전미 게이레즈비언 태스크포스가 주최하는 LGBT 평등 전국대회가 1월 28일부터 2월1일까지 닷새동안 콜로라도 덴버, 하야트 호텔에서 열렸다. 부제는 '변화를 창조하기'. 뉴스를 보니 참가자가 2천 명이 넘었다고 한다.
캘리포니아의 저명한 노동운동가인 Dolores Huerta가 개막 연설을 했다. 두 번의 전체 세션 중 하나의 주제가 에이즈였다는 것은 의미심장하다.
미국의 가장 큰 LGBT 단체 중 하나가 여는 행사인만큼 규모도 크고 참여단체도 많고 부대 행사, 편의 서비스도 다양하다. 프로그램 책자를 보니 국회의원들이 보낸 인사말도 많다. 조직의 위상?을 보여주는 듯. 하여간 미국 LGBT 운동의 쟁점과 분위기를 알아보는 데 좋을 것 같아 이것 저것 담아둔다..
토론 주제는 크게 분류하면 나이듦, HIV/AIDS, 바이섹슈얼, 커뮤니티 센터, 장애, 종교, 가족, 대학, 학교, 청소년, 인종, 반폭력, 선거, 펀드레이징, 젠더, 노동, 운동 건설, 이주, 국가 정책 및 법률 개혁, 건강, 성적 자유, 직장, 트랜스젠더..등이고 이런 주제에 관한 다양한 토론, 발표, 워크샾, 회의 등이 수백 개가 열린다. 프로그램 소개에서 흥미로운 것만 몇가지 뽑아보면..
Community Discussion: Islam, Sex and Gender: Queer Muslim Perspectives
This discussion-oriented session will introduce participants to a variety of Islamic perspectives on homosexuality, as well as views on transgenderism and intersexuality. We will explore the personal, religious and cultural experiences of LGBTIQQ Muslims, including the choices that queer Muslims navigate in decisions about coming out, and their relationships with faith, family and community. We will also discuss relevant opportunities, challenges, and activism in the U.S. and several countries around the globe. Facilitators: Mina Trudeau and Urooj Arshad, Al-Fatiha Foundation
First, Class: Economic Justice and Class Issues in the LGBT Movement
We will spend the day examining poverty issues in the LGBT community and the role that class issues play in our movement. As our movement assimilates into the mainstream, many LGBT poor and working class people are left behind by gay organizations that do not address poverty issues. The increasing corporatization of our movement requires that we examine the ways in which class privilege and corporate ties affect the work of our community organizations as well as our community's cultural values. Our goal is to get LGBT activists to think critically about the ways in which economic justice issues impact LGBT people. We also intend to help participants examine the ways in which class biases and presumptions affect their work, and to strategize about how to better serve LGBT people of all classes.
Invisible Families: LGBTQ Families at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender
With the success of the Arkansas ban on unmarried, cohabitating couples fostering and adopting children, we know that the Right is preparing to attack LGBT families in other states. Remember 2004? We need to be prepared as an entire LGBT and allied community to meet these attacks head on. That means building the strongest, most inclusive movement and preparing well in advance. We need you—our movement for equality needs you—to attend this year’s Family Institute and help shape our next big struggle. In its second year, the Family Institute provides a venue for participants to consider the LGBTQ family movement from a social justice perspective. We will discuss such topics as: community organizing with families of color, transracial adoption, the economics of gender, resource availability across class and geography, the transgender experience in parenting, and gender roles and performance in LGBTQ families. This institute is open to all, and is especially intended for LGBTQ parents or guardians, professionals and volunteers in the LGBTQ family movement, and others with a vested interest in LGBTQ family equality. The institute, hosted by Family Equality Council, will feature presentations by leaders from various national and local organizations, interactive exercises, small group break out discussions, and time for resource sharing and discussion of best practices. Participants are encouraged to bring along resources to share.
Aging: How We Can Create Change in Our Own Back Yard and Have a National Impact
SAGE, in conjunction with Gay and Gray in the West, OLOC, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the Transgender Aging Network, will offer a day long intensive for people interested in the intersection of aging and LGBT issues. The first part of the day will focus on “getting ready to make change as we age,” and in the second half of the day, participants will learn about tangible, concrete steps to make change in their communities, and increasing the visibility of aging issues in the LGBT activist world and LGBT issues in the aging world. (This Day Long Institute is sponsored by SAGE.)
