Parker T. Hurley

Parker T. Hurley, LMSW, is a queer, black-mixed race, trans-activist committed to bringing visibility to the disparities in access to health care, social services and education to dually stigmatized and otherwise marginalized communities . Parker holds a Bachelors of Arts from Long Island University/Brooklyn Campus in Social Work and graduated with a Masters degree from Hunter College School of Social Work, with a concentration in community organizing. Parker is currently the LGBTQA Coordinator at Guilford College and oversees the direction of The Bayard Rustin Center for LGBTQA Education, Activism and Reconciliation, while pursuing a PhD at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in Educational Studies with a concentration in Higher Education. Prior to enrolling at UNCG, Parker served as the Member Services and Outreach Coordinator of the Rainbow Heights Club. The Rainbow Heights Club, located in Brooklyn, NY, is the only government funded psychosocial and advocacy organization specifically meeting the needs of LGBT individuals living with severe mental illness. During that time, he worked in collaboration with providers, educators and activists throughout the state of New York to develop an experiential LGBT cultural competency curriculum and successfully training over 2,000 students, healthcare, and mental health providers, whose end goal was to promote LGBT inclusive services. Parker has conducted LGBTQQ cultural competency trainings in a myriad of settings including: hospitals, mental health clinics, conferences, high schools, colleges and universities throughout throughout the country. In addition to being the co-advisor for the local LGBT Youth Group in Greensboro, NC (Youth Safe), Parker also functions as the Deputy Director of the Trans* People of Color Coalition, the only national social justice organization that promotes the interests of transgender people of color. His passions lie within the healing and transformation of our homes, schools and communities, through self-care, radical love, and working exhaustively at the intersections of all social justice movements.