Staff
Mara Keisling, Executive Director
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Mara Keisling |
Mara Keisling is the founding Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Mara is a transgender-identified woman and a parent. As one of the nation’s leading voices for transgender equality, Mara has appeared on news outlets such as CNN and CSPAN, and is regularly quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post and hundreds of other national and local print and electronic media.
Since NCTE was founded in 2003, the organization was part of coalition efforts that have won significant advances in transgender equality such as the passage of the first ever transgender-inclusive federal legislation, modification of the State Department rules for changing gender markers on passports, and the historic first Congressional Hearing on transgender issues.
Mara is a graduate of Penn State University and did her graduate work at Harvard University in American Government. She has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara has almost twenty-five years of professional experience in social marketing and opinion research.
Lisa Mottet, Deputy Executive Director
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Lisa Mottet |
As Deputy Executive Director, Lisa is responsible for stewarding the organizations advocacy, fundraising, and communications work. In addition, Lisa directs NCTE's local and state advocacy work.
Lisa was the first attorney working full-time on transgender rights at the national level when she started the Transgender Civil Rights Project at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (the Task Force) in 2001. Over the many years that she directed that program, she helped expand the number of people living in jurisdictions with transgender-inclusive legal protections from 5% to 45%. She is also known for her work on homeless shelter access, with the publishing of the guide “Transitioning Our Shelters: A Guide to Making Homeless Shelters Safe for Transgender People,” with the National Coalition for the Homeless. Lisa is also one of the co-authors of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, the largest study of transgender people ever conducted, which was a joint project of the Task Force and NCTE.
Lisa has also been a force in federal legislation and federal administrative policy advocacy, having led the successful behind-the-scenes strategy to add gender identity to the federal hate crimes bill before it passed and being a lead architect behind a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Lisa is a graduate of the University of Washington and Georgetown University Law Center. Before law school, Mottet was a board member of Equality Washington. Her writing and advocacy has earned her top recognitions from the National LGBT Bar Association and from numerous state and local transgender advocacy groups, such as Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and Transgender Health Empowerment of Washington, DC.
Lisa recently published an informative and practical law review article advocating for the elimination of surgical and other burdensome and outdated requirements for the updating of gender markers on birth certificates: “Modernizing State Vital Statistics Statutes and Policies to Ensure Accurate Gender Markers on Birth Certificates: A Good Government Approach to Recognizing the Lives of Transgender People,” published by the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law.
Avory Faucette, Director of Operations
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Avory Faucette |
Avory graduated with honors from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2009 with an emphasis in international human rights law. Zie is a writer and queer activist who is published in the Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice and writes for the blogs Radically Queer, Gender Across Border, and Girl w/ Pen. Hir work on gender, sexuality, and genderqueer identity has appeared on Feministing, Feministe, RH Reality Check, and Ms. Magazine Online. Before joining NCTE as Director of Operations, Avory worked as Outreach Coordinator at the National Research Center for Women & Families, a health and health-policy non-profit.
Harper Jean Tobin, Esq., Director of Policy
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Harper Jean Tobin |
As Director of Policy, Harper Jean coordinates all aspects of advocacy on federal administrative policies and regulations for NCTE. When she is not engaging with federal agencies and the current administration, she works to provide information for the public about laws and policies that affect transgender people. Harper Jean previously worked at the National Senior Citizens Law Center’s Federal Rights Project, where she maintained a large attorney listserv, provided training and technical assistance to public interest lawyers, and wrote about court access issues for legal, policy and general audiences.
Harper Jean's writing on transgender equality and other issues has been published in the Harvard Kennedy School’s LGBTQ Policy Journal, Notre Dame’s Journal of Legislation, the Yale Law Journal Pocket Part, the Columbia Journal of Gender & the Law, the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Clearinghouse Review, the National Law Journal, The Nation, and Roll Call. She received degrees in law and social work from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and is an alumna of Oberlin College.
Vincent Paolo Villano, Director of Communications
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Vincent Paolo Villano |
Vincent is NCTE’s Director of Communications, responsible for the organization's communications strategy and brand management. Vincent joins NCTE from the Center for American Progress where through the youth organizing arm, Campus Progress, he executed over 150 political, cultural and advocacy events that advance progressive policies in higher education, climate change, immigration and LGBT equality. While at Campus Progress, Vincent spoke across the country, training hundreds of students on campus organizing, lobbying and communications. Prior to his work at Campus Progress, Vincent cut his teeth in public relations working with recognized media expert, Cathy Renna.
Vincent is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and 2008 graduate of the American University School of Public Affairs, where he received a high honor for his research on LGBT youth and intergroup relations. Committed to LGBT young people, Vincent served on the board of the Youth Pride Alliance where he launched a scholarship fund for Metro DC LGBT youth. Vincent is a 2009 New Leaders Fellow at the Center for Progressive Leadership.
Jessica Jeanty, Post-Graduate Law Fellow
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Jessica Jeanty |
Jessica is a graduate of the College of William & Mary’s School of Law and is licensed to practice law in Virginia. While at William & Mary, Jessica served as an Articles Editor for the Journal of Women and the Law, which publishes scholarly articles about issues of sex, gender, sexuality, and family. Jessica has had a wide variety of experiences in the legal field that inform her law and policy work. These experiences include working with federal trial and magistrate court judges on matters of civil and criminal litigation, as well as with immigration law, criminal law, and family law attorneys.
Jessica’s work with NCTE focuses on numerous aspects of public policy affecting transgender people, but her wide range of interests include health, government, international relations, and immigration matters.