Channyn Lynne Parker, Identity, Worthiness, and the Unity in Humanity

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Channyn is a Human rights advocate, public speaker, community-centric leader, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Howard Brown Health Center and serves on the board, at Equality Illinois. In 2011, the Cook County Board of Corrections set out to implement new policies for transgender inmates. This coincided with Channyn being brought on as a Re-entry Specialist. While working at the jail, she started encouraging the inmates to have conversations that led them to think in ways they did not know they had the capacity. This new thinking inspired worthiness and value in their lives. She then brought in non-transgender male inmates where they experienced common ground aside from their identities and realized that there is a shared humanity amongst all of us. From this experience, she realized the way things are going to get better is if all of us come together as the sum of humanity and let go of what is blocking us.