P&P Live! Pride Panel | THE POCKET CHANGE COLLECTIVE Series

Join Leo Baker, Adam Eli, Chella Man, and Alok VaidMenon in discussion with Deborah Taylor about their Pocket Change Collective books. Purchase their books here

Join us for a discussion in celebration of Pride month with four young LGBTQIA+ advocates sharing their compelling, compassionate, and candid stories about bringing inclusivity to their professions and passions. Leo Baker, Adam Eli, Chella Man, and Alok Vaid-Manon will be joined in conversation with P&P moderator Deborah Taylor. This is the third in our series with the Pocket Change Collective.

Leo Baker (they/them) is the author of Skate for Your Life, a professional skateboarder, and activist. After being a staple at the X Games and Street League, they were featured in publications like Thrasher, ESPN, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. In 2019, they founded the NYC Skate Project, a queer-centric community that gives a platform to LGBTQ+ and non-male skaters.

Adam Eli (he/him) is the author of The New Queer Conscience, a community organizer, LGBTQIA+ activist, and founder of Voices4, a nonviolent direct-action group committed to advancing global queer liberation. Eli currently serves as the Editor-in-chief of Gucci’s queer zine, The Chime Zine, created to unite and strengthen the voices speaking out for gender equality.

Chella Man (he/him) is the author of Continuum, an American YouTuber, actor, model, artist, and LGBTQ activist. He is renowned for his personal documentation as a transgender, deaf, genderqueer, and Jewish person of color. Man rose to wider prominence in 2019 for portraying mute superhero Jericho in the second season of the DC Universe series Titans. He hopes to continue pushing the boundaries of what it means to be accessible, inclusive, and equal in this world.

Alok Vaid-Menon (they/them) is the author of Beyond the Gender Binary, an internationally acclaimed gender non-conforming writer, performance artist, and public speaker. They explore themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition in their work. They created the #DeGenderFashion movement to degender fashion and beauty industries. They believe that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression.

Deborah D. Taylor (she/her) is a P&P contributing moderator. She recently retired from the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, MD. She has chaired and served on many American Library Association committees and on the National Book Awards Jury for Young People’s Literature. She was named the 2015 recipient of the Coretta Scott King/Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. She is a reviewer and an adjunct professor teaching young adult literature at the University of Maryland, College of Information Studies.

An ASL interpreter will provide service for this event.

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.