Team

Dinah Bons (she/her) is a trans politician, chair of ESWA, Trans United Europe, part of the Amsterdam-based H team, and also works as an actor and creative strategist for Female Economy.

Dinah is specialist on diversity and inclusion, decolonisation, and anti-racism. She feels strongly connected to the trans, sex worker, and HIV communities, and works with passion on intersectional decision procedures and out of balance power mechanisms.

Sara Phillips (she/her) is a trans woman from Ireland and the current Co-Chair of the International Trans Fund.

She is also a board member of the National Women’s Council of Ireland. She a seasoned leader with over 30 years of experience in activism, advocacy, corporate and financial management, and community development within diverse trans communities globally.

Hmayak Avetisyan (he/they) is a trans activist and current Programs Manager at NTC in Armenia. He has coordinated dozens of projects and is the national coordinator of “Trans* Map in EECA” regional project.

He is a member of CCM Armenia and part of several national, regional, and international coalitions working on LGBTIQ human rights, gender justice, peace and security, sustainable development, and social justice.

Pip Gardner (they/them or ze/zir) is a queer and trans activist based in the UK. They are the Chief Executive of The Kite Trust, supporting LGBTQ+ youth in the East of England.

They were previously part of UN Women’s Generation Equality Youth Task Force and volunteer with Gendered Intelligence’s youth groups.

Purity is a trans woman and trans activist from Uganda residing in Sweden.

She’s a social scientist, an intern with Civil Rights Defenders -Sweden, a task force member of IGLYO Anti-racism Task Force, Board Member of Rainbow Refugees Sweden, co-founder of Refugee trans Initiative-Kenya, actress with National Black Theatre of Sweden, and a group leader of a BIPOC trans persons group in Stockholm- Sweden.

vreer verkerke is the founder of trans health advocacy collective Principle 17 (for non pathologising health care based on informed consent).

With their history in advocating for depathologisation in the ICD-11 and SOC-8 they have a long history in fighting for health care rights.

They also co-founded Transgender Network Netherlands and the first genderqueer collective in the Netherlands.

Ymania (she/her) is a prominent human rights advocate and is a proud trans fa’afafine woman from Samoa. Ymania brings a wealth of experience and a distinguished track record in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors in Australia and globally. She has worked with The Gruden Group in Australia and in the LGBTQIA+ sector with Equality Australia. She is the current Co-Secretary General of ILGA World, former Co-Chair of International Trans Fund, and former Co-Chair of the Global Interfaith Network (GIN-SSOGIE).  Ymania will lead TGEU with a focus on organisational development, fundraising, and the professional development of TGEU staff.

Founder of Queerstion Media, Miles (he/him) is a journalist and brings over 10 years of experience within media & communication, LGBTQ and migration activism.

Miles holds a Masters in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, BSc in Political Science and a BA in Communication Science.

He has worked previously for RFSL as coordinator for a Global LGBT Leadership training Rainbow Leaders as well as Editor for Soginews global LGBT news site.

Miles wants to amplify the voices of further marginalised trans communities particularly trans migrants in Europe through an intersectional perspective.

Languages: English, Shona, and Swedish.

Vanya (he/him) has previously worked with TGEU as a translator and interpreter, and will now join as EECA Officer. He comes from Russia and has experience in grassroots leftist, feminist, queer, and trans activism.

With a background in linguistics and gender studies, Vanya has written his doctoral thesis on the feminist movement in Russia.

Languages: English, Russian, German, French, and some Czech.

Daniyar (he/him) started his activist journey in 2004 in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia. In 2009, Daniyar became the founder of national LGBT organisation Kyrgyz Indigo and worked for 10 years as its Executive Director.

Since 2020 Daniyar has been working at international organisation ECOM as an advocacy coordinator and contributed to capacity building and expert agency of transgender people of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Languages: English, Russian, Kyrgyz.

Richard Köhler (he/him) built up TGEUs policy and advocacy work at the European level and has been a trans activist for two decades.

Richard leads on TGEUs work for self-determined legal gender recognition procedures and successful strategic litigation to help advance and protect trans people’s rights in the courts.

Richard holds a degree in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (LL.M). He also has a background in International Business Administration with specialisation on NGOs in Russian-speaking countries.

Languages: German, English, Russian, some French.

Farah (she/her) came to Europe in the end of 2012, fleeing fear of persecution because of her gender identity. Her work as an activist began as a way to combat the rise in xenophobia, racism, islamophobia, and other forms of discrimination.

Farah has worked relentlessly over the last 8 years to tell the unheard stories of refugees. She wrote and published her first autobiography, “Never Arrive,” in 2015. She has also written columns on immigration for publications like Malta Today and the New Internationalist.

Farah looks forward to contributing to TGEU and bringing a new perspective.

Languages: English, Kiswahili, and some German.

Deekshitha (she/her) is originally from India and is a lawyer by training. Prior to joining TGEU, she worked as a research and litigation associate at the Centre for Law and Policy Research in India, focusing on transgender rights, disability rights, and equality and non-discrimination.

At TGEU, Deekshitha works primarily on the portfolios of health and responding to the anti-gender movement.

Languages: English, Tamil, Hindi.

Nadya (any pronouns) is communications strategist with over 15 years of experience in brand and community building, marketing leadership, and storytelling for impact initiatives, global consumer brands, and tech companies.

Proud intersex community member and advocate, Nadya draws on her media and creative background to explore new territories of culture, language, and technology and develop sustainable, human-centered narratives.

