About
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Hey there, so nice to meet you
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I am Ly, a writer
I am also Lily Dong Li, a human rights advocate, speaker, and facilitator
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…both me, two cups that flow and inform the other
this website is an attempt to introduce you to both
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“I am large, I contain multitudes” - Walt Whitman
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Ly
- the writer
°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·。°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·。°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·。
Ly Rosengard (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, Chinese-English Londoner living in Brooklyn—yes, another one!
Ly is a writer of prose, poetry, and more recently, scripts. By day, Ly is a LGBTQIA+ human rights advocate, by night, they are a writer obsessed with the intersection of mental health & mental illness, queerness, friendship, love, and people power. Ly is currently working on a novel, short stories, and a documentary.
They run The Mental, a Substack of candid conversations about lived experiences of mental health & mental illness. Ly has fiction, non-fiction, and poetry published in The Rejoinder Literary Magazine, The Independent, The Times, Third Place Zine, and Deviant: Chronicles of Pride.
Ly’s fiction has received support from Tin House and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Ly holds a BA in Philosophy & Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Political Science: Human Rights from University College London.
Lily Dong Li
- the advocate & speaker
°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·。°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·。°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·。
Lily Dong Li Rosengard (they/them) is the Senior Specialist on Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics at ILGA World: The International LGBTI Association.
Lily is a She Decides Champion, representing ILGA World, advocating for bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health & rights for all.
Lily is the co-founder of Community Care Collective, a global grassroots activist network that centres radical love and community care at the heart of the social justice movement, whilst ending taboo and shame around mental health and mental illness and other intersecting topics typically stigmatised in society.
Lily began their advocacy as a student activist, and they have over a decade of experience in gender justice, human rights, and intersectional feminist movements.
Prior to ILGA World, Lily worked for four years at Plan International, a gender equality INGO in over 80 countries. Lily was the Global Education Policy and Advocacy Specialist, leading the portfolio on gender-transformative education for social justice. Before that, Lily led youth advocacy for Plan’s United Nations New York team. Lily initiated Plan’s youth-led policy approach to the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in partnership with youth activists from across West and East Africa, and the Middle East. Lily was elected to Plan’s global Anti-Racism & Equity Council and was a member of the LGBTQIA+ Champions Network on SOGIESC advocacy.
Prior, Lily worked in Hanoi, Vietnam, on an Australian DFAT-funded Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme, and at GenPol: a Gender Policy Think Tank. In 2020, Lily was selected to be on the Diversity & Inclusion Advisory for CIVICUS: the global civil society alliance.
Lily holds a BA in Philosophy and Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Political Science: Human Rights from University College London, where they focused on gender, LGBTQIA+ rights, and mental health as a human right.