419. Cole LeFavour: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Release Date: 08/13/2026
419. Cole LeFavour: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Finding and forging one’s identity and purpose can be challenging enough. Doing that while also being a member of a marginalized identity living in a conservative milieu can add more complexity to this experience. For former state Senator Cole LeFavour, that was very much a reality. LeFavour chronicles their life in a new book, In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America. As Idaho’s first out LGBTQ+ lawmaker, LeFavour explores a journey through gender, power, and rebellion against a reactionary system. When LeFavour was 11 years old,...
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418. Barbara McQuade with Debora Juarez: Preserving Our Democracy
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
New York Times bestselling author and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade offers an exposé on what she frames as an escalating threat of far-right politics to both national security and American democracy. In The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government, McQuade draws on her decades of legal experience to argue how systems of organized crime and political opportunism exploit the levers of power — using corruption, cruelty, and chaos as tools to dominate institutions and eliminate accountability. McQuade exposes government tactics like information...
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417. Peter Beinart with Smadar Ben-Natan: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
As the Gaza war stretches into its third year, journalism professor and MSNBC analyst Peter Beinart claims that, as a Jew, he must reckon with the intense moral and theological tensions that not only he holds, but what he sees as challenges for Judaism as a whole. Because of these tensions, Beinart believes the Jewish community must build a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? From his book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, MSNBC analyst Peter Beinart imagines a world where Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in...
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416. Kimberlé Crenshaw with Angela Rye: Backtalker: An American Memoir
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
By way of structured academia or outspoken social commentary, the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw can be found woven throughout the fabric of modern American sociopolitical discourse. Through establishing the concepts of intersectionality and critical race theory, Crenshaw helped lay a foundation for decades of discussion and activism around race and gender across the world. In her upcoming memoir Backtalker, Crenshaw recounts the personal journeys that shaped her as someone who champions taking notice and speaking up. With intimate and compelling storytelling, Crenshaw takes readers...
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415. Celebrating Bike Everywhere Month 2026: 2nd Annual Bike Month Bash
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Do you bike in Seattle — or want to? Join Cascade Bike Club for Town Hall Seattle’s 2nd annual Bike Month Bash. Seattle’s bike network and transit connections are expanding as the city prepares for the FIFA World Cup and a flood of visitors this summer. But gaps remain, and more work is needed to make people of all abilities feel safe biking in our city. There are also many opportunities to support better biking in Seattle, such as the Pedaling Relief Project that rescues and delivers food on behalf of multiple food banks. Bring your enthusiasm and questions for our panel of...
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414. Red May 2026: ICE-Age Policing presented by Town Hall Seattle and Red May
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
a month-long spree of red arts, red theory, and red politics based in Seattle, Washington, gathers each spring to discuss a world beyond capitalism. For this year’s event at Town Hall Seattle, Red May brings together a panel to discuss policing in the age of ICE. “Counterinsurgency has come home. Since the end of the Vietnam War, innovations in militarized policing have come one after another. No knock raids. AI surveillance. Clear and hold neighborhoods. Each new tactic or strategy has been rubber-stamped in Congress by both Democrats and Republicans under the guise of a...
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413. Khiara M. Bridges with Dr. Karen A. Scott: Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Black people are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, a harrowing statistic that reproductive advocate and author Khiara M. Bridges has been dedicating efforts towards examining for years. The heightened issues facing Black people in maternal healthcare have deep roots in the history of racial inequality in the US and — as Bridges’ most recent work unpacks — persist now even across income levels. In her newest book, Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans, Bridges brings attention to the stories...
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412. Speaking of Seattle: Immigrant Rights Are Human Rights: Hosted by Marcus Harrison Green with Angelina Godoy, Roxana Norouzi, Erika Evans, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
At a moment when national politics are testing the boundaries of constitutional protections and human dignity, local communities are asking a vital question: What can we do to protect one another? Town Hall Seattle and The Stranger present the March 19 edition of the Speaking of Seattle civic conversation series, an evening focused on immigrant rights, community responsibility, and the everyday actions that help safeguard our neighbors. This timely conversation explores how federal immigration enforcement policies ripple through local communities — and how ordinary people can respond...
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411. Cindy Cohn: Protecting Privacy in the Digital Age
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
As we cascade further into the digital age, concerns over privacy and data security continue to rise with increasing urgency. As artificial intelligence expands its reach, vast aggregates of personal data are constantly being mined to refine future models. But, the fight for digital privacy is as old as the digital age itself. In Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance, author and Digital Rights Activist, Cindy Cohn, chronicles her career-long battle to preserve our right to privacy online. Part memoir and part legal history for a general...
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409. How to be a Strategic Political Donor: With former US Ambassador Suzi LeVine and Joe Nguyễn
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Are you ever overwhelmed with politics and trying to figure out how and where to channel your resources to make a difference? Or, worse, have you thrown up your hands in disgust and opted for the couch? Join an empowering conversation on “How to be a strategic political donor,” where you will learn that you have agency and can make a difference in determining the future of our Democracy. Based on her decades-long journey in this arena, U.S. Ambassador (ret) Suzi LeVine will paint the landscape of the political ecosystem and decode their acronyms; provide a roadmap with key elections and...
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Finding and forging one’s identity and purpose can be challenging enough. Doing that while also being a member of a marginalized identity living in a conservative milieu can add more complexity to this experience. For former state Senator Cole LeFavour, that was very much a reality.
LeFavour chronicles their life in a new book, In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America. As Idaho’s first out LGBTQ+ lawmaker, LeFavour explores a journey through gender, power, and rebellion against a reactionary system. When LeFavour was 11 years old, their parents uprooted the family and purchased a ranch in the rugged landscape of Idaho. Cole and their sister came of age in the remote backcountry, learning about themselves and the world in the wilds of a rural environment situated within a larger system of inequality.
By the time they left for college, Cole was starting to grapple with their queer and nonbinary identity and was concerned about what lay ahead in their red home state. In the Arms of Mountains traces the contours of Cole’s life—from formative years connected to the land to working as a fire lookout and lone ranger, to joining anti-apartheid protests, and later becoming Idaho’s first openly queer legislator.
LeFavour’s memoir aims to be a cautionary yet inspiring story of the power of political resistance in places you least expect it.
Cole Nicole LeFavour is an activist, an award-winning journalist, and a writer whose stories and essays have appeared in The North American Review, Idaho Wilderness Considered, Confluence, Sawtooth-White Cloud, among others. In 2004, LeFavour became the first openly LGBTQ+ member of the Idaho Legislature, serving as an Idaho State Senator for 8 years and leading multiple acts of civil disobedience at the State Capitol.
