Roan Coughtry, they/them, is a writer, facilitator, and healing artist based out of Atlanta, GA. With a background in somatics, social work and other healing modalities, their work weaves together social justice, ancestral healing, embodied practice, and the liberatory power of desire. For 15 years, Roan has facilitated workshops and healing spaces around the country on mental health, racial/gender/economic justice, sexual liberation, and collective healing and transformation. As a queer and trans sex educator, they center the importance of pleasure, desire, and reclaimation of the body as essential practices toward healing and freedom. They’re a co-founder of the national Sexual Liberation Collective, and they’ve helped produce conferences such as Sex Down South, Facing Race and Money for Our Movements. Since 2011 they’ve served as a consultant for the UN, specializing in violence prevention, gender and sexuality.
For the past 4 years Roan has been a lead facilitator for global YES! Jams, hosting transformative learning spaces that focus on personal, interpersonal and systemic healing. They’re a member of the Queer Transformative Justice Collective of Atlanta, and are deeply committed to the principle of non-violence and liberatory, re-humanizing approaches to harm. They work individually with clients as a coach and healing artist, and they work specifically with white folks around ancestral healing, unraveling allegiance to whiteness, and co-creating white anti-racist culture and practices. They’re a student of herbalism, Scottish Gaelic, and Celtic mythology and folklore. Roan’s guiding force in life is to learn to love more humbly and fully, to embrace more nuance, and to cultivate strength through softness.