Sam Bullington is passionate about the transformative power of inspired teaching. An overarching goal of his pedagogy is to help students make conscious what they’ve been trained to keep unconscious, and watching students come to insights about themselves and their place in the world constitutes the most satisfying aspect of teaching for him. Sam is a social scientist with training in Anthropology, Geography, and Environmental Studies and a Ph.D. in Feminist Studies from University of Minnesota. He did his academic research in South Africa where he worked with LGBT and AIDS activists. As a transsexual, he has a unique and broad understanding of gender, as well as social categories more generally.
Since the election, Sam has been leading workshops on unlearning racism, toxic masculinity, and decolonizing teaching, as well as engaged spirituality/spiritual activism. Sam founded and directs Phoenix, Colorado’s Transgender Community Choir and has had a lifelong interest in the role of music in social justice movements. When not teaching or leading Phoenix, Sam has a shamanic counseling practice, leads vision quests, and is currently writing a book—part memoir, part gender studies, part spiritual teaching—called Transgender Wisdom: What I’ve Learned about Gender and Life from Living in the Grey Areas.