2008 POINT SCHOLARS

Shawnna Demmons

San Francisco State University

Public Health

Shawnna Demmons was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. In 2000, she moved to San Francisco to avoid the discrimination she experienced based on her sexual identity and soon enrolled in San Francisco State University (SFSU). At the university, Shawnna became co-editor of SFSU’s Black Studies Journal and graduated at the top of her class earning a Bachelor of Arts in Black Studies.

As an African American queer activist, Shawnna is committed to ending social injustice perpetrated against people of color and queer communities. Shawnna worked as a Community Health Outreach Worker for The Institute for Community Health Outreach where she served marginally housed people living with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunter’s Point. She currently works for the University of California, San Francisco Department of Psychiatry helping formerly homeless people in San Francisco’s Tenderloin and Mission Districts obtain access to primary medical and mental health services. In her spare time, Shawnna volunteers as the Outreach Coordinator for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and advocates for incarcerated queer African American women to have access to culturally relevant health care and to give voice to the violence and discrimination some endure based on their sexual identity.

Shawnna is currently enrolled in San Francisco State University and pursuing a Masters of Public Health. She plans to use her education to continue to address health disparities that disproportionately impact people of color and queer communities