My goal is to educate about the existence of those who fall outside the dichotomous categories of male and female, and in the process, facilitate societal understanding and acceptance of all human beings. I love what I do and it shows in the enthusiasm, insight, and humor I bring to my keynote presentations.
I have a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology—Inquiry Methodology from Indiana University. For my dissertation, I explored societal attitudes toward those who do not fit society’s dichotomous expectations by developing a psychometrically sound instrument that was designed to gage such attitudes, appropriately called the Attitudes Toward the Atypically Gendered Inventory (ATAG-I). After graduating, I joined the faculty at a Midwestern University as a teacher of statistics. After earning tenure and being promoted to Associate Professor, I left to join the faculty at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I am now a full-time public speaker.
I once had a young woman stop me in a parking lot. She introduced herself and told me, "I heard you speak last year and I just want you to know that you changed the way I think."
My favorite quote is by the late American poet, writer, critic, scholar, and professor, Mark Van Doren:
There are two statements about human beings that are true: that all human beings are alike, and that all are different. On those two facts all human wisdom is founded
I believe in my heart it is possible for human beings to accept the fantastic diversity within our species and learn to appreciate one another for the contributions each of us bring to the world. I am committed to doing everything I can to facilitate our growth in this direction.