Akkai Padmashali is a transgender activist based in Bangalore, India, and the founder of Ondede, an organization working toward gender justice across social movements in India.  A longtime grassroots activist, Akkai was one of the co-petitioners who challenged Section 377, a colonial-era law that criminalized sodomy, in the Supreme Court of India in 2018. Her autobiography, Akkai: Karunegondu Savalu (Akkai: A Challenge to Sympathy), was written in collaboration with Prof. Gowri Vijayakumar and Prof. Dominic Davidappa, and published in Kannada in the summer of 2021.  The English version, A Small Step in a Long Journey, will be published early in 2022. Akkai has won regional and national awards for her work as an activist and educator, and has traveled around the world to advocate and build coalitions around gender justice.

Attend in-person at Burdine Hall room 556 or over Zoom.