Grassroots LGBTQ+ Resistance to Federal Pressures
Ben Conard
Fair Trade USA
As Chief of Staff at Fair Trade USA, Ben Conard serves the nonprofit generating $1 billion of financial impact for farmers and workers in 53 countries. For his work in the movement, Conard was named one of the Top 10 Fair Trade Advocates in the World and 40 LGBT Leaders Under 40. His passion for social entrepreneurship has taken him from the TEDx stage to farms in Ecuador and factories in Vietnam. Ben's work has been recognized by Forbes, President Clinton, Nasdaq, and the U.S. Department of State.
Cecelia Parks
University of Virginia
Cecelia Parks is a librarian, historian, labor activist, and equestrian. She is currently an Undergraduate Student Success Librarian at the University of Virginia, where she leads first-year information literacy instruction and assessment efforts. Cecelia has published on a variety of topics, including queer Southern oral history (specifically the queer history of Charlottesville, Virginia), queerness and privacy, and information literacy instruction. She is also an active member of United Campus Workers of Virginia, a labor union for Virginia public higher education workers. In her free time, Cecelia enjoys riding horses, teaching riding lessons, going to concerts, reading, and playing with her dog Delta.
Erik Jödicke
Verband Queere Vielfalt (LSVD+)
Erik Jödicke is a Berlin-based LGBTQ+ activist and public affairs consultant passionate about strengthening queer communities through professional advocacy and intergenerational dialogue. As a Federal Board Member of LSVD+, Germany’s largest LGBTQ+ organization, he helps shape national and international queer policy, including work at the UN level. Having previously served on the board of Lambda, one of Germany’s leading LGBTQ+ youth networks, Erik is deeply committed to building bridges between generations. His activism spans Central and Eastern Europe, where he’s led campaigns against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and spotlighted queer voices in repressive contexts like Russia and Hungary.
In recent years, Erik has focused on sharing the strategic tools of lobbying, stakeholder engagement, and media relations with the broader community—aiming to professionalize activism and better equip LGBTQ+ civil society for the political arena. He believes that to defend our hard-won rights, we must become just as skilled, connected, and prepared as those who seek to roll them back.
Joshua Acevedo
El Paso City Council
Josh Acevedo was born, raised, and resides in El Paso, Texas. He is a four-time graduate of The University of Texas at El Paso. He holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Administration. He has served on the El Paso City Council since January 2024. He is currently leading efforts to pursue the UNICEF Child Friendly City designation for El Paso. Before being elected to the El Paso City Council, Josh served on the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees from 2019 to 2024.
In a prior role, Josh worked for Local Progress, a national nonprofit, where he helped school board members across the country with training and policy support. He has also managed two separate higher education programs – an internship program for university students and a backbone organization for mental health and emotional well-being in the Paso del Norte region.
Julian Urban
Hessian Ministry of Science and Art
Julian Urban is a senior cultural policy advisor and department head at the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art. With over a decade of leadership experience in government, parties and NGOs, he has shaped major initiatives in higher education, sustainability, and cultural development—including the state’s “Masterplan Kultur.” He has served in key roles spanning legislative affairs, political strategy, and international partnerships, notably with the Vietnamese-German University. Julian studied „Leadership for Sustainability“ at Malmö University and holds a Magister Artium in Political Science, History, and Law from Bonn University. He is also a certified trainer, passionate mentor, and engaged volunteer guardian for unaccompanied minors. Outside of work, Julian enjoys travel, literature, theater, and good food.
Juliane Kronen
Innatura
Dr. Juliane Kronen is a German social entrepreneur, founder and CEO of the innatura charity. Born in 1963, she studied business at the University of Cologne and the University of Missouri as a Fulbright scholar. After earning her PhD, she spent 16 years at Boston Consulting Group, focusing on strategy, IT alignment, social impact initiatives, has been in charge of the CEO´s European Women´s Initiative and a member of the Pride@BCG network. In 2011, Kronen co-founded innatura, Germany’s first platform for redistributing brand-new surplus goods from manufacturers to charities, thereby reducing waste and supporting social causes. The work has been acknowledged e.g. with the BAUM Environmental Award and the German Sustainability Award in 2024. Beyond innatura, Kronen is an active member of the EGLCC, serves on the jury of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation, often referred to as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” and sits on several boards. Her career reflects a commitment to combining business acumen with societal and environmental responsibility.
Marie Dietrich
Hannover Medical School
Marie Dietrich is a student in her final year at Hannover Medical School (MHH). Growing up in rural North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, she discovered activism and volunteer work as a way to connect with her community. After moving to Hanover in 2020, she joined the student project Critical Medicine Hanover and has since organized multiple workshops and lectures on LGBTQ+ healthcare and reproductive rights.
