This is meant to be a safe space for sharing our life experience with coming out to family, friends, in job, in society. Coming out is not only once in a life time. There are many coming outs.
Has it been welcoming, celebrating or has it been terrible, hard and made you going back into the closet? Or is it the first time here?
Let ́s share here in this safe space. Sharing can be a help having peers who listen. And that is what we are: peers. This is not a therapy group.
So be kind and respectful, don ́t interrupt each other. Be mindful, keyword „microaggressions“.

Jampa (they, them) is a learning coach, rapper, and artist or painter with more than 100 paintings in their digital atelier.
Realizing the need for a safe space for queer Buddhists, having been bullied in their Buddhist communities worldwide, they founded the International Queer Buddhist Conferences shortly before the pandemic. Since 2021 the IQBCs have become an annual event.

Socially assigned gender roles repress the non-dual experience in our minds. This suffering touches everyone, yet goes unaddressed in many modern Buddhist communities. Gender expansive individuals have, throughout history, experienced oppression because they “cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.” (‘Here be Dragons’ by James Baldwin)
The tantric practice of Chö calls practitioners to invite in repressed ‘terrors and desires’, to deconstruct and transform them. This workshop will guide you to reflect, through creative exercises and group sharing, on how gender normativity can be challenged through the teachings and iconography of Chö practice.

Alimma Dechen Khacho is a Vajrayana Buddhist, artist and workshop facilitator. They graduated from the Chelsea College of Arts, London. Her art breaks boundaries to explore Tantric manifestations across the mediums of paint, sculpture and film. The celebration of queer life is always central to her work, as it is essential for the spiritual wellbeing of the world.
They are currently training as a Teacher of Ngöndro and the practices of the Dakini’s Whisper community (Ganden-Ensa and Machik Khandro Ear-Whispered Lineages).

See Alimma’s work here

Donate by Paypal: aalicen7@gmail.com

Dr. Elijah Nicholas offers a deeply personal reflection on living as a Black trans man and spiritual guide in the U.S. amid escalating anti-trans legislation. Drawing from Buddhist ethics and his practice of Conscious Love, he shares how mindfulness, compassion, and intentional leadership sustain him through political violence and personal awakening. This talk is both a testimony of survival and a teaching on liberation.

Dr. Elijah Nicholas is an internationally acclaimed speaker, ordained spiritual leader, and retired U.S. military officer. As a Black trans man, he brings a deeply intersectional lens to his advocacy, leadership, and ministry. With over 25 years of service in leadership, he now works globally to advance trans health equity, inclusion, and spiritual consciousness. Dr. Elijah is the founder of The Global Trans Equity Project and serves as the National Director of Policy & Strategy for the National Trans Visibility March. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he leads with a practice he calls “Conscious Love”—the intentional act of healing, leading, and living with radical truth and compassion. His work has been featured on CBS, ABC, and NBC

This is a presentation centered around reducing the stigma surrounding the transgender population specifically within the lens of mental health professionals. It is aimed to deconstruct biases and reframe perspectives to humanize the trans experience as one relatable to the general human condition. The primary theme revolves around framing the assumption that one’s physical characteristics explicitly denote one’s gender identity as a “false hypothesis”. The presentation explores the challenge of updating one’s internal framework of understanding gender. It also expounds on the disproportionate attention given to the process of transitioning and scales down its significance to gender identity. In short, we are not trans because we take hormones or have surgeries and we are more than the sum of a dysphoria diagnosis. Our identity is valid simply due to our existence.

Kya Grey hails from the New York metropolitan area and is a transgender woman of color. She is a licensed mental health therapist and is currently in private practice at Kya Grey Counseling. She spent her early career doing social work at community health organizations where she gained experience running substance abuse groups, providing in-home therapy to families involved in the child welfare system, and providing clinical services to individuals involved in the criminal justice system.
Shaped by these experiences, she has developed a focus on working with clients who have experienced repeated traumas, particularly within the context of family or socioeconomic systems. While already established in her professional and personal life she realized and subsequently came out as trans. The integration of her identity into all areas of her life led to a more complex understanding of her own life and reinforced her connection and empathy for others. She is a passionate advocate for her clients and supports them in living more authentic lives. However, the primary focus of her energy is being a parent to two young, intelligent, adorable, kind-hearted, and wonderful children.

