Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza

Transgender Public Scholar, Intellectual Activist, Visiting Professor, Duke Divinity School & Named Faith Leader to Watch by the Center for American Progress

Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza

Transgender Public Scholar, Intellectual Activist, Visiting Professor, Duke Divinity School & Named Faith Leader to Watch by the Center for American Progress

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Biography

Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza has always been a reluctant leader—knowing that collaboration and togetherness are a way forward even when society does not always value these skills. But it has never stopped him from trying. He is passionate about the politics of radical difference and the ways our collective differences might shed light on how we become a better body together. He is also a teacher at heart and loves being with people and learning alongside communities.

These passions are reflected in his career. Dr. Roberto is a transgender scholar-activist and was named a Faith Leader to Watch by the Center for American Progress. He is the founder of Our Collective Becoming, a Nashville-based collaborative project dedicated to social healing, nurturing radical belonging, conviviality and stewarding ethical futures. He is also the author of two books: Activist Theology and Body Becoming: A Path to Our Liberation. His next book-length project focuses on belonging and freedom.

Dr. Roberto is also on the faculty at Duke Divinity School, teaching at the intersections of queer theory, theology and ethics, and decolonial thought. He has been featured in fashion magazines and appeared on many podcasts, including Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird.

Drawing on his work as a scholar-activist, theologian and community leader, Dr. Roberto speaks with universities, faith communities, organizations, and corporations about belonging, queer justice, intersectionality, anti-racism and the spiritual work required to build more just and compassionate communities. Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza works in partnership with APB Speakers for speaking engagements worldwide.

As a public scholar, speaker and intellectual activist, Dr. Roberto is committed to translating theory into action so that our work in the borderlands reflects the deep spiritual work of transforming ourselves in order to transform the world.

Speaker Videos

Interview Roberto Che Espinoza

Why the separation of mind & body is dangerous | Roberto Che Espinoza | TEDxNashville

Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza: an eternal search for joyful belonging

Speech Topics

Overcoming Adversity to Help Change the World

In this powerful and deeply personal keynote, Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza shares a remarkable journey of resilience, identity, and purpose. Growing up in Longview, Texas as the child of a Mexican mother and Anglo father, Dr. Roberto learned early how to navigate the complexities of being mixed-race, queer, gender non-conforming, and autistic in a world that often struggles to understand difference. After surviving a life-threatening brain aneurysm at age sixteen and undergoing two emergency craniotomies, Dr. Roberto emerged with a renewed commitment to living with courage and intention. Through candid storytelling and reflection, Dr. Roberto reveals how adversity can become a catalyst for strength, empathy, and leadership. This keynote challenges audiences to see their own experiences not as limitations but as sources of power that can inspire meaningful change in the world.

Audiences will learn:

How personal adversity can shape resilience, purpose, and leadership.
Why embracing identity and lived experience can strengthen empathy and connection.
How individuals can transform challenges into opportunities to create positive social change.

Bridging Difference: Building Pluralism Through Interfaith Leadership

In this thoughtful and engaging keynote, Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza explores how meaningful relationships across lines of faith, culture, and identity can strengthen communities and institutions. Drawing on principles central to interfaith cooperation and religious pluralism, Dr. Roberto challenges audiences to rethink “bridging” not as erasing difference but as learning to engage it with curiosity, humility, and respect. Through personal stories of unexpected dialogue and relationship-building with people from vastly different religious and ideological backgrounds, Dr. Roberto demonstrates how shared values and moral imagination can emerge even amid disagreement. Dr. Roberto highlights how interfaith leadership can create spaces where diverse worldviews coexist while working toward the common good. The result is a hopeful vision of pluralism where difference becomes a source of strength rather than division.

Audiences will learn:

Why interfaith cooperation and religious pluralism are essential to healthy, diverse communities.
How engaging differences with curiosity and humility can foster trust and meaningful relationships.
Practical ways leaders and communities can build bridges across faith, culture, and ideology.

How Technology Can Steward Ethical Futures

As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the way we work, communicate, and make decisions, it also raises urgent questions about fairness, accountability, and human impact. In this thought-provoking keynote, Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza examines how emerging technologies like AI can both advance innovation and unintentionally reinforce existing social biases. Drawing on research and real-world examples, Dr. Roberto explores how algorithmic systems—from hiring tools to facial recognition—can disproportionately affect marginalized communities if left unchecked. Dr. Roberto challenges audiences to think critically about who designs technology, whose voices are included in those processes, and what ethical responsibility organizations have when deploying new systems. This talk offers a forward-looking vision for building technologies that support equity, dignity, and more livable futures for everyone.

Audiences will learn:

How bias can appear in AI systems and why it disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.
Why ethical leadership and diverse perspectives are essential in the development of new technologies.
Practical ways organizations can help shape more responsible and inclusive technological futures.

The History of Pride: Past, Present & Future

In this engaging and thought-provoking keynote, Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza explores the evolution of Pride, from its roots in protest and liberation to the global celebrations we see today. Blending historical insight with personal reflection as a transgender scholar-activist, Dr. Roberto traces the movement’s origins and the social forces that helped shape it over time. Dr. Roberto examines how Pride has grown into a powerful platform for visibility, advocacy, and community connection while also raising important questions about its future. Dr. Roberto also highlights how organizations, sponsors, and communities can work together to ensure Pride remains meaningful and inclusive. This keynote invites audiences to reflect on the deeper purpose of Pride and the role each of us can play in carrying its legacy forward.

