Presented by Businesses Ending Slavery & Trafficking.

The LGBTQ2IA+ communities experience disproportionate harm from sexual exploitation yet they have historically been overlooked or marginalized within the broader anti-human trafficking movement. In this Lunch and Learn, you will meet two survivor leaders are working to successfully expand resources and help people to better understand the needs of our LGBTQ2IA+ youth experiencing trafficking.

The goal of this virtual event is educate the community about how we can join with local leaders to help empower LGBTQ2IA+ individuals who experience trafficking. This discussion will be led by survivor advocates, Erik Gray and Viserys Targaryn and facilitated by BEST's Rebekah Covington.

Erik Gray is the first male survivor advocate in Washington State intentionally serving all genders and is currently serving as a Victim Advocate with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. He is co-founder of Queers Uniting to End Exploitation and a trans-national community organizer centering human trafficking, housing instability, and anti-oppression work for the past decade. Erik recently championed gender and LGBTQ2IA+ inclusion for commercial sexual exploitation services in King County, and has received numerous awards celebrating his ongoing commitments and achievements. Including the 2021 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Hero Award.

Viserys Targaryn is a survivor advocate and currently working at Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST) as a survivor Engagement Specialist. Growing up in Harlem, Viserys experienced a lot of difficult trauma at a early age that led him to the streets, and later into the sex trade. Today he is using these experiences to advocate and empower male survivors in order to see real change.

Register here.