LGBTQ Health and Wellness Week Keynote Speech: Pidgeon Pagonis

Please join us in welcoming Pidgeon Pagonis (pronouns: they/them) to campus. Pidgeon will be opening the 3rd Annual LGBTQ Health and Wellness Week on Monday, February 5th in the Educational Conference Center in the School of Social Work Building.

Pidgeon (Chicago, IL) is an intersex activist, educator, and filmmaker. They are a leader in the intersex movement’s fight for bodily autonomy and justice. Their goal is to deconstruct the dangerous myths that lead to violations of intersex people’s human rights, including common, irreversible medical procedures performed without consent to make bodies conform to binary sex stereotypes.

Pidgeon has a decade’s worth of experience giving talks and facilitating intersex workshops around the globe. In 2015, they received the LGBT Champion of Change Award from the White House. They can be seen on the cover of National Geographic’s January 2017 issue titled, "Gender Revolution". This past fall, they co-led the #LurieEndSurgery protest outside of Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago on Intersex Awareness Day.

This event is free and open to the public.