Gender 101 & the Trans Experience

Wendy B. Motch-Ellis is the Director of Campus Recreation at the University of North Carolina Asheville and she serves on the 2021-2022 NIRSA Assembly.   As Co-Chair of NIRSA’s Commission on Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, she helped co-author NIRSA’s Statement on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, NIRSA’s National Collegiate Championship Series Transgender Inclusion Guidelines, and served as editor and resource author for NIRSA’s publication Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion:  A Resource Guide for Leaders in Colelgiate Recreation.  Wendy brought to NIRSA national leading experts on LGBT inclusion in sport as presenters and advisors to NIRSA, served as a consultant on the development of the Campus Pride Sports Index, and she has been instrumental in changing the narrative around LGBT inclusion within collegiate recreation.

Amber Mateer currently serves as the Associate Director of Campus Recreation at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Their start in collegiate recreation began at UC Santa Cruz, Amber's undergraduate institution. While pursuing Sociology and Art degrees, Amber worked for the Athletics and Recreation department for all four years, among a host of other student life focused offices. After landing a Graduate Assistantship at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California Amber continued to fall in love with the field of collegiate recreation. Although the COVID-19 pandemic made the two years of graduate work very different than expected, collaborating virtually with colleagues both at University of the Pacific and within the NIRSA Assembly became second nature. Amber is currently finishing up their master's thesis which specifically looks at the impact virtual learning has had on the identity formation and process of queer & trans college students.  

Genny Beemyn, Ph.D., is the director of the UMass Amherst Stonewall Center and the coordinator of Campus Pride’s Trans Policy Clearinghouse. They have published and spoken extensively on the experiences and needs of trans college students, including writing some of the first articles on the topic in the 2000s. Among the books Genny has written are The Lives of Transgender People (2011); A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C. (2014); and the anthology Trans People in Higher Education (2019). With Abbie Goldberg, they edited The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies (2021). They are currently writing Campus Queer: Addressing the Needs of LGBTQ+ College Students with Mickey Eliason for Johns Hopkins University Press. Genny is also an editorial board member of the Journal of LGBT Youth, the Journal of Bisexuality, the Journal of Lesbian Studies, and the Journal of Homosexuality. They have a Ph.D. in African American Studies and master’s degrees in African American Studies, American Studies, and Higher Education Administration. More about Genny can be found on their website: www.gennyb.com.