Meet our team of intentional men.
We are an organization rooted in community, established and led by transgender men. We are committed to diversity within our organization, both at the staff and board levels.
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Rocco Kayiatos, Founder and Executive Director
Rocco Kayiatos is an award-winning storyteller and community builder, with a professional background in media making and marketing. He released 4 solo albums under the moniker Katastrophe and is hailed as the first openly FTM musician to release an album. Kayiatos is also one of the founding editors of Original Plumbing Magazine, the first print magazine dedicated to trans male culture, that’s publishing spanned from 2009 - 2019 and was published as a collected work on Feminist Press in 2019.
He transitioned in 2001 and has been outspoken, making media and creating space for trans men since then. He is the founder and executive director of The Intentional Man Project and Camp Lost Boys, a traditional summer camp experience for men of transgender experience over the age of 18. Out of CLB grew a larger desire to heal men and masculinity, which led him to create I.M.P. and to write, edit and publish The Mindful Masculinity Workbook: A Practical Guide to Healthier Masculinity.
He is also a writer, podcaster, content creator, and executive marketing professional who has worked for and with several well-known tech and media companies including BuzzFeed, The Cut, SpringHill, Headspace, Spotify, Grindr, August, and FOLX Health.
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Luke Jakobsen, Deputy Director
Luke Jakobsen is an endlessly fascinated student of life. He has always been drawn to complex problems, seeking knowledge and resources to support the people around him. He has formally or informally studied hospitality, finance, psychology, Buddhism, poetry, death and dying, and many other subjects both practical and obscure.
As Deputy Director of I.M.P., Luke is co-building this organization and all of its offerings into the future. He oversees finance, operations, and all the other behind-the-scenes systems and structures that keep the organization safe, stable, and sustainable.
He currently resides in the desert southwest with his college-sweetheart-turned-wife of 20+ years. When he’s not working, you’ll find him reading, swimming in any body of water he can find, relaxing in his hammock, or adventuring with his wife & dog.
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Jay Moton, Lead Facilitator
From a very young age, Jay Moton had the innate drive to dig into the deeper questions of life, identity and self-love. The foundation of self-discovery ultimately led him to his yogic path in 2007.
With his natural gift to uplift, heal, and bring a deeper sense of inner awareness to those looking for a more authentically inspired life and mindset, Jay brings Kundalini Yoga, breathwork, meditation & sound healing to those seeking transformation.
As a teacher, speaker, healer, and guide Jay’s genuine intention has shaped and helped people establish a more unified, compassionate, loving, and profound relationship to themselves and others.
His heartwarming and uplifting classes, workshops, soundbaths and retreats encourage you to remember your spiritual essence, your capacity for unconditional love, and your highest potential for self-awareness while releasing and healing deep-seated blocks, fears, and ingrained conditions.
Our Board
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Brian Michael Smith, Board President
Brian Michael Smith is a highly accomplished actor whose work has broken ground in the entertainment industry. He has appeared in several noteworthy television shows, including "Queen Sugar," "Chicago P.D.," and "Blue Bloods." However, Smith's most significant contribution to the industry has been his portrayal of Paul Strickland on "9-1-1: Lone Star." As the first Black transgender man to be cast in a regular role on a network television show, Smith's performance has brought greater visibility and understanding to the transgender community.
Off-screen, Smith is a prominent advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and representation. He serves on the board of directors for both the Human Rights Campaign and Outfest, and frequently speaks publicly about the importance of representation and inclusivity in the entertainment industry.
Smith is a dynamic and compelling public speaker who draws from his vast life experience as a scholar-athlete, youth mentor at the Manhattan LGBT+ Center, and teaching high school media literacy and drama for nearly a decade. He uses his platform to advocate for marginalized communities, weaving personal insights into powerful testimony about the significance of acceptance, pursuing your passions, and changing the world through storytelling.
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Leon Wu, Board Secretary
Leon Elias Wu is the Founder & CEO of Sharpe Suiting and SharpeHaus.
Good Morning America says he’s made LGBTQ History and calls him a huge staple within both the LGBTQ+ community and the fashion industry. Per Fashionista magazine, Sharpe Suiting has become a destination for custom-tailored suits for the queer community and beyond. The company’s apparel is designed and produced based on a trademarked system called Andropometrics™, a method for measuring Sharpe Suiting’s clients according on a person’s style or identity. The designs by Sharpe Suiting have made appearances at public events including The Oscars, Emmys, Tony Awards and Cannes Film Festival. The company was voted the #1 Global Gender-Inclusive Suit Brand in Equally Wed for three consecutive years and also the only queer-owned fashion brand to make USA Today’s Top Ten Makers of Clothing & Accessories in 2016. www.sharpesuiting.com.
As the newly rebranded SharpeHaus, the brand’s mission is to positively impact and create opportunities for support women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community through charitable channels using visual activism through fashion.
