Organizations working with people living with HIV must ensure a racial justice and gender justice lens to the work and especially their trainings. Are you centering the voices of women of trans experience of color living with HIV? How does your organization support the leadership of folks of trans experience? What is currently underway to ensure that women of trans experience of color living with HIV are given a fair shot of representation in the HIV workforce? 
PWN has completed our RISE Training of the Trainers Academy and is committed to uplifting the next wave of trans leaders and trainers who have completed our program and are able to hold trainings on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:
  • Quality healthcare access including transgender-specific services
  • Sexual and reproductive health and justice for all, transgender-inclusive
  • Gender Justice
  • How to talk about gender, gender expression, and sexuality
  • Normalizing Gender expression throughout history and in nature
  • Meaningful involvement of marginalized groups including PLHIV and transgender people
  • Transgender issues in politics and transgender elected officials
To schedule a training for your organization with a certified PWN trainer, please contact Barb Cardell, PWN Training Director, at Barb(at)pwn-usa.org
Check out our People First – Transgender & Gender Diverse Language Handout

Meet Our Certified Trainers

Queen Hatcher-Johnson

As a woman of transgender experience, Queen Hatcher-Johnson is employed as a community liaison and prevention specialist with Positive Impact Health Centers.   A community advocate, peer to peer advocate, public speaker, and dedicated wife and mother to several fur babies. Queen has been featured in commercials ranging from combating housing discrimination (Beyond I Do) to the importance of voting. Queen was an inaugural member of the AIDS United Fund for Resilience, Equity and Engagement and the Transgender Leadership Initiative Leadership Development Program as well as a special guest and Speaker at Sir Elton John’s Oscar Party.  Queen believes that “If I am the only one at the finish line, then my work continues”.  
Her areas of expertise include Gender Justice, program shifts to be more trans and gender diverse inclusive; Transgender expression and inclusion in the media and music.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a woman of trans experience of African descent. She is an advocate, a sister, a mother, and an aunt. Professionally, Angela is employed at Hope and Help as a health educator who specializes in peer support and mentorship. Having experiences with homelessness, substance abuse and addiction, and survival sex work, Angela is an advocate for the disenfranchised and marginalized communities.  Angela centers the voices of youth and trans and gender diverse people in housing access and dreams of starting her own community housing project in upcoming years.
Her areas of expertise include Transgender people experiencing homelessness and creative solutions; Transgender activism throughout history; Transgender inspirations found in nature.

Keleka Kaneaiakala

Keleka Kaneaiakala is a proud Native Hawaiian.  Keleka serves her community by providing syringe exchange, HIV/HCV testing, referrals to housing, and substance use treatment.  Keleka continues to be a voice for those who don’t have one. Keleka also spends her free time speaking, educating, and advocating for people living with HIV (PLWH). On a national level, Keleka is a member of the Positively Trans Network, NMAC‘s Building Leaders of Color (BLoC) cohort, and the Positive Women’s Network (PWN).  Locally, Keleka is a member of the Ka Aha Mahu group, which builds leaders and provides insight and support to our Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander of trans experience.  Keleka believes that by educating and working with our health providers, her community will receive the proper care that they need free of stigma.
Her areas of expertise include Transgender folks in Polynesian and Hawaiian culture; Meaningful involvement of PLHIV, especially transgender folks; Equity vs. Equality vs. liberation; Sexual and Reproductive Health for all women, trans-inclusive.

Sophia Kass-Martinkus

Sophia Kass is a transgender woman from Lebanon – Middle East. In 2015, she came to the USA as an international student at UC Berkeley Extension and has since settled as an asylum seeker in the Bay Area. Despite a successful career in pharmaceutic sales and marketing in Lebanon, two main reasons drove her to flee and pursue this life-altering move: her HIV diagnosis in 2013 and her 2014 kidnapping while coming back from an underground LGBT club in Beirut.

Today, Sophia’s mission is organizing to achieve incremental positive change – and break down barriers – to improve the well-being and quality of life for transgender and gender-nonconforming / black, indigenous people of color communities, particularly immigrants and people living with HIV/AIDS. As an advocate for national and international transgender justice, Sophia’s vision is shaped by her previous experiences at the San Francisco LGBT Center followed by approximately 4 years of national organizing at the Transgender Law Center.  In her free time, Sophia also volunteers at the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco interpreting for women experiencing domestic violence; and at Rainbow Street – Berkeley, an international protection organization for LGBTQ people in the Middle East & North Africa.

Octavia Y. Lewis, MPA

Octavia Y. Lewis, MPA is an activist, advocate, humanitarian, mother, and scholar.  Octavia is the Transgender Health Coordinator for the TransWellness Centers at Montefiore, which specializes in a holistic approach to healthcare for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming people in the Bronx and beyond.  She understands the many nuances and intersectionalities of the world in which she exists and therefore aligns herself with those who are in agreeance for the betterment of the TGNB Community.  

That is why she is a board member of PWN-USA (Positive Women Network-USA), a Positively Trans advisory board member, a board member for the Center of Transgender Excellence at UCSF, and a member of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women-Manhattan chapter.  She is a current student at Bronx Community College, where she is pursuing a degree in nursing.  Her mentor, Avery Wyatt, MPH taught her “that people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Natalia Pabon

In the fight for transgender and civil rights, Natalia Pabon is guided by her lived experience. Access to life-affirming health care is frequently denied to members of the transgender community, and Natalia fights for equitable access for one of the most underserved populations in Southern Florida with Arianna’s Center. Natalia looks forward to upcoming projects serving transgender women in Puerto Rico and New York, especially focusing on healthcare access, HIV testing, and PrEP.
Her areas of expertise include Transgender elected officials, Quality healthcare access responsive to the needs of trans and gender diverse folks; Transgender activism throughout history.