Ali Michael Cannon served on Our Family Coalition’s Board of Directors from 2009 to 2017. In his professional life, he serves as Associate Director of Adult Programs and Training at Rainbow Community Center of Contra Costa. He also works as an independent consultant, creating opportunities for schools to gain competency in gender and LGBT equity with particular expertise in transgender inclusion. In addition to his private consulting, Ali is a facilitator for the Anti-Defamation League, leading anti-bias and bullying prevention programs for educators, students and families. Prior to his current roles, he served as Trainings and Events Manager for Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, working collaboratively with Public Health Departments across the Bay Area to address workplace bias, and spent six years as a School District Administrator, managing state and federal grants that improved the lives of youth without equal access to education. Beyond his district position, he worked as a non-profit education manager for 20 years. Throughout his career he has been a strategic visionary, well-versed in coalition building and systems-change.
Mr. Cannon has a BA and MA in Women’s Studies and continues to bring his strong feminist and anti-oppression lens to all of his endeavors. In addition to his professional expertise, he is a writer, organizer, activist, and public speaker. A recognized leader in the transgender community, he has been invited to speak on various panels, and he has organized numerous conferences and events for the Jewish, LGBTQ, and Queer Jewish communities. His writing has been published in From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond. His provocative illumination of Jewish and transgender themes can be seen in the film It’s A Boy: Journeys from Female to Male, and his essay (co-authored with TJ Michels) “Whose Side Are You On: Transgender at the Western Wall” (in Queer Jews, Routledge, 2002 and republished in Kulanu: All of Us: A Program and Resource Guide for GLBT Inclusion, URJ Press, 2007). Ali lives in Oakland with his wife, Jessica, an OUSD principal, and their teenaged son, Raffi.
