Campus | Workplace | Community
Programs
Book Robyn for Your Next Event!
Robyn’s programs are interactive and dynamic and incorporate current research and ideas from the fields of psychology, sociology, queer theory, and women’s and gender studies in a manner that is accessible to a general audience. Her programs are not “one size fits all;” rather, Robyn will tailor her programs to meet your needs.
All of Robyn’s programs are interactive and engaging.
In addition to 90-minute programs, Robyn offers half- and full-day workshops, intensives, seminars, guest-lecturing in classes, conversations, webinars, and mini-conferences. People of all genders and sexual orientations are welcome to all of Robyn’s programs. Unless otherwise specified, all programs are appropriate for a general audience.
Digital Events
Here are some possible formats for digital events
60-minute program with a 10 to15 minute Q+A at the end
90-minute program with interaction throughout, including a 15 minute Q+A at the end
75-minute program with some interaction throughout, including a 10 to15 minute Q+A at the end
60-minute program with a 10 to15 minute Q+A, followed a 5-to-10-minute stretch/transition/bio break, then an additional 30 minutes of open conversation for a smaller,-self-selected group of those who wish to return or with the organizers of the event
60-, 75-, or 90-minute program with a shorter structured presentation (20-30 minutes) and a conversation/interview with one or two members of your organization
Robyn’s Most Popular Programs
Beyond Binaries: Identity and Sexuality: Many of us have seen the Kinsey Scale: seven boxes running from “exclusively heterosexual” to “exclusively homosexual.” In this interactive program, we take that scale apart in real time. Is it measuring sex, or gender? Attraction to the “opposite” gender, or a “different” one? What do you do if you don’t see yourself on any of the seven numbers at all? And what do we mean by “attraction”? Through a live, anonymous survey of the room and a series of deliberate edits to Kinsey’s original model, we build toward a more honest picture of where we actually locate ourselves on the continua of sexuality and gender, how old we were when we came to our identities, and how well the people who love us really understand who we are. This program will change the way you think about labels and dismantle binary assumptions about identity along the way.
Getting Bi: Challenging Biphobia and Bi Erasure & Creating a Culture of Inclusion: Bi+ people are the largest, and one of the least understood and overlooked, part of the LGBTQIA+ community. What does it really mean to identify as bi+, and why does bisexuality still get erased or doubted, even in queer spaces? This engaging, interactive program hands participants real tools for recognizing and challenging biphobia and bi erasure, for keeping up with rapidly-evolving language, and for building a genuine culture of inclusion. Come ready to find some bi+ joy along the way.
All the Letters: Understanding LGBTQIA+ Identities & Experiences in 2026: What’s understood inside the LGBTQ+ community that most people outside it don’t know? That’s the question at the center of this program. Nearly one in four Gen Z adults now identify as LGBTQ+, and young adults today have a fundamentally different relationship to sexual orientation and gender than their elders do. What’s actually changed, and what do you need to know to stay culturally competent? Bring your questions, your own experience, and an open mind; this session meets people wherever they’re starting from.
More Programs for a General Audience
How to Respond to Now: Sustainable Activism for Humans: Our world needs a lot of fixing right now, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless. It’s hard to know what to do or where to begin. This program explores different types of activism and makes the case that there are many ways to make a difference. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s powerful concept of self-care as an act of political resistance, we will collaborate to build actionable toolkits for activism, self-care. and community-care.
Target audience: any
Bi+ History (a.k.a.: Setting the Record Straight Bi+): The word “bisexual” first appeared in English print in 1892. Since then, bi+ people have shown up everywhere, and yet have still been almost entirely written out of LGBTQIA+ history, which remains mostly a history of the G, with some attention to the L and, more recently, the T. Robyn Ochs — an LGBTQIA+ and, specifically, bi/pan/queer activist and educator since the early 1980s who has co-founded bi+ organizations and spoken on bisexuality at hundreds of campuses, conferences and workplaces in 22 countries, plus the White House — walks us through decades of bi+ history most of us never learned, and helps set the record straight bi+.
Target audience: college, community
Bi+ Histories, Bi+ Futures: The word “bisexual” entered the English language in 1892. Since then, bi+ people have shown up everywhere from the Bloomsbury Group to the Harlem Renaissance to Kinsey’s landmark 1948 study — and have still been almost entirely written out of “LGBTQIA+ history,” which remains mostly a history of the G. Robyn Ochs — an LGBTQIA+ and, specifically, bi/pan/queer activist and educator since the early 1980s who has co-founded bi+ organizations and spoken on bisexuality at hundreds of campuses, conferences and workplaces in 22 countries, plus the White House — helps set the record straight bi+, tracing the movement from its earliest roots to today. Then we shift gears, moving from reflecting on the past to imagining what can be: together, we’ll co-create a vision for bi+ futures.
