As she is affectionately known, Michelle Sheppard, or “Mama Mish”, is a highly respected presenter, advocate, and trainer in the gender equity space. As a transgender woman, she appreciates the difficulties within the grey created by the gender divide and traverses them herself and willingly takes others on the ride with her.

Michelle brings her lived experience of being a trans woman into her work, running diversity, equity, and inclusion training, mentoring colleagues, and providing extra support to anyone transitioning or affirming their gender. Michelle lays out the sobering statistics around violence and discrimination against transgender people, unemployment, financial troubles, and mental health issues but mixes them with anecdotes and funny stories from her life.

She embodies dignity, grace and the change needed to make a positive difference in others’ lives, empowers women, and challenges barriers to inclusion, discrimination, and harassment.

To learn more about the work Michelle does visitwww.mishsheppard.com