Loan Tran – Queer Organizer, Writer, and Trainer of Color based in Durham, NC

Loan Tran, also known as they/her, is an LGBTQ organizer, writer, and trainer of color based in Durham. For over a decade, they have been engaged in liberation struggles for migrants, LGBTQ people, and communities of color – serving on both the board of Southern Vision Alliance and former leadership teams at Rising Majority.

Organizer

Loan Tran, an organizer based out of Durham, has been actively engaging in liberation struggles on behalf of migrants, queer and gender-nonconforming people, communities of color, and other marginalized populations for over a decade. Their efforts span across US and international waters. Currently serving on the advisory board for Emergent Fund, which was set up after 2016’s presidential elections to provide rapid response organizing support; also serving on Rising Majority’s leadership team and organizing around anti-racism worker solidarity issues and anti-racist issues with Black Girl Dangerous being published publications such as Black Girl Dangerous Waging Nonviolence and Gendered Lives among many others.

An effective organizer should have the ability to listen carefully and help their clients create an organizational system that best suits them, taking into account goals and lifestyles. They may even possess engineering experience to grasp the technical details involved with the organization entirely.

Loan Tran earned their associate degree in mathematics at San Jacinto College before continuing to the University of Houston for their bachelor of civil engineering studies.

Writer

Loan Tran is an activist writer and organizer specializing in liberation struggles for migrants, LGBTQ people, communities of color, youth, and students. Loan is an active member of Highlander Research and Education Center’s board of directors, Rising Majority’s Coordinating Committee/Advisory board/Advisory board/Third Wave Fund’s Advisory board, and Migrant Roots Media’s board. Loan also co-founded Southern Vision Alliance as a regional movement infrastructure intermediary providing queer rural migrant organizing support based out of Durham, NC; their work can be seen featured in the books The Solidarity Struggle (2016) and 16-Love (2019).

Loan works with small and mid-market companies and private equity funds to secure debt and equity financings for them.

Speaker

Loan, an organizer and movement intermediary based in Durham, has spent the past decade fighting to liberate migrants, queers, and communities of color. She currently serves on the leadership team at Southern Vision Alliance, where she co-founded and led their Southern Movement Infrastructure Exchange initiative and youth organizing fellowships. Furthermore, Loan was recently elected founding board member at Highlander Research & Education Center and an advisory council member of Third Wave Fund.

The Speaker is an MP elected by other Members of Parliament to act as Chair during debates in the House of Commons. They are responsible for upholding House rules and maintaining order within its chamber, ensuring no political issues arise during discussions. They must remain impartial during these debates without engaging in party politics themselves, as well as appointing chairpersons for regular committees, special or select committees, and conference committees, as well as determining which legislation reaches its way back to them for voting on their floor.

Johnson joined the House as an elected member in 2017, coming second place in the Republican secret ballot race for Speaker behind Tom Emmer and Jim Jordan. As Speaker without prior senior leadership experience or fundraising ability like McCarthy or Scalise did (he raised approximately $250,000 this year compared to what other candidates raised), this may make negotiating with Democratic-held Senate and White House more challenging for Johnson.

Trainer

Loan Tran is an accomplished writer and organizer with over a decade of experience building social movements for the liberation of all people. Their work has been published in publications such as Black Girl Dangerous, Waging Nonviolence, NY Times Gendered Lives & Workers World. Loan is deeply engaged in their communities throughout the South and global South, whose stories inspire them and give strength.

Loan is employed at Dallas County Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences’ Office of Medical Examiner as a Medicolegal Death Investigator – commonly misinterpreted as “CSI.” To date, they have processed over 300 bodies this year alone!

They were researchers at WestEd, specializing in complex data analyses and predictive modeling for education projects. Furthermore, they earned their BA in Mathematics from the University of California Berkeley and their BS in Bioengineering from that same institution. From 1992-1995, they also studied Radiation Oncology with Oregon Clinic/LGROMA.

Coach

Loan brings over ten years of experience organizing and training others for liberation struggles involving migrants, LGBTQ people, communities of color, youth, and students. Currently, they are actively managing in Durham, North Carolina, where they serve on the advisory board of Emergent Fund (which supports rapid response organizing following the 2016 elections) and Rising Majority’s leadership team. Southern Vision Alliance was co-founded and directed by them, where they launched Queer Mobilization Fund and youth organizing fellowship programs. Furthermore, they possess extensive training expertise in popular education-style workshops and organizational development. Finally, they support Black Lives Matter while opposing imperialism.