Wes “Byeeeeee Yonic” Haack is a trans man and member of Bay Area Derby, aka BAD, a nonprofit roller derby league that has created a community rarely found in sports: Almost every one of the 20 skaters on BAD’s three teams is queer. Many are trans, an identity that laws being enacted across the country aim to push out of many sports. Multimedia journalist, Salgu Wissmath acting as lead videographer, editor, and producer, worked alongside San Francisco Chronicle multimedia journalist Guy Wathen to visualize a story about finding chosen family and a queer-and trans-affirming community in competitive sports.

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Salgu Wissmath is a nonbinary Korean American photographer and videographer from Sacramento, CA. They are currently based in San Antonio, TX. They were formerly a Hearst Photo Fellow at the San Antonio Express-News and The San Francisco Chronicle. They are dedicated to decolonizing visual storytelling by engaging in ethical storytelling by and for people of color and the queer community. Their personal work explores the intersections of mental health, queer identity, and faith from a conceptual documentary approach. Their first narrative short film “The Side Effects of Normal” premiered at the 2022 Queer Women of Color Film Festival.

Salgu studied at U.C. Berkeley and Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication. Their work has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, High Country News, Cal Matters, among others. Salgu was recognized as AAJA’s 2022 Emerging Journalist of the Year and received the 2023 Curve Award for Emerging Journalists. Their short doc “Chosen Family” received the 2024 Excellence in Digital Video Award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists.

Salgu is the Communications Director for Diversify Photo, a core team member with Ethical Narrative, and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), NLGJA: The Association for LGTBQ+ Journalists, Trans Journalists Association (TJA), Women Photograph, and Authority Collective.