Greg Anderson introduced Ellen Krug, a member of the Minneapolis City of Lakes Rotary, attorney, activist, and author of Getting to Ellen: A Memoir about Love, Honesty and Gender Change. Ellen will also be a panel speaker at the upcoming Rotary Tri-District Summit in St. Cloud in April. 

From her online biography: “With over 100 civil trials to her credit, Ellie was the first Iowa lawyer to ever transition genders and one of the few attorneys nationally to try jury cases in separate genders. She later relocated to the Twin Cities where she served as the founding executive director of a legal nonprofit that was conferred an American Bar Association award for innovatively increasing legal access. Ellie has presented on diversity and inclusion to governmental entities, court systems, Fortune 100 companies, law firms, nonprofits, and colleges/universities on 800+ occasions. She is a Contributing Writer with Lavender Magazine, “Skirting the Issues” monthly column, 2011- present.”

Ellen shared her thoughts about Critical Race Theory, initially comparing it to fictional responses to polio prevention – asking us to imagine how we would feel if it was illegal to promote polio prevention. She defined 3 important words related to the discussion of Critical Race Theory: PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION, and PERSPECTIVE. Ellen maintained that there is only one race – the human race.  She also encouraged us to recognize discrimination and assess the resources and privileges in education, hiring, law enforcement, and other systems that can be unequally administered based on skin color or economic positions.