Audiences will learn:

The historical roots of Pride and how it evolved into a global movement.
How partnerships between organizations and communities can strengthen the impact of Pride events.
Ways individuals and institutions can help ensure Pride continues to reflect its original spirit of advocacy and inclusion.

Why Real DEI Work Is Neither Woke Nor Weak

In this compelling keynote, Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza challenges common misconceptions about diversity, equity, and inclusion and reframes what meaningful DEI work actually looks like in practice. Rather than slogans or performative gestures, Dr. Roberto argues that real DEI is about building stronger organizations through accountability, trust, and a deeper understanding of how people experience the workplace. Drawing on research, lived experience, and work with institutions around the world, Dr. Roberto explores how organizations can move beyond surface-level programs toward cultures rooted in belonging and shared responsibility. With honesty and clarity, Dr. Roberto explains why thoughtful DEI efforts are not about ideology but about leadership, resilience, and organizational health. This keynote offers a practical roadmap for leaders who want to build workplaces where people can contribute fully and succeed together.

Audiences will learn:

Why effective DEI work strengthens organizations rather than dividing them.
How intersectional awareness and trust-building improve workplace culture and collaboration.
Practical strategies for moving beyond performative programs toward meaningful belonging and accountability.

Testimonials

"Dr. Roberto’s deeply contextual, embodied work as an activist theologian brought necessary depth to our conference. As a panelist for 'Bridging Communities: Faith-Based Leadership,' Dr. Roberto’s engaging humor and rigorous imagination expanded the conversation, calling the audience to 'hold curiosity for borderlands as places to sit rather than bridges to be crossed.' Dr. Roberto’s attention to intersectional liberation and thoughtful engagement across faith traditions was instrumental, and the panel was consistently ranked a conference highlight in our post-conference survey."

- Programming Chair, Pan-Harvard LGBTQ Conference

“We enjoyed having Dr. Roberto with us. The conversations he had with students and faculty were particularly meaningful, poignant and important. I also know a number of our classes were able to take the content of his talk and use it in their discussion of topics in the course regarding systems and oppression."

- Choate Rosemary Hall

"Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza brings insight, compassion, and a remarkable ability to connect with students. Dr. Espinoza engages the audience with keen intelligence and a candid, compassionate dialogue that challenges concepts of social justice and human rights work."

- Associate Director, LGBT Resource Office, East Carolina University

“Roberto brings dynamic, prophetic possibilities to life, whether in an academic lecture, a blog post, or from a protest megaphone. They bring a unique blend: grounded, activist-informed, and community-engaged human, who is deeply philosophical and theological. They weave humor, story-telling, passion, and personal vulnerabilities with analytical critique and lived practice to imagine new ways of being and becoming in the world that dismantle white supremacy and liberate those most oppressed.”

- Assistant Director, Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality, Vanderbilt Divinity School

“As this year's Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium unfolded the emerging meaning of 'Trans,' we enjoyed as featured guest Roberto Che Espinoza. Their contribution of opening keynote address one day, and public interview the next was a dazzling gift of intellectual depth and imaginative creativity, and generous conversational engagement. Dr. Roberto left us not just aglow with edgy insight but provoked to fresh action.”

- George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology, Drew University, Graduate Division of Religion

“As a scholar, writer, and speaker, Roberto is laying the foundation for an Activist Theology that must accompany today’s movements for justice, if we’re to sustain ourselves and each other long enough to realize a world in which individual and collective liberation are possible. With wit and charm and a laser-like capacity to name bullshit, Roberto rejects the simple narratives that would have us turn “community” into a mere buzzword and spiritual practice into another consumerist fad. They possess that rare capacity to name complexity without being paralyzed by it, attacking white supremacy and its effects with a ferocious intelligence while continuing to expand who’s at the table and to work across difference, and rejecting bad theology while lifting up the radical principles that underpin history’s most powerful wisdom teachings and religious texts. For anyone interested in liberation theology and deep community building, their teachings are mandatory listening.”

- Founder of The Dinner Party

"The work of Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza is important not just to theologians or clergy, but to anyone who desires to understand the overlapping strands between theology, activism, and intersectional liberation. In a moment when Americans urgently need to consider not just what we believe, but what belief looks like when it’s out on the streets and in our communities, Dr. Roberto is a prophetic voice."

- College Writing Programs, UC Berkeley

"Wow, Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza's presentations deeply expanded my thinking, theological vocabulary, and understanding of theory-practice connections, and energized my spirit in ways I could not have imagined would be possible at an academic conference. In question and answer sessions, Dr. Roberto brought a model combination of candor, graciousness, attentiveness, and an invitation to think and dialogue with them in politicized, honest, theoretically generative exchanges."

- Professor of Ethics and African American Studies, Drew University Theological School

“Weeks later, students at Hollins are still talking about Dr. Roberto’s lecture, describing it as: 'balm for our weary souls.' Seamlessly weaving personal story together with theory and theology, Dr. Roberto spoke about strategies for surviving and resisting supremacist ideologies and institutions. They suggested we start by answering two basic questions: 'Who am I?' and 'Who are my people?' I have rarely witnessed such an elegant blending of theory, practice, and personal narrative. Dr. Roberto’s lecture was so much more than an academic presentation; it was a gift of spiritual activism at work.”

- John P. Wheeler Professor of Religious Studies, Chair, Global Politics and Societies Department, Hollins University, Roanoke VA