My Journey

cody freeman’s mission is to create freedom through education for queer youth globally. Their work centers on leading the transformative shift of systems through actionable strategies, including radical listening and embodied wisdom (leading by listening), power sharing and democratic practices (knowing that everyone is an expert in their own lived realities), and intersectional movement-building (aiming to be a bridge between academia, civil society, and the United Nations).

What does it mean to be free? As a queer, genderfluid redhead growing up on a farm in Muncie, Indiana, they continuously questioned their role in this world. Purpose was not far away as all they had to do was look at their mom. A strong, single mother, Lenette used her grit and resilience to create targeted, community-centered programs such as the youth leadership academy, mayor’s youth council, and greenways that connected racially segregated communities. Her legacy lives on through Unity Pass, a local monument designed by the youth she taught, as a powerful reminder that individual actions have the potential to bridge divides. Even a decade after her passing, cody is still driven by her example and has taught and traveled to all 50 U.S. states 32 countries to bring her transformative approaches in their local community to a global scale.

cody moved to Philadelphia for their undergraduate degree to study theater, as they believe that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have to create change. Through their position at the Missoula Children’s Theater, they directed nearly 100 musicals in 60 different communities working with 50,000+ kids throughout the primary and secondary school level teaching life skills through the performing arts. Week after week, community after community, they saw that lightbulb moment – that moment of transformation when someone acquires new knowledge – and fell in love with teaching. Further, they were sparked into action after the Pulse nightclub massacre and committed themselves to use the potential of education to end violence against LGBTI+ people.

They moved to New York and attended Teachers College Columbia University in the International Educational Development program, concentrating on Peace and Human Rights Education, to gain the knowledge and skills needed to build twenty-first century community centers. They were dedicated to using the privilege of the institution as a tool to further social justice and explored this through numerous projects, including managing the first-ever LGBT school climate survey from conception to publication in five Western European countries: Belgium, Iceland, Italy, Malta, and Portugal.

During this time, they led afterschool educational programs of 50 teachers and 300 hundred students across three K-5 public schools in New York City’s Upper West Side. They also worked for the Human Rights Campaign Equality Votes Lead Organizer & Steering Committee Member as they recruited 300 new volunteers within two months to mobilize 35,000+ voters in national battleground states in support of pro-equality candidates for local, state, and national elections and recruited three hundred new volunteers within two months. Upon graduation, they realized they needed to place themselves outside of solely Western paradigms and learn how freedom and democracy was conceptualized in different contexts. Thus, a week after graduation, they booked a one-way to ticket to the land of smiles.

They arrived in Thailand at a time when students and LGBTI+ people were on the frontlines of pro-democracy protests bubbling up across the region. Thailand was marketed as LGBT paradise, encapsulated in the phrase Go Thai, Be Free. They went there to learn best practices, yet they found that even the “best place to be LGBT” is still not a good place – where we may be tolerated and visible but not accepted. Underneath the surface, a depth of inequalities made them continuously contemplate if change was truly possible. That is why their role as a Lecturer & Foreign Expert at the Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education, Thammasat University became a dream job. This position allowed cody to find their purpose within the Academy as they taught and advised 500+ students at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level, and allowed them to gain one of my greatest superpowers: knowing how to create community.  

cody founded The Global Center for LGBTI+ Freedom and Education because they wanted to create a space that they never had when they were a child – a space where the LGBTI+ community can unite with our diverse and intersectional identities to build a movement on democratic values. They started the organization through conversations with friends and it has now grown to a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization registered in the United States with 46 youth activists working across 20 countries. The space allows them to experiment with the question of what it means to be free, balancing global and local impacts. They have published resource packs for numerous stakeholders, trained hundreds of teachers, advocated the United Nations, lobbied the U.S. Department of Education, and co-organized the first-ever LGBTQI+ youth activist conference in Central Asia and Europe resulting in The Together Statement. As an entrepreneur in this space, they self-taught themselves the skills of non-profit registration, trademark, project management, business and development, volunteer engagement, grant writing, marketing and communications, advocacy and social campaigns, lobbying, research, onboarding, monitoring and evaluation, accounting, and the development of practical and contextually-specific tools for impact. 

They moved to Minneapolis and are currently a PhD student in the Comparative and International Development Education program in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. They are housed in the field of comparative and international education (where they co-created the first-ever LGBT- and Southeast Asia- focused significant interest group within the Comparative and International Education Society), but embody interdisciplinary approaches in their work including sociology, gender and sexuality studies, international humanitarian law, and business leadership. They’ve written extensively, including articles in TIME, 100+ articles on Medium, systematic literature reviews on the barriers and facilitators of teachers in addressing LGBT+ topics in primary and secondary education, and a study on the mental health and well-being of children and youth with diverse SOGIESC in Thailand. Fun fact: You can also see them as a background actor with Chris Hemsworth on Saturday Night Live.

Most recently, they served as the first-ever SOGIESC fellow at Save the Children where they spearheaded the development of a transnational SOGIESC Capabilities Statement through a rigorous, in-depth mapping and multi-pronged Situation Analysis. This resulted in 20 key informant interviews across 14 offices and the first archive of 62 SOGIESC-related internal and external materials. They later collaborated on the report Rising Backlash, highlighting the existential threats and factors impacting LGBTQI+ children and youth today. Additionally, they were a consultant for The World Bank where they supported the development of the first practitioners' note to provide education specialists with the necessary resources and knowledge on SOGI inclusion in education. They have also worked with USAID, IREX, Youth Excel, & YOTA to produce the Youth Excel Report, which identifies the trends, innovations, and locally-appropriate opportunities for supporting youth mental health in Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia.

Ultimately, cody believes that education is the most powerful tool we have to create freedom for queer youth. They encourage you to reach out to start a dialogue and foster community in the movement towards transformative and sustainable impact.