Keynote Speaker: J.J. Warren

J.J. Warren is a seminary student at Boston University School of Theology, a graduate of New York’s Sarah Lawrence College (’19), and a certified candidate for ordination in The United Methodist Church (UMC). After making an impassioned plea for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons at the UMC’s top law-making assembly, J.J.’s speech went viral, and his advocacy has been covered by HuffPost, NBC, Brut Media, and WXXI Radio. His first book, Reclaiming Church: A Call to Action for Religious Rejects, will be available this February from Abingdon Press.

J.J. spent a year at Oxford University, England, where he studied Biblical Hebrew, Early Church history, and gender studies of late antiquity. He founded a progressive Christian community on his undergraduate campus, and founded Team Forward, an online collective of queer youth/young adults and allies who seek to grow in ministry, use their voices, and reclaim the Church through radical love. J.J. now travels the world preaching a message of collective forward progress and inclusion.

Spoken Word: Guante

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre is a poet, educator, and activist based in Minneapolis, MN. His work explores the relationships between identity, power, and resistance, and he’s performed everywhere from the United Nations, to music festivals like Eaux Claires and Soundset, to countless colleges, universities, and conferences. A two-time National Poetry Slam champion, Tran Myhre has also given a TEDx Talk, published a book (available now via Button Poetry), and can currently be heard as the co-host of “What’s Good, Man?” a podcast on healthy masculinity.