Dietrich is a volunteer for the anti-discriminatory project SCHLAU and regularly visits local schools, conducting educational workshops on LGBTQ* topics for students. Dietrich is part of the student union at her university and holds the chair for Political Education and Participation. Her topics include issues related to systematic discrimination in health care, local and global political ongoings, and political conflict resolution. She is currently working on her PhD thesis on LGBTQ* experiences and needs in the context of end-of-life care at the Institute of General Medicine and Palliative Medicine at MHH.
Mona Maijs
LiteraturRaumDortmundRuhr
Mona Maijs is a queer Dortmund-based poet and author, writing poems, short stories, and slam text. Her content, which she performs live and posts on her Instagram channel “rosa.schichten,” revolves around her life with her wife and two sons in a society that struggles with inequities among diverse communities. Mona is an advocate for the equality of same-sex parents, who remain legally disadvantaged in Germany. She raises her sons without parental rights, even though both are her biological children.
Since moving from Munich to Dortmund in 2018, Mona has been active at literature association LiteraturRaumDortmundRuhr. She began running the project "Das Wunschkabinett" in 2025, which focuses on political utopias featuring a podcast hosted by Mona, an anthology, and several readings.
Preston James Ross
Prince George’s County Council Chair Edward Burroughs III
Preston James Ross is a public servant and LGBTQ advocate whose career spans healthcare, Congress, nonprofits, and local government, with a focus on driving lasting community impact. He began his career as a licensed practical nurse, witnessing firsthand how systemic inequities shape people’s lives. He later served on Capitol Hill for then-U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris and U.S. Representatives Kweisi Mfume and Suzanne Bonamici, where he worked on constituent services, office operations, and legislative priorities. Today, he serves as Chief of Staff and Policy Advisor to the Prince George’s County Council Chair Edward Burroughs III, overseeing major initiatives that support youth employment, senior services, local economic development, and the County budget.
Preston also chairs the Young Nonprofit Professional Network of DC, where he fosters leadership pipelines for emerging nonprofit professionals across the DMV region. An advocate for inclusive policymaking, Preston brings a deep commitment to building stronger, more equitable communities through every role he holds.
Samantha Rosenthal
Journalist
G. Samantha Rosenthal (she/her/hers) is an independent journalist and professional historian. Over fifteen years, she has written widely about the United States, with an abiding commitment to Appalachia and the U.S. South. Samantha is the author of two books, most recently Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City. Her writing has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Salon, The Advocate, The Conversation, Southern Cultures, Lilith, and Them. Samantha is co-founder of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, an award-winning queer community history organization; Second Friday, a lesbian social monthly pop-up; and the Southwest Virginia Trans Wellness Fund, a mutual aid initiative that empowers transgender people through financial assistance. Her work has been recognized with awards and honorable mentions from the National Council on Public History, the Oral History Association, the LGBTQ+ History Association, the American Society for Environmental History, and the Working Class Studies Association.
Sebastian Thiele
State Administration Office of Saxony-Anhalt
Sebastian Thiele is a legal professional with over 13 years of experience in voluntary work for the queer community in Leipzig. He began as the leader of a gay and bisexual youth group when he was 18 years old and has made it his mission to fight for equality and against hate. He currently serves as a board member of the “CSD Leipzig e.V.” and is co-organizer of the Leipzig Pride, which regularly receives about 20,000 visitors from Leipzig and many other parts of Germany. Professionally, Sebastian works as a lawyer for the State Administration Office of Saxony-Anhalt (Landesverwaltungsamt) and specializes in administrative law. He trains legal trainees and is an honorary judge at the labor court of Halle. In 2019, the city of Leipzig awarded him with their Golden Honorary Pin for his voluntary work for the LGBTIQ+ community.
Over the course of 2025, the Trump administration has implemented policies and executive orders designed to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; defund support services for vulnerable groups, including LGBTQ+ communities; and target in particular transgender people and protections. Amidst this environment, the third cohort of AGI’s project “Building LGBTQ+ Communities in Germany and the United States” convened in Washington, DC. They met with federal and local officials, advocacy groups, service providers, and cultural initiatives to discuss the national and local impacts of the administration’s policies. In this Story Map, the participants reflect on how connection, visibility, and storytelling can activate resistance in times of oppression.
The project “Building LGBTQ+ Communities in Germany and the United States: Past, Present, and Future” and is generously funded by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWE) (Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany with Funds through the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy (BMWE)).
