Claire Bow is a transgender attorney living in Austin, Texas. She earned her J.D. from the Texas Tech School of Law in 1983, and served as an Assistant Attorney General in Texas for 11 years as a litigator and an Administrative Law Judge. In 1998, she became the General Counsel for the State Office of Risk Management and was appointed the Executive Director of that State Agency in 2004 serving in that capacity for over 10 years. In that position, she directed several large state insurance programs including the Texas self-insured workers’ compensation fund and she was responsible for promoting the safety of state workers. Ms. Bow served on the Board of the of the State Risk and Insurance Management Association (a national organization of State Risk Managers) and held the position of President from 2012-13. Ms. Bow has extensive legislative experience including drafting legislation, and testifying before legislative committees.In 2014 Ms. Bow retired after a 26-year career in public service to complete her gender transition and devote herself full time to advocacy for Transgender Rights. Ms. Bow volunteers her time on a number of boards and organizations, including:
In 2017 Ms. Bow became a full voting member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). |
Kelly Bennett, M.D.is from Cleburne, Texas (just south of Ft. Worth). Dr. Bennett attended Abilene Christian University graduating with a BS in Biology in 1991. She attended Texas A&M College of Medicine in College Station and Temple Texas graduating with MD in 1995. Went to Texas Tech University Health Science Center from 1995-1998 receiving training in family medicine. In 1998 Dr. Bennett began to work at Texas Tech as an attending physician at the University Undergrad campus and was the Medical Director there from 1999-2016 where she began to work in helping with gender transitioning in college students. Transferred to the Family Medicine department on the HSC main campus in the fall of 2016 where I was able to work with transitioning individuals of all age groups.
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Dr. Samantha Klassen is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC-TX) and assistant professor of counseling and clinical coordinator at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. She has a PhD in Counselor Education from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, a Master’s degree in Counseling (Clinical Mental Health) from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Angelo State University. Her research interests and clinical expertise lie in working with children and adolescents, mindfulness, disordered eating, body image, and gender identity. She is a member of the Texas counseling Association, the Texas Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, and the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling.
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Patrick is a LPC-Supervisor (Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor) with 11 years experience in both the education and mental health fields. After completing the requirements for his Counseling degree from the University of North Texas, he sought licensure in Texas and began seeing clients for couples counseling, anxiety and depression, and those that sought a LGBTQ-friendly therapist. He began working toward certification in sex therapy, and has received both education and training in working with an umbrella of sexual issues, as well as those that the public tends to put under the sexuality, including working with gender identity. He is also very interested in ego and how reaching a certain level of ego management can decrease depression and anxiety and enhance relational satisfaction.
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Kerry Manzo is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. Their areas of interest include gender and sexuality studies within a global context, and queer studies more broadly. They have presented on heterosexism as an oppositional force to LGBT emergence in Philippine literature, as well as on the interaction between colonial heterosexual gender and sexual norms and indigenous queer archetypes, and how these disturb or unsettle the colonial heteronormative project. Their paper, "Making the Invisible Visible: The Consequences of Privilege Salience in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children" is in publication at the South Asian Review. They are currently working on their dissertation, which examines the material influence of the Mbari movement--a 1960s transnational counterpublic that promoted and connected artists and writers of the Black Atlantic--on trends in African literature and sexual knowledge.
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Maureena Benavides, M.A., LPC is the owner/operator of On the Couch Counseling in Midland,TX. As a licensed professional counselor, Maureena helps individuals, couples, and families with struggles in communication, intimacy and anxiety and depression and also specializes in helping gender non-conforming clients explore their gender identity. She has presented on LGBTQ inclusion in systems of care in order to mitigate suicidal risk factors in such settings as schools, institutions, and healthcare facilities at the 2016 Permian Basin Mental Health Conference on Suicide Prevention. Maureena has taken a special interest in helping clients understand their sexual and gender identities in a greater cultural context. She guides a therapeutic transgender group to explore these issues every fall semester.
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