Loan Tran
Loan Tran (they/them) currently lives in Durham, NC. They are a longtime North Carolinian, having grown up in Charlotte, NC after migrating from Viet Nam with their family in the mid-90’s. Loan began organizing as a young queer person for safer schools for LGBTQ students and access to higher education for undocumented students. They consider themselves forged in the migrant justice struggle. After high school, Loan was a Point Scholar who studied Asian American Studies at the University of Washington-Seattle before transferring to the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.
Currently they serve as the National Director of Rising Majority, a national coalition of 60+ social movement organizations committed to building a shared vision and strategy toward the year 2050. Their work with Rising Majority allows them to be part of an effort to build and rebuild a powerful and anti-racist Left with a vision for radical democracy and a regenerative economy. Loan is particularly interested in what our movements have to become in order to make our visions real and our strategies for power building effective.
Other movement leadership experience includes serving as the former Co-Executive Director of the Southern Vision Alliance; the former Executive Director of the Youth Organizing Institute; and the founder of the Queer Mobilization Fund. After transitioning from the Southern Vision Alliance, they continued to build the Southern Movement Infrastructure Exchange as the coordinator. Additionally, they currently serve on the Doard of Directors of Highlander Research & Education Center; as the co-chair of the Third Wave Fund advisory council; movement advisor to the Visionary Freedom Fund at Andrus Family Fund; and board member of Migrant Roots Media. Previous affiliations include: “Calling In Cancel Culture”, a collaboration with Professor Loretta J. Ross that builds off of their original piece “Calling In: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable” for Black Girl Dangerous; Board of Directors at GLSEN; and the inaugural cohort of fellows at Grantmakers United for Trans Communities.
A writer, poet, and public speaker, Loan has visited with dozens of college campuses across the U.S. to connect with student organizers committed to building strong organizations and campaigns; their work and words have been featured on various platforms and publications such as Black Girl Dangerous, Waging Non-Violence, NYTimes, Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives, and more. Additionally they have served as a facilitator and capacity building trainer delivering technical assistance to numerous social justice organizations, related to strategic planning, organizational structure and development, fundraising, and more.
With over 15 years of movement building experience, Loan has enjoyed organizing with multi-racial, multi-gender, cross-class, and intergenerational communities. A lover of popular education who is not yet jaded by coalitions and big tent organizing, they believe it truly takes all of us playing in every position possible.
In their spare time, Loan loves cooking for friends and family, singing karaoke, and reading in the hammock in the springtime. When they have spare time, they are writing children’s book and a fiction novel to explore the boundaries and boundlessness of a carceral society.