Gina has been a stand up and TV star in the UK for several years now, with appearances on iconic TV shows such as Live At The Apollo & Mock The Week, as well as creating & performing popular comedic characters on The Lenny Henry Show. She broke onto the American comedy scene with her appearances on Last Comic Standing (NBC), where she made it to the final 10, and then never went home! Gina went on to be named one of the top 10 rising talents in the Hollywood Reporter. She is also known in the US for being the only British comedian to ever appear on the iconic Def Comedy Jam, as well as for her hilarious appearances on The Tonight Show (NBC), Crashing (HBO), @Midnight on Comedy Central, her 1-hour Stand Up Special, Skinny B*tch on Showtime, and now as the British Correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. It’s a wonder she found the time to pick up her 4th award in a row for “Best Comedian” at the recent Black Entertainment & Comedy Awards (UK). Feature film appearances have included Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Mr. in Between, and she has also appeared on the West-End stage in The Vagina Monologues. Gina currently resides in New York and tours non-stop around the world.

Toshi Reagon is a singer, composer, musician, curator and producer with a profound ear for sonic Americana--from folk to funk, from blues to rock. While her expansive career has landed her comfortably in residence at Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House and Madison Square Garden, you can just as easily find Toshi turning out a music festival, intimate venue or local club.

Toshi’s accolades include: a NYFA award for Music Composition, a 2015 Art of Change Fellowship from the Ford Foundation, co-compositions for two Peabody-Award-winning films, a 2010 OutMusic Heritage Award, a 2016 NEFA National Theater Project Creation & Touring Grant, and the first University of North Carolina Mellon Foundation DisTIL fellowship.

Toshi is currently developing an Opera based on Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, which debuts fall 2017. To read more about her many current projects, visit www.toshireagon.com.

In 2011, Toshi created Word* Rock* & Sword: A Festival Celebration of Women’s Lives, which brings together Artists, Health Practitioners, Activists, and everyday brilliant people and takes place every September.

Toshi is a twenty year supporter of Astraea, having lent her talents to our 20th, 30th and now 40th anniversary celebrations. She also sits on Astraea’s Global Arts Fund panel.

The granddaughter of German engineer Robert Bosch, Ise Bosch is a German founder, managing director, and heiress. During the 1980’s, she attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where she encountered the American understanding of philanthropy. Since then, she has become a prominent philanthropist, specifically in the areas of human rights, women’s rights and the rights of sexual minorities. She founded Astraea’s International Fund for Sexual Minorities in New York in 1996, and in 2001 she founded Filia, an internationally active women’s foundation in Hamburg, where she was a member of the Executive Board from 2003 to 2011. She is also the founder and managing director of Dreilinden gGmbH in Hamburg, which supports the rights of lesbian, bi-, trans, and intersex people.

Kobi Conaway and Andrew Owen are philanthropic activists based in San Francisco, CA. In partnership with Astraea and other organizations, they were seed investors in the launch of the first fund specifically focused on intersex community in 2015.  Their other philanthropic activities focus on education and the arts.

Naomi Sobel is a writer, organizer, fundraising trainer, and queer femme who grew up in New York and calls Boston home. She has deep roots in progressive Judaism and a burgeoning interest in harnessing her class privilege for radical social change.

Naomi’s political and philanthropic home is the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, where she spent five years on the development team raising funds from individual donors to advance LGBTQI human rights around the globe. In 2012, Naomi co-founded the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, a group of young donors working in partnership with Astraea to give personally, raise money, and mobilize resources for LGBTQI community organizing groups in the United States. Since its inception in 2012, Funding Queerly has distributed over $770,000 in grants to small queer and trans organizations led by and for communities of color, indigenous communities, poor communities, and/or rural communities.

Naomi serves on the board of a family foundation, the Tikkun Olam Foundation, and spent two years on the planning committee for Making Money Make Change, an annual gathering where approximately 100 young people explore issues related to wealth, privilege, philanthropy, and participation in grassroots movements for justice and equality. Before joining the Astraea staff, Naomi spent two years running the teen program at Temple Israel of Boston; prior to that, she held positions at The Nation and Boston Review magazines, Jewish Funds for Justice (now Bend the Arc) and About Face Theatre.

Katherine Acey served as the Executive Director of Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice for twenty-three years (1987-2010). Under her stewardship Astraea established the nation's first Lesbian Writers Fund in 1990, created the International Fund for Sexual Minorities in 1996, and in 2006, launched the U.S. Movement Building Initiative to support people of color LGBTQ organizations to collectively build their power and voice.

From 1982-1987 Katherine was the Associate Director of the North Star Fund in New York City, overseeing its grants programs and participating in donor engagement and fundraising. She was involved in the Women's Funding Network since its inception, serving as a founding board member and chair. She is also a founding member and past chair of the Funders for LGBT Issues and has served as a board or advisory member to countless organizations. The Women’s Funding Network honored Katherine for her leadership in building a multi-cultural women's funding movement. Other honors include the Cross Cultural Black Women's Studies Institute for International Women's Leadership Award, the NYC National Organization for Women Susan B. Anthony Award, the Women & Philanthropy LEAD Award, the FEX Vision Award for achievements in social justice, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Liberty Award and the Women e-news 21 Leaders for the 21stCentury Award.