Wu holds a B.A. in Economics at UCLA and an M.B.A. at NYU Stern School of Business with an emphasis on Marketing, Change Leadership, Management of Technology & Operations and Luxury & Retail. During his spare time, Wu advises college students, startup entrepreneurs and Asian-American and LGBTQ+ youth.
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Justin Chow, Board Treasurer
Justin is a first generation Chinese-American and military veteran. He served as an Army intelligence analyst and continues serving as an Air Force civilian working programming and budgeting at the Pentagon. As one of the co-founders of Camp Lost Boys and now an IMP board member, he is deeply committed to supporting this community of men and is proud of the diversity, compassion, and growth of this brotherhood. When not working, he enjoys traveling, mainly to befriend stray cats, and his guilty pleasure is British period dramas.
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Jamison Green, Board Member
Dr. Jamison Green is an internationally-respected author, educator, and advocate for transgender health, civil rights, and social safety. He holds B.A. and M.F.A. degrees in English/Creative Writing from the University of Oregon (1970, 1972), and a Ph.D. in Law from Manchester Metropolitan University, England (2011), specializing in transgender and transsexual legal issues. He is the author of the prize-winning classic Becoming a Visible Man (Vanderbilt University Press, 2020, 2004) and has contributed to numerous academic anthologies and professional journal articles. He is a co-author of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)’s Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, versions 7 and 8. His work on non-discrimination laws and removal of insurance exclusions has influenced governments around the world and earned him numerous awards for advocacy and inspirational leadership. He served on the WPATH board of directors for 15 years, including 7 years on the executive committee and 2.5 years as president (2014-2016). He also was the Primary Care Protocols Manager and International Guidelines Manager at the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at the University of California San Francisco (2009-2014). He currently serves as co-chair of WPATH’s ethics committee and on the steering committee and faculty of WPATH’s Global Education Institute.
James also served as President of FTM International (1991-1999) and on the board of the International Foundation for Gender Education (199_-199_). He was a founding board member and continues to chair the board of Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc. (2000-present), was a founding board member of the Transgender Law & Policy Institute (2001-2010), served on the Human Rights Campaign Business Council (2002-2007), and on the board of TransYouth Family Allies (2007-2011). In addition to serving as a director of the Intentional Man Project, he also serves on the board of GRACE (Gender Research Advisory Council & Education), both newly constituted nonprofit corporations launched in 2023. He continues to write nonfiction books and articles, fiction books and short stories, as well as personal essays. He also consults with corporations on trans-related policy matters and occasionally serves as an expert witness in employment discrimination cases involving transgender people. He has been a ski instructor and giant slalom racer, a high country backpacker, a photographer, a rock’n’roll musician and singer, a recording/voiceover artist, a construction cable splicer, a technical, business, and marketing writer, a manager of writers and artists in high technology corporations, an advocate for the health, safety, human and civil rights of all trans and gender-diverse people, and a champion for trans men worldwide. Among his many achievements are writing the first non-discrimination law to specify gender identity/expression as a protected human characteristic, getting the City of San Francisco to eliminate exclusions for trans health care from employee health insurance plans, leveraging that victory to inspire hundreds of major corporations to offer trans-inclusive policies, which helped influence Medicare and Medicaid to cover trans-inclusive services, reforming diagnostic language in DSM and ICD, and pushing WPATH to improve the Standards of Care and to develop physician/clinician education programs to increase access to competent healthcare around the world.
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Chris E. Vargas, Board Member
Chris E. Vargas is a video maker and interdisciplinary artist. He earned his MFA from the Art Practice department at Berkeley in 2011. His work deploys humor and performance to explore the complex ways that queer and trans people negotiate spaces for themselves within historical and institutional memory. He is the Executive Director of MOTHA, the Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art, a critical and conceptual arts & hirstory institution highlighting the contributions of trans art to the cultural and political landscape. In 2016 he received a Creative Capital award in the Emerging Field category, in 2020, he was a John C. Guggenheim fellow. His forthcoming book an extension of MOTHA, Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects (2023, co-edited with Christina Linden and David Evans Frantz) brings together a wide-ranging selection of artworks and artifacts that highlight the under-recognized histories of trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming communities.
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Seth List, Board Member
Seth List was born and raised in the Bay Area by progressive parents. He came out the first time at 15 to love and open arms. At 24, he started transition while living in San Francisco.
It was there he met Rocco; a fan of Katastrophe, he spotted him on the 16 Mission and introduced himself. A few years later, Seth posed for an early edition of Original Plumbing. Fast forward ~20 years and the two reconnected through Camp Lost Boys.
At Camp, Seth experienced the magic firsthand: 100+ intentional brothers, diverse in age, origins, and lived experiences. He left inspired to do more and be more involved.
Seth joins the Board to further the efforts of IMP and CLB, creating community and safe space for his brothers in the trans community. He also serves on the Board of The Venture Out Project (https://www.ventureoutproject.com/)
He lives in Austin with his wife and dog. When he's not working in tech to pay the bills, you'll find him reading, running, training, hiking, or off adventuring with his family.