Today we lift up Costume Designers Guild Local 892 Assistant Executive Director, Doug Boney. Since joining the IA in 2010, Boney has worked as an Assistant Production Coordinator for Local 871 and as a Business Representative of Local 884.

“I found acceptance amongst my union family when I joined the IATSE. This acceptance allowed me to grow stronger and more confident in myself, which in turn gave me the strength to stand up and be an outspoken advocate for the queer community,” Doug says. “This growth also inspired me to return to college, where I am focusing on gender and sexualities in communities of color and look forward to bringing the knowledge, I am gaining in my classes at CSU East Bay back to the IATSE to not only fight for the queer members of IATSE, but for all members and workers.

Boney is a dedicated member of the IATSE Pride Committee, an IATSE representative on the National Executive Board of Pride at Work, a constituency group of the AFL-CIO that advocates for LGBTQIA+ workers and he serves as the Diversity Committee Chair for District 2.

Doug says one of the people he has studied in his classes is Adrienne Maree Brown and her book, Pleasure Activism. “This is one of my favorite quotes of hers: ‘I have seen how denying our full, complex selves—denying our aliveness and our needs as living, sensual beings—increases the chance that we will be at odds with ourselves, our loved ones, our coworkers, and our neighbors on this planet,’ he shared. “Being a member of the IATSE allows and encourages all of us to be our full, complex selves, giving us a better life in the union, in our workplaces, and in our personal lives.”