2025 Participant Biographies

Dr. Wayne M. Maines is the proud father of identical twins, Jonas Maines and Nicole Maines. Wayne and his wife Kelly worked extremely hard to raise their children in an environment that was not and is still not ready for the new generation of transgender and gender expansive children.

While working in an Air Force Hospital the doctors convinced Wayne to attend college. He was the first in his family to do so. Little did he know that many more firsts were in his future. Wayne attended Cornell University, and then received his Doctoral Degree from West Virginia University.

Wayne has been an industry and higher education leader for the past thirty years. He has had the pleasure to lead and mentor staff and students at an International chemical company, the University of Maine System, Austin Community College, and now Stanford University. Being successful in these positions requires technical knowledge, confidence, excellent communication skills, and the ability to implement change in environments that often had little appetite for change.

Wayne was successful in creating change at each job. Why was it so hard for him to do the same at home, in his town, and at local, state and national level? He was not ready when organized hate groups came to his small town. They arrived without notice, with attorneys, reporters, and unprecedented fear, and anger. Their attacks forced him to address his own fears, and then he and his family fought back, sometimes placing Jonas and Nicole in harm’s way. His family’s story is featured in Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family. The Washington Post describes it as “the inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all.”

Wayne says that everyone has a story to tell that can help promote change. We need to reach their hearts to open up their minds to learn more about why we all fear the unknown. For the past fifteen years his focus has been how to help others embrace the diversity that exists in the world. He has conducted training for the FBI, the Department of Justice, Harvard Medical School, the Austin Texas Police Academy, and many others. His latest change project includes working with a group of amazing fathers, and filmmakers.

Wayne had a dream to take fathers of transgender children fishing. It was a chance to get away, to meet other dads who were struggling to keep their children safe, happy, and supported at home and at school. So Wayne and other supportive fathers started an organization called The Dads Foundation. And when award winning director/producer Luchina Fisher heard about this dream, she wanted in. The end result is a Daytime Emmy award winning eleven-minute film of dads fishing for trout in Oklahoma. Check out the short film 'The Dads' on Netflix.