Ever wonder what happens when those kids who are just a little too into the whole education, workshopy, social justice stuff grow up? Hey there! Pleased to meet you. We are Meg Bolger and Sam Killermann – professional, enthusiastic, and head-and-heart dedicated social justice educators. We are the co-creators of The Safe Zone Project and we are so excited for this opportunity…to tell you a little bit more about ourselves.
Hey, hey, hey there!
I’m Meg and I really am as excited as I am in that photo all the time. Well at least to talk about this kinda stuff! I am “from” many a-places, born in Ireland, grew up in VT, residing in Ohio and working… all over the place! I am the founder of Pride for All an organization dedicated to *sparking the conversation around sexuality, gender, and identity issues via workshops, dynamic lectures, and other funfilled-educational-experiences! Like Mr. Sam I can regularly be found talking, dancing, writing about gender and sexuality, on a train, plane, or just on the internet in many places. I am one of those twenty-somethings, White, gender non-conforming, Subaru driving, lesbian/gay/queer woman, who would one day like to call herself a Vermonter again. I also say dude quite a bit… but in a totally gender neutral way.
Howdy, y’all!
I’m Sam and that is a picture showing how much I enjoy giving helpful things to wonderful people like you. Like Meg, I’m from all over the place, but currently loving my home base of Austin, TX (where I learned to both howdy and y’all). I’m the Director of Creativity for hues, a global justice collective in which the Safe Zone Project resides. And I am the person behind It’s Pronounced Metrosexual, a college comedy show and blog about snap judgments, identity, and oppression — but in a totally funny way. It was on that site that I first published my version of the Genderbread Person, my first and only child (not to discount this labor of love). I also regularly give talks & keynotes about gender & sexuality (maybe you saw my TED talk?). My first book, called A Guide to Gender: The Social Justice Advocate’s Handbook, opened as #1 Best-Seller in Gender on Amazon. I’m what the kids these days are calling an “ally.”
While Sam and Meg have both independently dreaming up this project for years now, the day it became a joint adventure, was a good day. As Meg identifies as a proud member of the LGBTQ community (a L, G, or Q) and Sam rocks the ‘ally’ identity for everyone to see. We think that this combination of a self-identified ally and LGBTQ community member offers a unique perspectives to LGBTQ/ally social justice work, and we think it is pretty neat that we can bring both to the table and see what they talk about. Our multiple different social identities as well as physical locations bring a nice variety to this project.