Asha Leong
Interim Executive Director

asha @ nyacyouth.org
800.541.6922, x19

Asha Leong has been an activist in the LGBTQ community for the past 14 years. Leong served at 9to5, National Association of Working Women as an Online Organizer responsible for community organizing role in organizing 9to5's "Healthy Families Paid Sick Days Now!" campaign, served as the editor for the "activist Network Toolkit, and provided leadership around a national organizing model.

Leong also served at Lambda Legal as Senior Outreach Associate and was responsible for community organizing, training and community building across the southeast. While at Lambda Legal she played a lead organizing role in Lambda Legal's national "Blow the Whistle on Workplace Discrimination" campaign, served as the editor for "Bending the Mold: An Action Kit for Transgender Youth", and organized two twon hall meeting tours across the southern region on sodomy laws and LGBT marriage.

In addition, Leong has significant political organizing and ballot campaign experience. She served as Campaign Manager for South Carolina Equality Coalition for the 2006 campaign against South Carolina's anti-gay constitutional amendment. Leong was also a part of a core campaign leadership for the 2004 "Fairness for All Families" campaign in Georgia; she was responsible for all field efforts, managed 10 organizing teams around the state. She was also a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) local team sent to assist Save Dade's 2002 campaign which helped successfully protect the local Human Rights Ordinance.

Prior to this campaign work, Leong developed an HIV prevention program for gay men in Charlottesville VA, created a citywide LGBT coalition, and helped develop the National Day of Silence Project. Upon graduation from the University of Virginia in 1999 she moved to Atlanta to work with the city's LGBTQ youth as a Program Manager for YouthPride. In Atlanta, Leong founded the Ad Hoc Committee for Racial Justice to help challenge racism within our own LGBT community. In recognition of this work, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force awarded her their Community Service Award in the fall of 2000.

jb beeson
Deputy Executive Director

jb @ nyacyouth.org
800.541.6922, x12

jb beeson is the Deputy Executive Director for the National Youth Advocacy Coalition. jb first came to NYAC as an intern to work on the “Queer the Vote” initiative in the fall of 2008. After coordinating and managing much of NYAC's You Know Different social marketing campaign and the National LGBTQI Young Adult Tobacco Needs Assessment, jb took on the Deputy position in February of 2010.

jb holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Political Science and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer studies. As a queer person of color, jb felt passionate to be involved with much of the queer, racial, and economic justice activism and organizing on campus. Their time spent working for the Youth Advocacy and Leadership Institute, an activist education camp for LGBTQ youth, sparked her passion for working for queer youth and youth of color. They also led UCSB's Queer Commission and was the Anti-Racism Community intern at the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity during their campus career. jb is a dedicated alumni of the Center for Progressive Leadership's New Leaders Fellow program and continues their work with CPL on leadership development and training.

An implant from the southwest deserts and California beaches, jb likes spending time exploring Washington, DC and catching up with all the sights and events the city has to offer. jb also enjoys making long to-do lists that include gender play and performance, making art, reading progressive/political anthologies, yoga, and blogging (and checking those things off the lists make them feel even better!).

shayden gonzalez
Program Coordinator

shayden @ nyacyouth.org
800.541.6922, x18

Shayden Gonzalez joined NYAC in August of 2010 as Program Coordinator, he is excited to bring his own special blend of dry humor, creativity, and curriculum building.

Shay(den) holds a BA from Eugene Lang College in Greenwich Village, NYC. There he double concentrated in Psychology and Writing culminating in a quantitative psych study and a 'zine exploring modifications people choose for their bodies that are psychopathologized. Excited to be a part of a campus the expanded out into a major city Shay(den) interned with a local harm reduction program and was an active member and event organizer for Moxie (the feminist org at the New School), D.E.M.T (an org developed to engage the school around Lesbian myths and stereotypes), and DATfree. Prior to coming to the NYAC family Shay(den) was the Sexual Health Coordinator for Streetwork Project, a drop-in center for homeless and transient youth in Manhattan where he actively developed groups and workshops with and for young people around gender, race, class and how they relate to sex and sexuality.

Shay(den) is a self-identified nerd and likes to spend his time adventuring, baking tasty treats, crafting, debating for the sport of it, listening to music, reading theory and/or graphic novels, skateboarding, thinking up new gender neutral pronouns, writing, and fixing computers when the situation arises. You can also call him shay.

Shannon Murphy
Program Manager

shannon @ nyacyouth.org
800.541.6922, x24

Shannon Murphy joined the National Youth Advocacy Coalition as a Program Coordinator in February 2010.   At NYAC, Shannon is responsible for coordinating the organization’s Latin@ regional coalitions, designing and implementing the Latin@ social marketing campaign and providing capacity-building and technical assistance for NYAC’s Latin@ LGBTQ youth-serving partners.  

Prior to NYAC, Shannon worked at LIFT, a national anti-poverty organization based in Washington, DC.  As an Americorps*VISTA member in the Bronx for two years and then the organization’s first regional Northeast staff member, Shannon had the opportunity to recruit and train college students to work one-on-one with low-income individuals in need of social services.  Shannon found working alongside campus leaders and community members to be inspiring, and has since committed her life towards fighting for social justice for disenfranchised communities.    

Shannon holds a Bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University in Sociology as well as Spanish Language, Literature and Linguistics.  Shannon is an avid cross-stitcher and cupcake baker and in her spare time enjoys indulging in both activities.  A recent Brooklyn transplant, Shannon is enjoying getting to know Washington, DC, where she lives with her partner, Carolina.