Roan Reimer
Roan Reimer is a transgender youth activist from the LGBTQA+ community, who primarily works within schools and the public education system.
As the District Student Representative on the Vancouver School Board’s Pride advisory committee, Reimer was part of the writing of the revision of the school district’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity policy.
Reimer went on to become the student figurehead of the movement, after being the first speaker at the public consultation meetings held by the VSB in the spring of 2014.
Recently, Reimer spoke at Interesting Vancouver 2014, the Higher Ground conference, TEDx in St. John’s and co-founded Vancouver’s gender-inclusive Roller Derby League in 2013. Reimer sits on the panel for IGNTIE! youth arts festival and helped send a group of Vancouver students to the Breaking the Silence national conference in Saskatoon, to present on the school board policy this past March.
Reimer has been a member of their school’s Gender and Sexualities Alliance since starting high school in 2010, and is currently the president of the 25+ member group, one of the largest in Vancouver. When there is spare time, Reimer loves gardening, painting and, of course, roller derby.
Michelle Fortin
Michelle Fortin has been involved in community development and activism since her early days with the Vancouver Dyke March.
An advocate for safe spaces and inclusion, Fortin believes her greatest accomplishment as she leaves her five-year presidency of the VDM was securing an alignment with the Vancouver Pride Society, while remaining true to the individual cultures of each organization.
Fortin has spent three years serving on the City’s LGBTQ Committee, focusing on the yearly Pride festivities as well as transgender issues and policy making at the Parks level.
As executive director of WATARI, Vancouver’s Counselling and Support Services Society, Fortin has been at the helm of the QTT Health Equity Collaborative dedicated to ensuring financial resources are available in order to access health care and counselling for queer, trans, and two-spirited youth and individuals.
Romi Chandra Herbert
Born and raised on the island of Fiji, Herbert fled to Vancouver in 1989 with his family after experiencing firsthand the effects of oppression and colonization. Developing a passion for justice, democracy and safety for marginalized communities, eight years later he started BC’s first Gay/Straight Alliance in Maple Ridge.
Volunteering with Youthquest!, he made it his mission to create safe spaces for rural queer youth in Surrey, Port Moody, New Westminster, Abbotsford and Port Alberni. As a result, he was responsible for engaging politicians to start funding queer youth programs and was hired as a youth worker for Qmunity. During his five years there, Herbert ran two drop-in programs, and a program specifically for Asian youth.
Herbert has been behind such projects as the anti-racism program for the North Shore Multicultural Society and co-ordinator for Vancouver Coastal Health’s Planetahead and Condomania programs, increasing queer content on sexual health programs in schools. He has written curriculum for Qmunity’s PrideSpeak program, and conducted anti-homophobia/transphobia workshops for students across the province. He has authored curriculum for programs such as Evolve: No One Gets Left Behind, Vancouver Coastal Health’s CALL OUT program, Be The Change and Out on Screen’s Out in School program.
Currently, Herbert is the co-executive director of PeerNetBC, a non-profit that facilitates anti-oppression and skills development training for peer-led groups and spaces across BC. He also lectures at the Justice Institute of BC, and represents Canada internationally on human rights issues worldwide.
