Intersex Joy: Resilience Beyond the Operating Room
By: Meredith Byars
Meredith “Mx” Byars (they/them/theirs) is a dedicated advocate and speaker for intersex and queer liberation, with a decade of experience championing these causes and a lifetime of lived experience. Byars has provided workshops and talks for colleges, universities, hospitals, and government buildings across the United States. Their passion for equity and inclusion extends beyond advocacy; Byars is committed to working with and uplifting diverse populations, including children, seniors, and low-resource communities.
Byars has significantly contributed to educational spaces, most notably at Magic City Acceptance Academy in Alabama, which is dedicated to students who have dropped out, are not thriving in traditional schools, or are enrolled in home-school programs. This is the first public school in the United States to have “LGBTQ-affirming” in the mission statement. At MCAA, Byars curated a two-floor library and designed and developed school common areas from the ground up, complete with resources that affirm, represent, and empower even the most unique students.
When returning to their hometown in Alabama, Byars noticed drag kings and other drag performers missing out on opportunities to perform and gain experience because their drag was unique. Byars began networking and producing shows like “Tomboy” and “Oops! All Kings” in Birmingham, AL. These are among the few drag shows in the United States designed specifically to prioritize kings and nonbinary performers.
Byars spends their free time producing alternative drag shows, reading Fantasy books, and playing outside with their nephew and 11-year-old terrier. Byars loves to help others embody their resilience by facilitating trauma and SEL-informed yoga. They hope to use their experience in research, wellness, and outreach in their pursuit of a PhD in Psychology.
Story, Meaning, Agency, and Others
By: Monisha Pasupathi
I was born in Pennsylvania, and grew up mostly in Ohio, where I did my undergraduate studies in Psychology and English Literature at Case Western Reserve University. I then went on to a PhD in Psychology at Stanford University, and from there to a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, in Berlin, Germany. In 1999, I arrived in Utah as a faculty member in the Psychology department, fell in love with the mountains, and stayed put! My scholarly expertise is in adolescent and young adult identity development. Much of my work has explored how telling stories shapes our memories, emotions, and selves across the lifespan – and the impact listeners have on those stories. More recently, I’ve worked with an amazing group of researchers exploring how young adults whose first year of college was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic narrate the events of those years. I put some of this work into application in my role as the Dean of the Honors College at the University of Utah.
Dr. Pasupathi’s talk will show us how deep dives into telling stories can offer insights into resilience that surveys alone never can.