Well, I’m home and tucked into bed, although my schedule is thrown off from being in the Central Time Zone and from sleeping on the plane.

I just finished reading through my blogs from the last 4 days and I want to summarize some observations about Creating Change, the leading conference on LGBT activist training.

First, I was startled to read how often I used the phrase “too basic for me” in reference to the workshops and sessions I attended. While it’s true that I found a lot of the activist training to be repetative, especially since I’ve been a queer activist for about 10 years now–much of that being in a professional role where it’s my full-time job, it didn’t actually feel like I was wasting my time on beginner material. Every class offered either a) some new dimension of community advocacy I hadn’t expected, b) a chance to interact with people who respectfully challenged my assumptions, c) worthwhile reminders of good practices I’ve let become routine, or d) an opportunity to share my own experience in a way that helps to train younger and/or newer activists.

Second, I did start to suspect that Creating Change was encouraging (in me, at least) a tendency toward queer theory and identity navel gazing. It’s very easy in this kind of setting to probe at difficult issues like our responsibility to respect self-identification (for example, “same gender loving” versus “gay” or “lesbian”), but in the outside world, we’re still struggling to establish basic cultural competency about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities within the larger national dialogue. It didn’t help that during smoke breaks and evenings, I finished reading George Lakoff’s Moral Politics, which invited even deeper levels of examination of my own values. I found myself constantly thinking, “I believe this, but it would never work as a value statement to reach my organization’s target audience, which is largely pragmatic liberals and pragmatic conservatives.” In an even more troubling line of thought, I started questioning how much harm our organization is doing by reinforcing LGBT diversity as good for business and whether we’re perpetuating the belief that people are only important if they are of use to your economic interests. While these thoughts have a time and place, I’m going to need to set them aside and avoid second-guessing myself in order to achieve our goals. The reality of activism is that even if you still question some of the underlying values of a strategy, without moving beyond introspection and into a confident course of action, you don’t do any good to anyone but other angry activists.

Third, I really do worry that the progressive people of faith movement is making the world of LGBT activism uncomfortable for atheist, agnostic and irreligious queer people. I understand that some spaces need to be shared by people with a common cultural perspective (in this case, a theistic perspective), but I worry that as the National Religious Leadership Roundtable gains visibility, people who don’t have any particular faith may find themselves excluded and marginalized. I know there was at least one instance (sitting in the food court debating ideas) where I felt compelled to defend myself and my religious identity in a way that reminded my very much of the time when I came out as gay to my parents and spent an evening defending myself to my mother. NGLTF must strike a proper respectful tone now to avoid alienating people down the line.

Fourth, after 10 years in queer activism, I actually have more connections within the movement than I give myself credit for. There were several occasions at the conference where I ran into people I worked with back in Vegas, during the Out & Equal Workplace Summit, and in other aspects of my life. Most of these people remembered me for the work I’ve done and were glad to see me. What I’ve been doing matters and it is not forgotten as I’ve moved from one place to another over the past decade.

And, of course, I made new friends and connections at Creating Change. One thing I’d like to do, though, is talk to the CC folks about ways they can model after our conference to encourage networking in a deliberate and constructive way. So much of the conference was set up in a pedantic style (presenters at the front of a room with a PowerPoint), some of my most interesting workshops left little or no time for engaging small group discussions, and once workshops ended, people were in a rush to get to the next thing. I know it’s difficult to balance the demands for “more training” and “more topics” with the contradictory “more time to network” and “more time to rest between,” but it can be done.

Finally, I recognize that blogging into a vacuum isn’t especially helpful. Anyone can be an armchair quarterback. Unless I’m willing to engage in the process (meaning: submit workshop ideas, follow up on my recommendations and ideas, contribute in talent and money, etc.) then I’m just a Sunday morning commentator rattling off soundbytes about the issues.

Ultimately, I wholeheartedly recommend Creating Change to anyone who considers themselves an advocate for queer rights. I was going to say “especially for young/new activists” but that isn’t true. Those of us who are becoming seasoned advocates have much to share and should never stop trying to learn more. Although I’ve known about the conference for several years, I now understand why I should have been here long ago.

