Aaron Devor, the founder and first holder of the world’s only Chair in Transgender Studies, has been studying trans topics since the early 1980s. Devor is also the Founder and Academic Director of the world’s largest Transgender Archives, and Founder of the international community/academic Moving Trans History Forward conferences. He is the author of numerous well-cited scholarly articles and four books, Transgender: A Reference Handbook (with Ardel Haefele-Thomas) (2019), FTM: Female-To-Male Transsexuals in Society (2016, 1997), Lamba-literary-award-finalist The Transgender Archives: Foundations for the Future (2014), and Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989). He has delivered lectures around the world, including more than 30 major keynote and plenary addresses. Devor is an elected member of the International Academy of Sex Research, and a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. He is also an author of versions 6, 7, and the forthcoming version 8, of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care, and has been guiding the translation of the Standards of Care into world languages. Aaron Devor is an out trans man, a national-teaching-award-winning professor of Sociology, and a former Dean of Graduate Studies (2002-2012), at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Jude Patton is an elder, out/open/proud, trans man, currently living in Yuba City, California with his wonderful life partner. In his private practice as a consultant, Jude serves as a health navigator for clients with chronic physical and/or mental illnesses and offers end of life doula services to LGBTQ+ community members. In his earlier career as a veterinary medical technician for more than 20 years, he enjoyed working with domestic and wild animals in a variety of settings. From 1980 until the present, he has worked in psychology, psychiatry, and medicine, serving clients in California, Oregon, and Washington State as a physician assistant, sex therapist and sex educator, licensed marriage and family therapist, and licensed mental health counselor. He currently is employed as a Psychiatric Physician Assistant for a Community Mental Health Center in Sacramento, California, serving homeless, chronically mentally ill clients, who are often also drug and alcohol dependent. He considers himself an avid supporter of intersectional social justice causes.
Fran Cudlipp has over twenty–five years’ experience as an acquisitions editor for several professional publishers, which involved advising on contractual issues, content and copy-editing aspects, book and cover design, and marketing.
Charley Burton is a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. He transitioned later in life at the age of 50. He is the National Program Director for Black Transmen Inc. Black Transmen Inc. is the first national organization solely for Black Transmen. Charley stays busy as a founder of Diversity in Recovery, a recovery group that is for the LGBTQ/BIPOC community and their allies. It’s a safe space for the community to work on their recovery. He is a board member of PFLAG, Cville Pride, and Board Chair of the University of Virginia Trans Advisory Board. Recently, Charley was awarded OutStanding Virginian by Equality Virginia and Community Root award by Richmond Virginia Black Pride RVA. In his spare time, Charley is an avid reader and loves creating baked goods in his kitchen.