Target audience: college, community
The Changing Landscape of Identity: Understanding and Supporting Students of All Gender Identities & Sexual Orientations: Think back to the first time you learned LGBTQIA+ people existed. Now think about today’s young people, many of whom are growing up in a very different world. Few of us — of any generation — ever received a comprehensive education about sexual orientation or gender identity. The teens and twenties are years of exploration and discovery, and for a growing number of students that includes real questions about their own identity, sexuality, and gender — which, for LGBTQ+ youth, can be a genuinely stressful and high-stakes time. Drawing on decades of direct work with teens and young adults, Robyn shares research, real observations, and hard-won lessons on how to actually support them.
Target audience: Versions of this program are available for students, for faculty and staff, for those training to be teachers, social workers, etc.
Choosing to Label: What’s in a Name?: “What’s in a name?” Shakespeare asked it about roses. We’re asking it about identity. Bi, lesbian, gay, straight, queer, questioning, choose-not-to-label — how do you decide which label fits? Is there a difference between identities you’ve chosen and those other people assign you? Are labels simply tools for communication — the sign on the door — or more? In this participatory workshop, we’ll run a cost-benefit analysis on the labels we carry — what a label does for you, what it costs you, and whether it’s even possible to opt out of the whole system — and come away thinking about identity differently.
Target audience: any
Bisexuality: A Transnational Perspective: Is bisexuality experienced the same way everywhere? Not even close. How does context shape our experience of bisexuality, and what stays constant no matter where you are? Drawing on readings from Robyn’s own 42-country anthology, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World and from Bi Women Quarterly, which she edits, this session examines bisexuality through a transnational and intersectional lens.
Target audience: college, classrooms, community
Expanding Our Circles: On college campuses, many of us are actively re-imagining gender and sexual orientation — creating new language, new social spaces, new ways of relating to each other. That work is exciting and important. Grounded in a framework of positionality and intersectionality — Kimberlé Crenshaw’s understanding of how our different identities layer and interact — this program is for student organizations ready to think concretely about how to share what they’ve learned with others, and how to make their communities’ borders more permeable and welcoming to newcomers.
Target audience: LGBTQIA+ leaders and/or active members of campus orgs.
RECOMMENDED FOR YOUTH:
Bi-fabulous & Pan-tastic!: What does it mean to identify as bi+ — bisexual, pansexual, fluid, and beyond? Bi+ people make up the largest, and often most overlooked, part of the LGBTQ+ community. No matter how you identify, this engaging, interactive program hands you real tools for challenging ignorance, biphobia, and bi erasure, and for finding bi+ joy.
Target audience: youth
All the Letters: 10 Things that Gen Z Knows about LGBTQIA+ Identity That Your Elders May Not: Our culture around identity is changing fast, and it’s not always easy to keep up — for anyone, at any age. We’ll dig into some of the biggest shifts and build real strategies for communicating better across generations, and within our own.
Target audience: youth
Workplace + Special Audience Programs
Robyn is a regular presenter at the Out & Equal Workplace Summit and has presented to numerous professional audiences — among those Bank of America, Capco, Chevron, CNA Insurance, Corning Corporation, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Dell Technologies, DocuSign, Ernst & Young, Flex, Freddie Mac, Google, GSK, Harbourvest, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, KSG, Lazard, Pearson, Travelers, T. Rowe Price, UL, Ulteig, WestRock, and more. She has also presented at the White House, at the the EPA, at SAMHSA, and other federal agencies, and at more than 500 colleges, universities and conferences in the United States and beyond. Her work has taken her, so far, to 49 U.S. states and to 21 additional countries.
Robyn’s programs are engaging and informative. In addition to 60-, 75- and 90-minute programs, she offers half- and full-day workshops. She has been called, on more than one occasion, “the easiest speaker we’ve ever worked with.”
Getting Bi at Work: Getting to Cultural Competence in the Workplace: Language is always changing. In 2018, Merriam-Webster named “pansexual” one of its words of the year. In 2019, it was “they.” By 2020, Merriam-Webster had rewritten its own definition of “bisexual” to reflect a fuller range of gender identities — proof that even the dictionary is playing catch-up. This program covers the essentials for the workplace: bi+ identity and terminology, population data and trends, and what the day-to-day experience of being bi+ at work actually looks like. Walk away with concrete, practical steps for how employers, ERGs, and individual colleagues can better welcome bi+ people into both the ERG and the broader workplace.
Target audience: workplaces, employee resource/affinity groups
All the Letters: Understanding LGBTQIA+ Identities & Experiences in 2026: What’s understood inside the LGBTQ+ community that most of your colleagues have never been taught? How are people actually using and experiencing sexual orientation and gender right now, and what do you need to know to be genuinely culturally competent at work? Bring your questions, your own knowledge and experience, and an open mind.
