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Sober Pride

Friday, June 18, 2021

07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

Soberocity Zoom

NYC, NY, USA

Sober Pride is a panel hosted by Soberocity in honor of LGBTQIA+ Pride month. This empowering panel will dive into each panelist’s journey of navigating the sober and queer community, and their advice to newly sober individuals who are just embarking on this journey. Themes we will explore include: coming out as sober, how to participate in pride as a sober individual, and advice for the newly sober and sober curious. 

Our panelists include: Acclaimed queer, nonbinary trans author, Claire Rudy Foster, Singer and Songwriter best known for his appearances on FX’s The Four, Brennan Villines, Entrepreneur and Owner of Sis Got Tea, Arielle Clark, MBA, up and coming Street Style Photographer, Emilio Alexander Mendoza, and Hosts of The Sober Gay Podcast, Dillan Gay and Aubrey Lee.

Please send your questions to be asked to the panelists during this Zoom seminar in advance to alexandra@soberocity.com by 7pm EST on Thursday, June 17th.

Key information

  • Tickets are free for anyone who RSVPs, you will receive the Zoom link on the day of the event
  • You will need to be able to access Zoom or a telephone line to attend this virtual event 
  • Please email us at alexandra@soberocity.com should you have any accessibility requirements for attending this event

The Panelists

Claire Rudy Foster, a queer, nonbinary trans acclaimed author will also be joining us and sharing their experiences of navigating the world as a sober, queer, nonbinary person. Foster is the author of short story collection Shine of the Ever (Interlude Press, 2019), which O: The Oprah Magazine named as one of the best LGBTQ books of the year. Their writing has gone viral and appears on NPR, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, and many other journals. Foster’s award-winning work has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize four times, as well as several small press awards for excellence, including Lambda Literary Award, Foreword INDIES Award, Speculative Literature Foundation’s Working Class Writer Grant, NLA-International Nonfiction Writing Award, and SFWA Writing Award. Foster’s work can be found in the Library of Congress and has been read on the floor of the Senate. They speak at colleges and universities, hospitals, treatment centers, and schools about recovery and transgender issues.

Emilio Mendoza: Born and raised in the Dominican Republic. Relocated to New York at the age of 15. Finished HS and went to school in Boston, where he encountered drugs and alcohol for the first time. Throughout his 20s in New York, working in bars at restaurants all throughout the city, he found active addiction which lasted about 4 years. At the age of 27, he went to his first meeting and has been sober for the past 5 years. He is a self taught photographer, and currently attends Queens College to pursue his Photography BFA.”

Dillan Gay and Aubrey Lee host The Sober Gay Podcast, a show about being sober in the LGBT community and beyond. No topic is taboo in their conversations about sobriety. The Denver based show has new episodes 2-3 times a month.

Arielle Clark - she, her, hers - is a native of Louisville, KY. Born and raised in the Derby City, Arielle longed for a sober, safe space for LGBTQ+ people as she went through the growing pains of being a black, queer woman through adolescence and beyond.

Continuously searching for a space to be surrounded by black, queer, sober people, after quitting a job, she said, "I'll make one myself."

When she's not working on Sis Got Tea things, Arielle is sitting at home watching Youtube videos and loving on her cat, Alfonso. She's also testing, tasting, and smelling different teas for the cafe. So far, her favorite tea Sis Got Tea serves is White Passion.

Brennan Villines is an American singer and songwriter best known for his appearances on FX's The Four and The Voice. Villines grew up in a tiny, rural mid-western town in Kentucky, where he was the subject of heightened scrutiny because of his gregarious personality and apparent homosexuality. He connected with music when he was three years old and his mother put him in piano lessons. Since then, he has used music to get through the most difficult times in his life, including a devastating HIV diagnosis in 2011 and years of active meth abuse. He says in his darkest moments, when he couldn’t even breathe, he could still sing and that got him through a lot of pain and misery. After baring his soul and announcing five years of sobriety to a worldwide television audience, Villines continues to be an advocate for sobriety and the power of music and leads by example.

About Soberocity

Founded in 2017, Soberocity’s mission has always been clear: we want to connect people living a sober life with like-minded individuals through online meet-ups, live streams, and more. We want to change the perception of what it means to live a sober life and make it achievable and attainable for everyone suffering, or who has suffered, from addiction. Soberocity also believes in helping our community to stay sober and to pursue a sober life by offering sober resources and a unique opportunity to connect with other sober individuals. For us, sobriety is a spectrum and we fully embrace all looking to join our community, for together we are infinitely strong.

Soberocity is for anyone with an interest in retaining or gaining sobriety worldwide, including:

  • People who are sober curious
  • Anyone who is new to recovery
  • Anyone who has been in recovery for a long time
  • Sober companions, sponsors, and counselors looking to learn more about the sober community
  • Anyone looking to be surrounded by the sober community and be uplifted by it

Privacy Notice

Please note that this panel discussion may be recorded and shared online after the event. We may also use photos and screenshots from this virtual event to be used both internally and externally for learning, marketing and promotional reasons.

If 'dialing-in' to this event by telephone, your number will be visible on the Soberocity Zoom screen. You can dial '141' before the number you want to call to 'withhold' it.

Any views, information or opinions expressed by third parties during this panel discussion are the speakers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Soberocity or its affiliates.

If you have any questions, please email alexandra@soberocity.com.

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