Sylvia Oliver, Leadership Team

Jo Ivester is an author and speaker, focusing on LGBTQ & civil rights advocacy. Her books include the award-winning memoir The Outskirts of Hope (2015) and the family memoir Once A Girl, Always a Boy (2020). Ivester is an in-demand speaker, known for using her personal stories as a means to make people more comfortable with those who are different from them with regard to race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identification. She'll be in Spokane for two events next week that you are welcome to attend. 

Tuesday, September 13, 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
Top of the Hill Lunch Program
Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church, 4102 South Crestline St, Spokane
Skylight Room 

Jo Ivester will speak about her book, The Outskirts of Hope: A Memoir of the 1960s Deep South, describing her family's experience as the only Jewish family in an all-Black town in the Mississippi Delta during the Civil Rights Movement. RSVP by calling the church office at 509-385-0627. The church suggests a donation of $8 to cover lunch.

Wednesday, September 14, 7:00 pm
Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church, 4102 South Crestline St, Spokane

Jo Ivester speak about her book, Once a Girl, Always a Boy, describing what it was like raising her transgender son in a world not quite ready to accept. Jeremy, now 32 years old, had top surgery at 23 and began hormones and changed his name and pronouns a year later. While Jeremy is finally comfortable in his own skin, politicians in his home state of Texas have proposed bill after bill to restrict his rights and legalize discrimination against Jeremy and others like him.
Free event. No RSVP is required to attend.