A round-up of speeches collected by Donna Rose (a new hero of mine) follows the jump Read more »

Posted: February 11th, 2008 under creating change, detroit, queer rights.
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Final day of the Creating Change conference. I’m actually in the Detroit airport at the moment (although I may have to actually post this later, depending on how soon they start boarding) ready to go home.

I started this morning with a workshop on Fat-phobia (a.k.a. Sizeism). I wandered in rather skeptical, but left a true believer. It’s amazing that the more one learns to see how sexism interacts with racism which interacts with ableism which interacts with heterosexism which interacts with cisgenderism which interacts with oppressive theism… the more quickly the connections make sense. Our presenter began with discussing the stereotypes about fat people (ugly, lazy, slobs, weak-willed), the types of discrimination faced from the medical community and non-Fat people (as well as other fat people, of course), the systemic limiting of power and access to change, and the grey areas around the movement. I suddenly started to see that requiring a fat person to buy two tickets on an airplane is unfair in the same way a business without wheelchair access is unfair–except far more commonly, society tends to put the blame for the problem on fat people rather than the 18″ average seat size of airplane seats. I saw connections with racism, ageism, and cisgenderism in the gay male community (white, young, athletic, masculine presenting = good; non-white, older, fat and non-masculine presenting = bad). My new resolution: I no longer diet or exercise to lose weight. I eat sensibly and exercise because I’m genetically predisposed to heart problems, diabetes and high cholesterol, and anything I can do sensibly and responsibly to minimize my risks is worth doing.

Bernice and Toshi Reagon performed for the closing plenary brunch. Since they also performed at the last Out & Equal Workplace Summit, I don’t have much to say about them. It was nice, but not particularly new for me.

After the plenary, my co-worker and I stuck around to participate in the feedback session with conference directors. While a lot of people raised issues that amounted to “why don’t I see my issue represented well at Creating Change?” I do think it says a lot that the directors listened respectfully for calls for more sexual freedom classes, more intersex education, inclusion of asexual issues, making space for atheists (that was me, of course), and the like. There were also some rather harsh (and, I believe, somewhat warranted) criticisms of the access for the disabled. In fairness, the issues were mostly the fault of the hotel (one participant referred to it as “an MC Escher Print” and another called it “the circles of hell” - referring to a set of circular balcony/walkways around the central tower, often requiring long walks to get to places like the food court or hotel lobby), but NGLTF did choose this hotel.

I can’t wait for next year (end of January in Denver, Colorado — mark your calendars!), but I’m exhausted, drained, and not ready to go back to work tomorrow. I know this picture of Pat and I is blurry, but it sorta fits with how we felt at the end of the conference.

Posted: February 10th, 2008 under creating change, detroit, queer rights.
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As I mentioned yesterday, today was all about the media/communications training. This morning, I attended a workshop on cultural competency in media work. Sadly, I was a little let down by this workshop. It started off well, with some vague but relevant discussion of LGBT issues in the African-American and Spanish language press. Unfortunately, for a class labeled “advanced” in the program book, it was remarkably superficial and the second half of the class focused on extremely basic elements of media advocacy. Also, our presenters literally dominated the discussion and left us with no time for discussion. I think it might have been more relevent if they had been open to some interactive discussion regarding the potential pitfalls and best practices when working with press related to unfamiliar cultures.

I missed the luncheon with Former Ambassador Michael Guest (unfortunately). Instead, I took a short break to gaze across the river at marriage equality instead before meeting up with my new friend Jordan from Denver for some lively discussion.