Venmo: @kyagreycounseling

The LGBTQ+ Community was honored in many indigenous cultures globally, prior to colonization. Colonization criminalized LGBTQ+ identities in many nations. LGBTQ+ rights globally suffered over the centuries and decriminalization is a slow process. From same-sex marriage to equality in employment, education, housing and healthcare, to the right to gender-affirming care, the fight for human rights also includes the fight for dignity, equity, inclusion and combating discrimination. Besides reflecting on the status of LGBTQ+ rights, we will discuss, with resilience and hope, how we can secure rights through advocacy, education, science, support, community, partnerships and the role of influencers and storytelling.

Anuradha (Anu) Gupta (she/her), AD is a NAMACB-Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner from Kerala Ayurveda, USA. She is the Chapter President of her local PFLAG Chapter (PFLAG is the largest and oldest non-profit in the US working to create a just, inclusive world for the LGBTQ+ community). She is a currently an Adjunct Faculty and AP Mentor at Kerala Ayurveda with her own practice, Ayurvedic Footprints. Anu is an MBA, MMS and 200 HYT. She is a prolific writer who has co-authored a book, “Unveiling Health, Happiness and Longevity: A Primer on Ayurveda” Anu is an advocate for social justice causes and the LGBTQ+ community. She was part of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association’s DEI Committee and her AD Research at Kerala Ayurveda USA was on establishing culturally competent, best practices for LGBTQ+ healthcare in Ayurveda which she presented at GLMA (Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equity) and NAMA’s Annual Conferences in 2024.

Some words about the feeling to be seen, loved, and respected, and then a special quiz: This will be a quiz about Queer Rights or Human Rights, Buddhism, Law, IQBC and more. Enjoy!

Jampa (they, them) is a learning coach, rapper, and artist or painter with more than 100 paintings in their digital atelier.
Realizing the need for a safe space for queer Buddhists, having been bullied in their Buddhist communities worldwide, they founded the International Queer Buddhist Conferences shortly before the pandemic. Since 2021 the IQBCs have become an annual event.

An Amateur Comedian will be presenting her thoughts on the topic(s ) of the conference, politics, world events, and beyond, for the sake of levity and finding a way or ways to laugh through the tears. Over the course of 30 (or more) minutes, the comedian, Mezrah Tabitha Jennifer Thompson-Ramsey, will be trying to play the court harlequin with the aim of putting her own spin on a variety of topics with the goal of entertaining listeners, at the least, and spurring on provocative conversation, at best. There will be a chit-chat and/or Q&A time block following the comedy performance. Language used and topics discussed will not be purely child friendly, as a warning, but there is no intention to be unnecessarily crass or offensive.

The hope is to help those who attend, or attend and participate, grow together as a community over shared pain, and/or groan together at the wordplay.

Mezrah Tabitha Jennifer Thompson-Ramsey is currently employed as a Quality Lab Technician, but has numerous hobbies and interests in science, fiction, philosophy, etcetera.
She identifies as a Neuordivergent, Aro-/Ase- Transgender woman who has been using the map of the Midwest in the US like a punch card, having lived in Ohio, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois. She graduated from Concord University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Recombinant Gene Technology, majoring in Biology, minoring in Chemistry, while attempting to also major in Philosophy. She has been a fan of science, both fictitious and factual, philosophy, figuring out the human condition and state of the universe all her known life. She admits that goal, like herself, is a work in progress. She tries to take part in various support groups to support others the way she feels she has been supported by the community, to pay it forward in what ways she can. She also admits her full name can be a mouthful, and prefers it when people shorten it how they see fit!