Trans* Success

Moonhawk River Stone is a psychotherapist, consultant, educator, keynote speaker and author in private practice in the Albany, NY area and is himself an out, open and proud transsexual man. In his clinical practice, Mr. Stone has specialized in working with the LGBT community (especially with transgender people of all ages and their families), with survivors of childhood trauma, people with dissociative disorders, traumatic brain injuries or Alzheimer’s dementia for over two decades. He has special expertise in working with young transgender children and their families.

As an educator/trainer, he has presented hundreds of workshops and trainings at numerous conferences locally, nationally and internationally, both academic & clinical on many topics, but specializes in transgender education, especially in human resource issues, policy development and implementation, and legislation. He has presented at such institutions as Yale University, Union College, State University at Albany, State University at Binghamton, and College of St. Rose, the Federally Employed Women’s annual National Training Program and New York State United Teachers union. A gifted public speaker Stone has been a keynote speaker at such events as the 2002 Bahamian LGBT Pride celebration and IFGE conferences, Connecticut Outreach Society, Fantasia Fair, TransEvents USA 2010 and others.

He is a consultant to many agencies and businesses, such as IBM, Wyle Labs, Siemens Technologies, Inc., CSX Transportation, Inc. regarding transgender issues. Stone has done graduate work toward a Ph.D. in counseling psychology and is frequent writer on transgender issues and has a monthly column, Trans View, in the Albany LGBT newspaper, CommUnity, and previously had a monthly column That Trans Thing in Q Northeast, as well as From The Bridge in Tapestry Magazine.  In 2010, he was invited to be a major writer of the as yet unreleased guidelines to the New York State Governors Executive Order protecting transgender state employees.  He’s written such noted papers as:

• Gender Identity is for Everyone: Creating A Paradigm For Change
• Approaching Critical Mass: An Exploration Of The Role Of Intersex Allies In Creating Positive Education, Advocacy and Change
• Shifting Paradigms: Making The Case for Moving Gender Identity Disorder Out of the DSM

A highlight of his professional career, Stone’s paper on reform and removal of Gender Identity Disorder from the DSM was one of two papers which opened the Congress. Currently, he is in the initial stages with co-authors of writing the chapter on Transgender and Aging for the upcoming Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. While volunteering at the National Coalition for LGBT Health, Stone and 12 others formed a feminist collective and did the formative groundbreaking work for a volume to have been entitle, Our Trans Bodies.

As a political activist, currently Stone volunteers his time with Albany Capital Region, statewide and national organizations. Stone was a member of the former Capital District Trans Youth Task Force. In 1988, he was both cofounder and co-chair of the Fulton-Montgomery AIDS Task Force, an organization still providing support and education to date. He is a member of many national organizations devoted to civil rights for the LGBT community and other marginalized communities. Stone is a current member of the Disability Oppression and Access Committee of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force where he work on issues of accessibility, racism and a multicultural intersectional approach to social justice for all people. He has worked diligently for transgender civil rights, working in coalition with other transgender activists on the legislative campaign for the New York City Transgender Civil Rights Bill and was part of the committee which wrote the implementation guidelines for the law.

He worked to pass the Albany City Transgender Civil Rights Ordinance and on the Albany County Transgender bill. Previously he has worked on the New York State Dignity for All Students (DASA) Coalition advocating transgender inclusive passage of the NYS DASA bill. He was responsible for the initial language in the legislation which made it transgender inclusive. He has testified at the New York State Senate on behalf of same-sex marriage. Currently he is working on the statewide coalition to pass the transgender civil rights bill, GENDA in New York State as well as several other national initiatives. He is a member of the GENDA coalition. Stone is working in collaboration with the leading activists on transgender healthcare coverage in public and private insurance to make trans healthcare fully inclusive. Over the past five years, Stone has taken a leadership role with other activists on a concerted effort to remove the stigmatizing and discriminatory Gender Identity Disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and is the leading voice for its removal.

Previously he has sat on the Board of Directors, as the Chair, President, Vice President, Secretary or Treasurer for a great many boards. Including FTM International, Inc., the Aids Council of Northeastern New York, the GLSEN-New York Capital Region chapter, International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), Empire State Pride Agenda, National Center for Transgender Equality, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation, Inc., Trans Health Care Committee at the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, Trans Youth Family Allies, Inc., the National Coalition for LGBT Health’s Ending Disparities Committee, as well as a number of other committees, boards, and organizations. Locally, he has worked with The Committee for GLBT Families and Schools, and The Coalition for Safer School of NYS, and he has sat on the Board of Directors of Rainbow Access Initiative.

In October 2004, Stone was the recipient of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council’s highest award, the Harvey Milk Award for his long-standing contributions to LGBT activism. The previous year, September 2003, he had received recognition from the Rainbow Alliance of the Bahamas during their first pubic Pride Celebration where he was a keynote speaker. Stone relaxes with his love of gardening, reading, nature photography and music, enjoying studying piano, and playing with his three cats, Annie, Buster and Charlie, and making jam and jelly from the fruit of his small orchard.