Headshot of Lydia X. Z. Brown, an East Asian person with short black and teal hair, glasses, a dark blue suit, a light blue button-down, a diamond-patterned tie, and a square pin on their suit that reads: THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO HAVE A BODY, smiling at the camera in front of a grey brick wall.
Guest Speaker

Lydia X. Z. Brown

Policy Counsel, Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology
(They/Them)

Lydia X. Z. Brown is an advocate, organizer, attorney, strategist, and writer whose work focuses on interpersonal and state violence against disabled people at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation. Lydia is Policy Counsel for Privacy & Data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, focused on algorithmic discrimination and disability; Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network; and founding executive director of the Autistic People of Color Fund, a project of collective care, redistributive justice, and mutual aid. Lydia is an adjunct lecturer in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the Disability Studies Program at Georgetown University, as well as the Self-Advocacy Discipline Coordinator for the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Fellowship program. They are also an adjunct professorial lecturer in American Studies in the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Cultural Studies at American University. They are co-president of the Disability Rights Bar Association, a commissioner on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights, and Disability Justice Committee representative on the National Lawyers Guild board. Lydia is currently creating the Disability Justice Wisdom Tarot. Often, their most important work has no title, job description, or funding, and probably never will.