Our plenary for the afternoon was Rev. Gene Robinson. Going in to the plenary, I was aware that I have strong feelings about religion, even progressive traditions of religion. Robinson said a great many things that felt good for our community and spoke to people of faith. However, when he spoke of “coming out as religious” (specifically in the context of coming out as a progressive religious person who belongs to a faith community) he never acknowledged how difficult it is for people who are irreligious, atheist or agnostic to come out as such in many parts of the country. When he was throwing out lists of groups he believes God wants us to bring to the table, groups we should respect, he went out of his way to identify non-Christian faiths, but made no mention of the irreligious, atheist or agnostic. If progressive people of faith really want advocate for respect and tolerance, they need to start acknowledging that no faith is as valid as faith, they need to seek out atheist and irreligious figures for interfaith conferences and experiences, and they need to own up to their own complicity in continuing to stigmatize irreligious, atheist and agnostic people through their silence.

My afternoon session was, thankfully, much more engaging than the morning. We had a very small group so we were able to spend some time developing action plans and objectives specific to our individual organizations. I’m afraid we spent a lot of time “off-topic,” but there was a lot of spirited exchange of ideas.

On a personal note, I ran into an old friend from Las Vegas today. She hugged me and said, “My, you’ve really filled out,” as she touched my shoulders. I was getting ready to say “thank you,” when she continued, “You’ve become quite the bear.” Ugh. I respect and support the bear community, but it’s not an identity I’m comfortable with, largely because I interpret the bear community to be a particular sexual kink that glorifies masculine stereotypes (e.g. hairy, large bodies, butch/masculine expression and dress). At all. I told her as much in a polite way and she responded, “well, you may not identify, but you are.” Double ugh! I dropped the subject and switched to friendly catching up, but it really bothers me when people do this, and if I’d said “I don’t identify as male” or “I don’t identify as gay” I know she would have respected that. Why should it be any different when it comes to community identity?

At least I got to meet Matt Foreman.

Posted: February 9th, 2008 under creating change, detroit, queer rights.
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Whew, I’m exhausted and there’s still an evening event or two going on. I realize most people will probably find this kind of event recap/processing boring, but for those who don’t, read on…

Started the day in a workshop on Internalized Oppression. Great topic, wished we had a bit more structure to it. We were put into small groups and told to “discuss internal oppression.” That was it, no further direction.

Next, a workshop on using labor organizations to advance LGBT equality. Some great content there - especially a discussion that pointed to the problems with residency requirements in same-sex domestic partner benefits. Specifically, a heterosexual (cisgender) couple can get married a week after meeting and immediately qualify for insurance; or they can choose not to live together after marriage (more common than you think) and still be considered legally eligible; etc. The advise was that we ought to start getting rid of residency requirement (as well as joint banking accounts or other “proofs” of committed partner status). I agree, a legally married couple doesn’t have to prove they live together or share bank accounts. A simple affidavit (maybe, for legal reason, signed by a notary public), attesting to the relationship at the time of benefits enrollment ought to be enough.

The workshop left me with a lot of ideas about how to communicate to my organization’s constituents (who are, by and large, corporate HR and management representatives–not traditional allies of the labor movement) why labor movement values are queer rights movement values.

Matt Foreman’s State of the Movement speech was, expectedly, fantastic. Surprisingly emotional, considering it will be his last.

I believe, I am convinced, and I feel in my heart that we are — right now — and in the words of activist Beth Zemsky — at a critical movement moment — a point in time when you can feel the pendulum — after years of swinging against us and for the forces of intolerance — starting to swing in the direction of justice and equality. This is a moment when we can not only see the possibility of meaningful change, it feels like we can actually make that happen. You could feel it in the United ENDA campaign, and I can feel it in this conference. And given the unprecedented numbers of people participating in the primary elections, it’s clear that we are not alone.

The challenge for us is what are we going to do with this moment. Are we going to seize it or are we going to let it fade away? Is our movement going to be once again seduced by lofty words, invitations to fancy cocktail parties and government appointments, or are we going to insist on tangible deliverables? Are we going to be satisfied with a few crumbs, or demand more.

And equally important, if we do seize this moment, who will benefit from whatever advances come — the privileged few, as usual, or will we be advancing our vision of a transformed society for all?

I spent most of the afternoon in the United ENDA closed-door meeting for coalition members. The meeting was off-the-record, so I won’t discuss details out of respect for my colleagues, but I will say that I’m excited for the upcoming campaign and plans for the coming year.