En español

Coordinadora general y fundadora de CATTRACHAS organización  lésbica  feminista,  dedicada a la investigación y comunicación para la incidencia política y la defensa de los derechos humanos de la comunidad LGTTBI en Honduras, economista, investigadora con estudios superiores en género. Especialista en observatorios de medios de comunicación y muertes violentas de lesbianas, bisexuales, gays y personas transexuales. Trabaja casos emblemáticos resultado del Observatorio de Violaciones a los derechos humanos de las personas LGTTB. Especialista en incidencia internacional en el Sistema Regional y Universal de Derechos humanos. Ha desarrollado expertis en el fortalecimiento del sistema de justicia para la atención diferenciada de las personas basadas en la orientación sexual e identidad de género y en análisis de riesgo para la protección de víctimas y testigos LGTTBI en el sistema de justicia. Creadora del sistema Tmis sobre muertes violentas y violación de derechos humanos, el cual se trabaja en Cattrachas, El Bajo Aguan, Nicaragua, Guatemala mismo que ha sido reconocido por El Estado de Honduras y la CIDH como una fuente confiable de información. También es documentalista, cuentista y apasionada de la numismática.

In English:

Indyra Mendoza is the general coordinator and founder of CATTRACHAS, a feminist lesbian organization, dedicated to the defense of the human rights of LGTTBI community in Honduras through research, communications and policy advocacy. Indyra is an economist and researcher with a masters in gender studies. Her focus is on human rights watch systems documenting violent deaths of lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transsexual people. The system is called TMIS and they have worked with organizations throughout Honduras and Guatemala to implement it and it is considered a "reliable source" by the state of Honduras and the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. Indyra has worked on bringing some of the cases of violence against LGTTB people documented in Honduras to regional advocacy forums. She is an expert in international advocacy in the Regional and Universal Human Rights System. At a local level, CATTRACHAS under Indyra's leadership has pushed the justice system to provide sexual orientation and gender identity specific protections. They have made a risk analysis for the protection of LGTTBI victims and witnesses within the justice system.  Indyra is also a documentalist, storyteller and passionate about numismatics.

Joo-Hyun Kang is the director of Communities United for Police Reform (CPR), a NYC campaign to end discriminatory and abusive policing. CPR has worked to redefine community safety in NYC, built local infrastructure to challenge police violence, and secured landmark policy victories, including City Council passage of the Community Safety Act and worked in partnership with families whose loved ones were killed by police and others to secure a special prosecutor for police killings in NYS. Prior to her work at CPR, Joo-Hyun has been a trainer, organizer, activist including as the Audre Lorde Project's first executive director, building an organizing center for LGBTSTGNC communities of color and as director of global grantmaking for the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

In the spirit of two-fisted political singer-songwriters like Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell, Nona Hendryx tackles social issues, love, and politics with a smoky vocal tessitura somewhere between funk and the end of the stratosphere. Hendryx’s legendary career spans six decades of sound and style evolution. Fans know her as a founding member of the girl group Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles, (with Sarah Dash, Cindy Birdsong, and Patti LaBelle), inducted into the R&B Hall of Fame in 1999. Nona Hendryx fans soon welcomed a new Hendryx as the revolutionary art-rock, new-wave goddess embarked upon her own impressive Solo career, which spanned eight studio albums and engaged her with an impressive lineup of collaborators (Prince, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Bono and Cameo), resulting in top ten hits and a Grammy nomination (“Rock This House” with The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards).

Fast forwarding into the 20^th and 21^st without losing a note (or gaining a pound), Nona Hendryx remains the Queen of Transformation, writing music for theatre and film, and producing and collaborating in the works of a new generation of artists. An activist and vocal supporter for women’s rights and social, political, and criminal justice, Nona has helped to raise funds and awareness of HIV/AIDS since the outbreak of the epidemic and is still involved today. Nona has also worked with education organizations supporting women in prison, supported Little Black Pearl, a Chicago school founded by Monica Haslip, taught Stage Craft at The Clive Davis Recording Academy, and founded in 2016 her own Non-Profit, SisterSMATR.org, to bridge the gap in Science, Math, Art, Technology and Robotics for young women of color.

Nona has also served as Ambassador for Artistry in Music at Berklee College of Music, and she’s presented multimedia performances at MoogFest and MASS MOCA. Having made yet another transformation into a multimedia ‘CyberDiva’, Hendryx still writes music across genres with politically and socially relevant lyrics wrapped in neo-funk grooves, other worldly and soulful vocals, and art-rock charged rhythms. Not slowing down, Nona has the honor of being Joe’s Pub’s first Vanguard Residency Artist in 2018, for which she will curate a series of shows over twelve months beginning January 2018 and create new multimedia work inspired by Carrie Mae Weems’ “Kitchen Table” and Ulysses Dove’s “Urban Folk Dance.” Nona has also created a SiriusXM Radio show ‘The Nexus with Nona Hendryx,’ discussing Music, Art and Technology, Nona’s three passions.