Occupying Space & Building Queer Futures for the Next Generation

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and the next generation will stand on ours. How can we ensure that we give queer youth the best we can? In this talk, Rich Richards, Executive Director of S.A.F.E and Operations Coordinator at Jamija, explains how queer people can strategically occupy spaces, and use their presence in those spaces to spark dialogue that will lead to a brighter queer future.

Rich Richards

Bridget Finkeldey

Rich Richards is a transmasculine Jamaican that continues to occupy spaces that are deemed unreachable by trans bodies. A mobilized, graphic artist, political activist, and an advocate for marginalized people since the age of 15. HIS visibility is the tool used to access spaces outside of the normal queer environments and having held leadership positions that were used to advance conversations around queer acceptance and value towards movements such as political numbers. He uses the written word and graphic arts to share his journey and catalog the experiences of himself and people like him who live at the intersection of blackness, transness, and 'ghetto' identity in order to claim space and propose new queer futures that are more inclusive.

Tamara Beckford MD

Bridget Finkeldey

Dr. Tamara Beckford is a wife, mother, and board-certified emergency physician who attended medical school in Newark, New Jersey, and trained in emergency medicine in Philadelphia. Dr. Beckford has over a decade of experience working in emergency rooms across the country. Most recently, she has been on the frontlines battling the surge of COVID-19 in our community. She is the CEO of UR Caring Docs and the Ur Caring Society, which she launched in 2020. During the pandemic, Dr. Beckford recognized that many professional women were constantly tired, eating poorly, missing sleep, and not working out. As a result, she formed the Ur Caring Society to support busy professional women on their wellness journeys. As a mother and busy ER doctor in the middle of a pandemic, Dr. Beckford knew how hard it was to put herself first without feeling guilty. However, she quickly learned that she had to take care of herself before taking care of others. Today, her mission is to empower other women to take an active role in their health and wellness by putting themselves first for two hours per month. In her spare time, Dr. Beckford hosts the Docs Who Care Podcast where she interviews doctors from across the world who share their practical self-care and wellness tips.