Target audience: workplaces, employee resource/affinity groups
Meeting the Health Needs of Bisexual People: Research shows bisexual people report worse health outcomes than both heterosexual and gay/lesbian populations. The data shows that bisexual people report higher rates than heterosexuals of tobacco use, binge drinking, anxiety, depression, and suicidality, and on several of these measures bi+ people fare worse than lesbians and gay men too. Bisexual women in particular are less likely to have had a cancer screening and more likely to have experienced intimate partner violence than lesbians. This program grounds those numbers in real stories and turns them into something usable: concrete best practices for health professionals who want to meet bi+ patients with more awareness and less guesswork, and real tools bi+ people can use to advocate for their own care.
Target audience: health providers or students in the health fields; bi+ people
Addressing the Needs of Bi+ Older Adults: “I feel really isolated and misunderstood,” one bi+ elder said, describing a support group that didn’t quite get her. Bi+ older adults are often the least visible people in senior housing, caregiving relationships, and healthcare settings — sometimes even within LGBTQ+-specific spaces, Drawing on population data and on bi+ elders’ own words about what does and doesn’t feel safe — in a doctor’s office, in rehab, in senior housing — this program looks at the disparities bi+ older adults face and what caregivers, senior communities, and health providers can concretely do to help them feel safe, seen, and welcome.
Target audience: aging services providers, senior living communities, healthcare providers, bi+ older adults
Bisexual+ Youth: Challenging Stigma and Reducing Disparities: To paraphrase Kermit: it ain’t easy being bi+. Like bi+ adults, bi+ youth fare worse than their lesbian and gay peers on measure after measure: higher rates of suicidality, higher rates of intimate partner violence, and less connection to support and resources. In this program, we look at population and disparities data — with real attention to the experiences of bi+ youth of color and the impact of holding multiple marginalized identities — unpack the stigma and messaging bi+ youth absorb, and leave with concrete strategies for supporting youth with multigender attraction.
Target audience: health providers or students in the health fields
Understanding Bisexuality: Challenging Stigma and Reducing Disparities Among College Students: Bi+ people — those who identify as bisexual, pansexual, and beyond — make up the largest segment of the LGBTQIA+ population, but they carry some of its heaviest burdens: higher rates of suicidality and intimate partner violence than their lesbian and gay counterparts, driven not by their identity itself but by what researchers call “minority stress” — the toll of navigating a hostile environment. This program highlights the disparities bi+ college students face, challenges the negative messages and stigma surrounding bi+ identity, and offers real, concrete strategies for supporting bi+ students.
Target audience: faculty, staff, student affairs professionals or students.
Extended Program (Full Day)
Framing Identity + Sexuality: Identity and sexuality are complicated, and a full day gives us room to actually sit with that complexity. What do recent studies tell us about how people self-identify — and what does that data reveal, or conceal? In this experiential training, we’ll use interactive exercises — including some of the same live, in-the-room mapping — to deepen our understanding of sexual-orientation labeling: identity journeys over time, emerging identities, the complex interplay between gender identity and sexual orientation labels, and how factors like nationality, geography, age, race, and religion shape how we identify. Throughout, we’ll focus on bisexuality and other non-binary sexualities to better understand the specific issues and disparities this population faces.
(Full day, three- and four-hour versions of this program are available.)
Talks + Keynotes
Robyn is a dynamic keynote speaker. Please consider inviting her to speak at your conference or event. Below are a few examples of potential keynotes: Note: All talks are followed by a facilitated discussion.
Beyond Binaries: Identity and Sexuality: A modified version of the interactive program described above, reimagined as a dynamic — and entirely non-traditional — keynote.
Transgressing Binaries: Activism & Academia: What barriers stand between the streets and the ivory tower? What value can campus and community activists bring to each other? How can we build effective bridges and coalitions between them?
My Family Values: Lessons from 40 years of LGBTQ+ Rights Advocacy: Robyn draws on 45 years as an LGBTQ+ rights activist, candidly discussing both the mistakes and the successes of the movement. Where are we now? Where should we be heading?
Imagining Our Lives: We’re living through tremendous advances in LGBTQ+ lives — but the progress is uneven. In some places, LGBTQ+ people have more rights than ever; in others, progress is being actively rolled back, and both support and backlash are on the rise. Words of encouragement for challenging times.
Additional Speaking:
Lavender Graduation Keynotes
Custom programs
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“Robyn’s workshop was tremendously informative and engaging, and it has stuck with me for years… participants see what genuine diversity and fluidity look[s] like. The result is a rejection not only of the notion of binaries but of the dominant societal narratives about orientation.”
“A tireless speaker, so energetic and skilled. While giving a presentation, not matter if it is just 12 people or 200, she amazingly gets everyone involved. And lightbulbs go off left and right (and beyond the binary.)”
“THANK YOU again for your superlative presentation today! You were wonderful – funny, disarming, inspiring and full of insights. The feedback we received afterward was highly complimentary. We couldn’t be prouder to showcase you.”