The Revolution will be More Than Televised: Health as a Tool for Social & Economic Justice
Combining new strategies with proven organizing successes, this Institute will address our next challenge: Creating and advancing an LGBT health agenda on a federal, state and local level. We will describe and construct the current reality and explore health on an individual level and describe how it is also very much a community issue as well as a vehicle for social change. We will discuss how to build organizational and movement buy-in, identify pressing issues and advocacy ideas, and energize participants for moving this plan into action!
Voice & Action: Young Adult Leader Institute
Vision change. Dig deep. Take action. Young adult leaders from across the country will learn valuable strategies for
empowering their voices and being advocates for social justice. This Day Long institute explores the skills and
resources necessary for successful leadership, coalition building and tackling issues within your college campus
or your local community. Presented by Campus Pride(www.campuspride.org)
Overcoming Challenges: Opening the Door to the Inclusion of Trans People: The Nine Keys to Making LGBT Organizations Fully Inclusive
Advanced Most LGB(T) groups have embraced transgender people and issues, but many groups have done so with incomplete results. Whether your LGB(T) organization is an advocacy, faith-based, support, or direct services organization, there are common principles that can help you fully integrate transgender people into your organizations mission, power structure, and work.
Drawing on the resources of Opening the Door to the Inclusion of Transgender People, a joint publication of the Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, the authors of the publication help participants apply these principles in challenging situations.
This academy covers the higher level trans-inclusion issues such as creating written policies, dealing with resistance amongst LGB/allied leaders of the organization, addressing the health care needs of trans staff, understanding on a deeper level the internal conflict of the role of a trans ally, and getting over those final organizational barriers to transgender-inclusion.
New Frontiers in Family-Centered Organizing: Lessons from California’s No on Proposition 8 Campaign
Advanced
California’s No on 8, Equality for All campaign may have been the strongest, most diverse, and most coordinated coalition our community has ever formed in opposition to an anti-marriage ballot measure. Situated in a state with one of, if not the largest LGBT family populations, the campaign offered our community an unprecedented opportunity to devise and test new, creative strategies for organizing LGBT families in general and for deepening their engagement in political campaigns in particular.
Family Equality Council (formerly Family Pride Coalition), a long-time Equality for All coalition member and the only national LGBT organization exclusively dedicated to securing justice and equality for all loving families, particularly LGBT parents and their children, partnered with the campaign specifically to organize and engage LGBT families. The partnership sought not only to make the campaign’s activities more accessible to LGBT families, but also to create and implement new, family-centered strategies for engaging families in the campaign’s tactics. In this training, Family Equality Council staff will share their best thinking about the challenges and opportunities associated with this broad national/state partnership, what did and didn’t work as family-centered organizing strategies, and how these lessons can be applied to other political campaigns and, more generally, to all kinds of family organizing efforts.
Mapping the Federal Government and LGBT Aging: Tracking Funding Opportunities and Public Policy Recommendations
Advanced
As baby-boomers reach retirement years, the demand and necessity for LGBT sensitive and safe aging services will be necessary to meet critical needs. LGBT elders deserve the right to age with dignity, respect, and safety as the foundation for a evenhanded quality of life. This year in partnership with SAGE, the Task Force created a map to the federal funding of aging services to educate aging service providers and other LGBT communities who desire to provide these services. Along with the funding map, is a guide to Federal laws and regulations which need to be changed to benefit LGBT elders. This policy guide should be used to inform activists about what policies need to be changed, why they needs to be changed and what can occur within Federal agencies or the Executive branch to move an aging agenda forward. These maps are based on the priority needs from the National LGBT Aging Roundtable.
Mining For Gold (Votes) in the Golden State: Case Study on Historic 2008 Campaign to Preserve the Freedom to Marry in California
All Audiences
In November 2008, the LGBT movement faced a daunting task: defending the freedom to marry from an anti-LGBT initiative,
Proposition 8, in the largest state in the nation. It was a campaign of unheard-of size and scope. In order to develop a message that moved 12 million voters to support the freedom to marry, the No on 8 campaign had to amass an unprecedented amount of money and pool of volunteers. It required broad-based support from the LGBT community, extraordinary fundraising savvy by community leadership, determination from field staff working in the trenches to build the big volunteer team needed to talk with voters, and a message development operation that was highly focused.
