans Film Festival (where their short film, “Chemistry of Mood” garnered an Honorable Mention for Best Performance by Naian Gonzalez Norvind). “Across, Beyond, and Over,” co-directed with Brit Fryer, was featured on NoBudge and is a Vimeo Staff Pick.

Brit Fryer (director, he/him) is a Brooklyn-based queer and trans filmmaker, originally from Chicago’s South Side. He has directed several films, including THE SCRIPT (co-directed with Noah Schamus), which premiered at 2023’s CPH: DOX, and CARO COMES OUT, which premiered on HBOMax after winning the Knight Made in MIA Award. His other films include ACROSS, BEYOND, AND OVER, and TRANS·IENCE. In addition to his work as a director, he produced Crystal Kayiza’s REST STOP, winner of the 2023 Short Film Jury Award for US Fiction at Sundance. He is grateful to have showcased work at Indie Grits, NewFest, BFI Flare, Inside Out, Blackstar, and more. Brit and his work have been supported by the Sundance Ignite Fellowship, Creative Culture, GLAAD, PBS's Ingite Mentorship, and HBO / Gotham's Documentary Development Initiative.

Twiggy Pucci Garçon (director, she/they) is an activist, creative director, event producer, culture curator, performance artist, and runway trainer. They have collaborated with Gucci, Coach, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, GLAAD, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Reebok, and more. Twiggy has worked at True Colors United for nearly a decade, protecting rights for young people experiencing homelessness. They are the Overall Overseer for the Legendary International House of Comme des Garçon, the Chief Ambassador for the Center for Black Equity, and co-founder of All Tea, No Shade Productions alongside New York Times Bestselling author George M. Johnson. Twiggy was a featured subject in HBO’s THE OUT LIST (2013), was the co-writer and subject of Sara Jordenö’s award-winning documentary KIKI (Sundance 2016), and served as consultant and runway choreographer on Ryan Murphy’s Emmy-nominated FX series, POSE.

Dessane Lopez Cassell is a New York-based editor, writer, and curator. She gravitates towards moving image and visual art concerned with race, gender, decoloniality, and the politics of paradise. As editor-in-chief of BlackStar’s journal, Seen, Cassell platforms film, art, and visual culture writing by and about people of color, carving out more opportunities for nuanced, slow journalism.

Jenna Wortham is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. They are also co-host of the award-winning 'Still Processing,' and author of the anthology 'Black Futures.' They are currently working on a book about the body and dissociation for Penguin Press.