Her projects have been featured in major publications such as the New York Times, Vogue, Forbes, and others.

Languages: English, Russian, German.

Nisha (he/they) is responsible for the TGEU’s websites, social media channels, and newsletters. Nisha focuses on community-driven, engaging editorial content and accessible communication.

Originally from the UK, Nisha has a background in Sociology. After university, Nisha trained as a journalist and holds a diploma in strategic communications.

Languages: English, Gujarati, and German.

Amanita Calderón-Cifuéntes (she/her) is a Colombian scientist and trans-activist with over a decade of research in microbiology and cellular stress response. Her work focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights, particularly infectious diseases like HIV and MonkeyPox. As a Microbiologist living with HIV, she combines expertise and personal experience in her advocacy. Amanita worked at Gilead Sciences on HIV education and serophobia projects.

At TGEU, she collaborates with UNAIDS, WHO, and ECDC to advocate for policy changes supports at-risk trans communities and addressing violence and discrimination.

Languages: Spanish, English, and French.

Originally from the UK, Freya (she/her) is a researcher and activist with experience in disability, queerfeminist, union, and housing struggles.

With an academic background in linguistics and psychology, Freya collaborated closely with deaf and hearing sign language-using communities during her doctoral research.

She previously worked as German-English translator and was on a Steering Committee researching queerphobic conversion practices within psychology.

At TGEU, Freya will use her data and research skills for trans rights, leading the Trans Rights Map and Trans Murder Monitoring projects, as well as contributing to other research.

Languages: English, German, British Sign Language, some French, Spanish, ASL, IS, DGS.

Alina (she/her) is trans rights activist, the co-founder of initiative in Tajikistan with more than seven years in human rights advocacy and over two decades working in finance, corporate governance, and grant management.

She worked for intergovernmental humanitarian, international post-war reconstruction and development organisations, private bank, public-private partnerships, and multilateral projects, for USAID among many.

Alina is an Economics, Tax Law, Audit, and Evaluation expert, particularly in institutional policy design, operational capacity-building, risk assessment, and development of a blueprint for organisation’s financial sustainability.

Languages: Russian, English, Farsi, basic Uzbek.

With over eight years of experience in the financial services sector, Kalondu (she/her) uses her knowledge to contribute to sound and sustainable financial practices at TGEU.

Kalondu is a committed LGBT activist and serving board member of Rainbow Women of Kenya. She believes that our freedom is interconnected: no one is free until everyone is free.

Kalondu holds a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Nairobi. She is currently studying for a Master’s in International and Development Economics at the University of Applied Science (HTW), Berlin.

Languages: English, Swahili, Kamba, and some German.

Trans community organiser with ten years of experience, Vanja (he/him) is responsible for engaging with TGEU’s wide network of members to support their movement-building efforts.

Part of Trans Network Balkan since its inception, Vanja served as the Network’s Visibility Coordinator in 2018, and later moved to the role of Capacity Building Coordinator.

As a member of his local LGBTQI group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vanja took the lead on a portfolio of arts and culture-focused events.

Languages: English, BCMS, basic German

An educator focusing on trans, queer and non-binary visibility and bodily rights since 2008, Aleya (she/her) covers the Middle East, Europe and the Caucasus in her work. Her focus is to criticise and reverse eurocentric postcolonial narratives on esthetic violence in BIPOC populations.

For TGEU, Aleya is the coordinator of the 2024 Council. She is responsible for managing registrations, scholarships, proposal submission, accessibility and participant communications.

Aleya is a member of the Body Liberation Collective and a trainer in the pools of the Council of Europe, European Commission, GIZ and others.  She is a core team member of Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment.

Languages: Arabic, Spanish, English

An international human rights lawyer with over 20 years of experience, Arpi (she/her) supports TGEU’s strategic litigation work.  Her career to date includes strategic litigation before the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice and UN human rights treaty bodies as well as research, advocacy, and capacity development.  

Previously she led the strategic litigation work at ILGA-Europe. As the Litigation Adviser at INTERIGHTS,  she provided litigation advice to NGOs in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. 

Arpi holds a BA in Sociology and MA in Conflictology from Yerevan State University, Armenia; and LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, UK.

Languages: English, Armenian, Russian, intermediate French.

Linn Julian Koletnik (they) works on our flagship research reports such as Trans Rights Index and Map, Trans Health Map and Trans Murder Monitoring.

Linn is a non-binary queer transfeminist activist and the Founder and former Executive Director of TransAkcija Institute.

Linn holds an MA in Gender Studies from Central European University. They have been involved in Slovene LGBTIQ+ activism since 2006 and have experiences within various structures of organising, community and capacity building, advocacy, research and media work.

Languages: English and Slovene

Masha (she/her) is a communication designer with expertise in print and digital media. She collaborates with NGOs, artists, and collectives on meaningful projects. Currently, she is creating the visual identity for TGEU’s 2024 Council.

Dragiša (he/him) is graphic designer who works on helping TGEU to convey their messages trough through beautiful visuals and thoughtful design.
He holds MS degree for Graphic Product Design from Faculty of Graphic Arts in Zagreb and has been working with NGO´s who fight for human rights and wellbeing for over 7 years now.

As Senior Advisor on Resilience and Backlash, Sebastian will support TGEU to combat the anti-gender movement.

With eight years’ experience in sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV, global health, and LGBTQI+ rights, their interest lies in the intersection of gender and violence, sexuality, social norms, and marginalisation.