As the first state that has had to defend a pre-existing right to marry from ballot initiative repeal, the No on 8 campaign offers lessons for other communities striving to defeat anti-LGBT initiatives or engage in broader organizing to promote the
freedom to marry:
• How this campaign organized real volunteers to talk with hundreds of thousands of swing voters who would likely make the difference between winning and losing this historic fight;
• What messages proved most effective in moving swing voters to vote against Prop 8;
• What it took to build a campaign of over 10,000 active volunteers;
• How the campaign started unusually early and how it helped build field and fundraising to scale;
• What it took to build a broad and diverse coalition of organizations to implement the campaign plan.
Building a Bridge with Organized Labor
Advanced
In 2008, more international labor unions joined the effort to pass a fully inclusive hate crimes act and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act than ever before on the national level. The challenge for years has been to connect with organized labor at the local level in a way to join forces against a common enemy. Most people do not know that there are internal organizations within labor that bring together LGBT union members. This session will serve as a first step at bridging the gap between efforts on the national level and help connect activists on the local level by offering a look at the structure of organized labor and assisting in finding common ground to work on.
Quit Passing Notes: Let’s Talk About Sex...In the Classroom
Youth • All Audiences
The workshop will present current issues around abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education and its impact on the LGBTQ community. It will address how we can mobilize as a community to advocate for legislation that supports our needs on both the local and federal level.
Presenters: Caryl Adams, Advocates For Youth, Washington DC; Sarah Audelo, Advocates for Youth, Washington, DC;
Cree Gordon, Youth Resource
Students Organizing Toolbox
Youth • Fundamentals
Are you a student who wants to create some serious change? Come get your Student Organizing Tools here! In this workshop participants will learn to think critically, challenge the images and information around them, and participate in or disrupt the legislative process. This fun, interactive, jam-packed workshop will keep you moving and thinking about ways you can initiate and become involved in a campaign movement. Come with ideas, leave with concrete tools you can use in your school and community!
Presenters: Carter Klenk, GLSEN, New York, NY; Leigh Thompson, GLSEN, New York NY
The worsening HIV/AIDS epidemic among LGBT people
AIDS/HIV • Intermediate
The Centers for Disease Control report that the number of people newly infected with HIV each year is 40 percent higher than we thought. Nearly three in five new infections is a gay or bisexual man. Black and Latino men are disproportionately impacted, as are transgender women. AIDS activists will describe the latest data on HIV among LGBT people, why rates for gay/bi men are increasing, and what LGBT activists can do to fight AIDS in our community.
Presenters: Daryl Cochrane, Asst. Director of Government Relations, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, New York, NY; Francisco Roque, Institute for Gay Men’s Health Gay Men’s Health Crisis, New York, NY; Kimberleigh Smith, Women’s Institute Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Inc, New York, NY
AIDS funding realities and gaps: Where funding goes and where it is needed
AIDS/HIV • All Audiences
HIV is increasing among gay and bisexual men, especially Black and Latino men. Nearly 60,000 people are newly infected each year, most of them gay and bi men. Yet under the Bush-Cheney Administration, funding for the Centers for Disease Control fell 20% in real dollar terms. CDC head Dr. Judith Gerberding recently testified to Congress that, in order to bring down new infections, CDC’s HIV budget would need to be doubled. Yet government at all levels, and especially local and state governments, are slashing funding. In these challenging economic and fiscal times, LGBT activists must unite to protect funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and care.
Gay Straight Alliances and School Safety
School Issues • All Audiences
Results from a research project conducted with four Gay Straight Alliances in a Midwestern city will be provided. Students’ experiences, perceptions, and recommendations about their school and ways to make it a safer environment for LGBTQ youth will be provided. Additional information about their experiences with social services and criminal justice will be provided. Discussion about creating and maintaining safer school environments and their relevance for school policies and procedures will be discussed.
