ABOUT

Ben is a trans, autistic storyteller with a passion for social justice, building safe communities, and creating frameworks for a post-capitalist future. Their broad range of talents and insatiable desire for new skills, coupled with a willingness to say "yes" to new adventures, has led them from the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival to riding reindeer with Indigenous herders in northern Mongolia. They have faced down Westboro Baptist, marched for Black Lives Matter, and protested for democracy across the so-called United States.

An immigrant to the territory that colonizers call Canada in the summer of 2016, Ben and their family are now Canadian citizens residing on land stolen from the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nations in Burnaby, Metro Vancouver. An early childhood living with the Makah Tribe in Neah Bay introduced Ben to the power of Indigenous storytelling, language, dance, and culture. As an adult they have volunteered for the Osage Nation, collaborated on a filmed cultural revitalization project with the Secwépemc Nation, and worked with numerous Puget Sound Nations to create an advocacy film for the restoration of tribal court rights.

Ben's family tree traces back to William the Conquerer and Scottish royalty on one branch (Lawrence), and on the other branch to English farmers, merchants, and tax rebels (Dobyns). Their first American immigrant ancestor, Daniel Dobyns, enslaved Africans within his forced labor camp, a practice Daniel's younger child rejected, fleeing Virginia and establishing a new family heritage of abolitionism and leftist agitation that continues to this day.