Vanessa Ford

Vanessa Ford is an award-winning educator and author who happens to be the parent of a wonderful transgender child. Her children’s book, Calvin, won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Best Children’s or Middle-Grade Book and she was a classroom teacher for 14 years in DC Public Schools and has continued to work in the field. She is the co-author of "The Advocate Educator's Handbook: Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive". Her family’s advocacy has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Magazine and NPR. She was a founding member of The Human Rights Campaign’s Parents for Transgender Equality Council and sat for 2 years on the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality. She now lives with my husband and two children outside of Boston.