Presenters: Pat Tetreault, University Health Center, Sexuality Education Coordinator, Lincoln, Nebraska
A Dialog with Youth: Talking About Sex and Sexual Freedom
Youth • 3 Hour Session - All Audiences
This thought provoking and important workshop will create a space for youth to address how sexual freedom issues, both their own sexuality and broader public issues, impact LGBTQI youth. We will completely shift the adult/youth power dynamic for this youth-led academy where LGBTQI youth activists (ages 22 and younger) will discuss the importance of including youth in the dialogue of LGBTQI issues in order to effectively address the issues that are most important to them. In order to challenge the national narrative of fear around youth and their sexuality crafted by the radical right it is now more necessary than ever that youth step up and make their voices heard. What are the issues that are most important to youth in the area of sexual freedom? How can youth speak to the powers that be and get more involved in the programs that are supposed to be working for them? What realistic and effective strategies can youth engage in to remain safe and make smart decisions about their sexuality? Youth and elders will leave the academy with practical skills for addressing sex and sexuality both among themselves and with each other. Each participant will be asked to make a personal commitment to one action item that will bring youth more into the national dialog.
Presenters: Ricci Levy, Executive Director, The Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Washington, DC; Greg Varnum, Executive Director, National Youth Advocacy Coalition, Washington, DC
A Dialogue with Youth: Talking About Sex and Sexual Freedom (Continuing from Session 3.)
Youth • All Audiences
This thought provoking and important workshop will create a space for youth to address how sexual freedom issues, both their own sexuality and broader public issues, impact LGBTQI youth. We will completely shift the adult/youth power dynamic for this youth-led academy where LGBTQI youth activists (ages 22 and younger) will discuss the importance of including youth in the dialogue of LGBTQI issues in order to effectively address the issues that are most important to them. In order to challenge the national narrative of fear around youth and their sexuality crafted by the radical right it is now more necessary than ever that youth step up and make their voices heard. What are the issues that are most important to youth in the area of sexual freedom? How can youth speak to the powers that be and get more involved in the programs that are supposed to be working for them? What realistic and effective strategies can youth engage in to remain safe and make smart decisions about their sexuality? Youth and elders will leave the academy with practical skills for addressing sex and sexuality both among themselves and with each other. Each participant will be asked to make a personal commitment to one action item that will bring youth more into the national dialog.
Presenters: Ricci Levy, Executive Director, The Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Washington, DC; Greg Varnum, Executive Director, National Youth Advocacy Coalition, Washington DC
Sexuality Education as a Tool for the Movement
Sexual Freedom • Intermediate
The purpose of this workshop is to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to use sexuality education in communities as a tool for social justice movement building. Participants will begin by deconstructing the current models of sexuality education and will then develop a new model for sexuality education that focuses on promoting sexual health and is inclusive of many sexualities, and encourages lifelong learning in order to enhance the sexual lives of individuals and communities.
Presenters: Joy O’Donnell, Director of Strategic Partnerships, National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA; Christopher White, Director of Education and Training, National Sexuality Resource Center, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Myths and Consequences: Confronting the Cartoon Story of Gays and AIDS
AIDS/HIV • All Audiences
Here’s the story: AIDS emerged in gay male communities. Gay men put on combat boots and leather jackets and hit the streets with dyke friends. They invented safe sex, forced the government to pay attention, and got the resources they needed. They lost friends and lovers, got Clinton and combination therapy, fell into complacency and spiced it up with crystal. Now the gays are forgetting the past, forgoing condoms and getting themselves infected. Is it that simple?
Presenters: Mark McLaurin, Walt Senterfitt
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Skills to Fight Back
Research and Policy • Intermediate
In debate after debate, the right-wing skillfully promotes false and politically harmful images of GLBT people: we’re all wealthy, white, hedonistic, childless abusers of children and destroyers of civilization. This workshop will give participants (1) tools to counteract
conservatives’ use of statistics and (2) the latest research on GLBT lives.
Presenters: M.V. Lee Badgett, Research Director, The Williams
Institute, Amherst, MA; Naomi Goldberg, Peter J. Cooper Public Policy Fellow, The Williams Institute; Christopher Ramos, Research Assistant; The Williams Institute