Our Team

AJ Tiedeman (They/He/Él)

Program Director & Events/Volunteer Coordinator

AJ Tiedeman (they/he/él) has been part of the SAGA fam since January 2020 and is currently positioned as SAGA's Co-Executive Director and Program Director. They are a genderqueer, trans masc Brown Chinese person, who grew up in so-called NYC - Munsee Lenape and Wappinger land - and raised by their adoptive white parents. They received their BA in Gender and Sexuality studies from Earlham College (EC). Through EC they participated in a Border Studies Program in so-called Tucson, AZ - Tohono O’odham and Yaqui land - where they have continued to make a home since August 2018. AJ has experience organizing around TQ liberation and migrant justice and strives to center an abolitionist framework in all parts of their life. AJ is also a board member of Mariposas Sin Fronteras and a co-founder of Thompson House Tucson. When they aren’t organizing with community, they’re chillin in the beautiful desert, climbing, cooking, or messing with some sort of hands-on project.

DiAn Dviation (He/They)

Communications & Outreach Manager

​​Everything starts with a story. As powerful dynamic beings in our otherwise random universe we are capable of meaningful creations and manifestations. The most impressive being the creation of self.  The story of DiAn, of myself, is a dynamic and ongoing saga that currently seats my character as an artist, storyteller, and holistic embodiment coach. I’ve arrived here through many lessons on the intersections of Blackness, queerness, mental health issues, chronic illness, paganism, and the dynamics of relationship building within those realities.  These life experiences and a long stint as a researcher and student teacher in academia have given me volumes of wisdom to share using visual media, poetry, and educational materials.

I look to my storytelling heritage as pedagogy when sharing information from my life experiences, folk medicine, or peer reviewed research. Storytelling in the Geechee south is a time honored tradition and the method by which we share our lives, knowledge, and history. I’ve created thoughtful and holistic programs using active storytelling. This included guided self discovery via call and response co-creation, somatic release, and vibrational attunement - in Geechee hollerin, shoutin, and praise. I always include visuals and self-guided activities to accommodate different learning styles when engaging in groups, or customize the educational experience to an individual's needs in one on one sessions.

Academic life wasn’t for me, but I realized there is so much knowledge to be shared from and for my communities. In the past I’ve led workshops and private lessons in diversity and inclusion, relationship communication coaching, sexual wellness, and embodied creativity.  My current projects focus heavily on the expressions and embodiment of pleasure specifically in my queer and trans communities. You can learn more about me at Dviation@theindigopath.com or follow  @DiAnDviation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Kendall Boger (They/He/She)

General Meeting Facilitator

SAGA has been an essential aspect of Kendall's life since they moved back to Tucson in 2018. Through the years, SAGA's support groups have helped him not only with their transition, but have also helped Kendall provide a community of friends and found family that her younger self could only imagine. Kendall aspires to pay forward all the love and support SAGA has shown him by facilitating the General meeting. Many of the ideals that fuel Kendall's commitment are informed by her experiences growing up disabled and the reality of how intertwined their genderfluid identity is with their disability. Outside of SAGA, they love crafting, playing board games, and are pursuing a BA in gender and women's studies at the U of A.

zee rashida (she/her)

Sustainable Operations Director

zee rashida (she/her) is a blaQueer Trans Femme poet-cultural worker, born and raised on Tongva, Chumash, & Kizh Land (Los Angeles Area). As a cultural worker, she facilitates workshops on Altar-Making, Poetry, & Black Trans Feminism and has had poetry publications with Arcanum Magazine (2020 & 2021) and Radar Productions (2021). They recently completed a B.A. in Critical Black Studies and Geography. Her scholarship focuses on Black Feminist Cultural Geography as storytelling and oral tradition. Outside of work, her interests are roller dancing, slow walks in nature, looking at the stars, and reading black feminist fiction with a squishmellow.

Montana Falcon-Thames (They/Them)

Co-Executive Director

Montana Falcon-Thames is a nonbinary, mixed Afro Yaqui, trans masc person residing in unceded Tohono O'odham territory also known as Tucson Arizona. Their collective identities of Indigeneity, Blackness, queerness, and their lifelong home in the SouthWest Borderlands makes Falcon-Thames a living embodiment of Nepantla. Their work is informed by 15 years of social and environmental liberation work, their path of ancestral healing, their love of visionary fiction, and their work as a death doula. Before joining the  SAGA team as their Co-Executive Director, Montana was a leader in organizations such as No More Deaths/ No Mas Muertes and Trans Lifeline.  Things that bring them joy include birding, bad TV, cuddling their dog, and nerding out about ancestral death work.