Finally, I attended a short workshop on “Facebook Activism” - I’m afraid that it was too basic for me. I’d already figured out pretty much everything presented, but it was still good to get reinforcement of my own “best practices” and generate a few new ideas. The presenter pointed to the “Causes” application (as a long-term awareness feature with the ability to send messages to the largest number of members and fund-raise), the groups function (for more short-term awareness building and limitations on messaging opportunities, and events (for specific, actionable things like rallies or call-to-action messages) as the three interconnected tools that form the basis of Facebook activism.

A final thought on the first two days as a whole, a lot of people here are needing to process what happened last September-November with ENDA… and specifically, the role of the HRC in the movement and the community. There are people who still need to express their anger/betrayal feelings, others who advocate healing and moving forward with a new understanding of power dynamics, and (very few) others who are ready to go back to the old model of community relationships. I’ve talked to a few HRC staffers at the conference and I’m not sure any of them are feeling particularly welcome this week, which is too bad. I know from personal experience that the actions of the top leaders and most visible spokespeople for an organization don’t always reflect the values, concerns and beliefs of the rest of the staff, and it’s unfair of us to paint all HRC staff members with the same brush.

Tomorrow is mega-media training day (goodie for my professional development) and I get to sit in on a session with GLAAD’s Paul Karr, who has been a huge help to me with media outreach in the last year. At some point, I may need to leave the hotel long enough to take some pictures and pretend like I’ve actually seen anything in Detroit other than the inside of this hotel space.

Posted: February 8th, 2008 under creating change, detroit, queer rights.
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Today was my first full day at the Creating Change Conference in Detroit. It’s cold here, but there’s no reason to leave the Renaissance Center, so other than my periodic trips to the outdoor smoking area where I can gaze across the river at Canada, the weather doesn’t matter too much.

I spent most of the day in an intensive workshop called “Charm School for Activist” - which focused on framing and communicating our values. The specific background of the workshop faculty was in LGBT health issues, but the lessons were meant to be expansive to other issues. Much of the class was too basic for me, but it was good practice and I did learn a few new things. For example, while I know that complete trans health coverage in insurance policies was important, my surface understanding was that many insurance companies and businesses get stuck on the idea that they’re “paying for” a sexual reassignment surgery. However, one of our faculty members pointed out that when insurance policies specifically exempt coverage for medial issues related to gender identity issues, things like routine health care suffer. If a transman signs up for insurance identifying as male on various forms, but has a cervix, insurance companies may refuse to pay for pap smears. While a cisgender woman has access to hormone therapy for health care and aging, a transwoman may be refused coverage for the exact same prescriptions.

But the idea that really struck home was the damage we do as a community by promoting the idea that “LGBT youth are at increased risk of suicide.” First of all, the statistics aren’t as clear as I’ve been led to believe. Second, using this argument may gain traction with liberal-values people (who understand that the real issue is social stigma), conservative-values folk interpret this as another argument that there’s something inherently harmful or bad about being LGBT. Third, it’s demoralizing to the many, many queer youth who are forced to be stronger, more resilient, more resourceful and more mature than their non-LGBT counterparts. Judging by the young activists I’ve been interacting with so far at Creating Change, I have to admit that there’s nothing “at risk” about these youth, and even though many of them have had hardships in their lives, they have a very clear idea of what they want and what they’re willing to do to achieve it.

One of these days, I’m going to develop a workshop for conferences like this called “Strategic Planning Strategies for People Who Hate Strategic Planning: Getting Passed the Process and to the Point.”

The opening plenary this evening was Julian Bond, longtime chairman of the NAACP and recently began a leadership role in Florida’s Fairness for All Families Campaign, fighting for marriage equality iagainst an anti-marriage amendment to the state constitution. He was very inspirational, to be sure, but it’s a little disappointing to hear an ally and good friend repeating queer movement talking points at least five years out of date. Bond rarely referenced bisexuality or gender identity in his speech, often using the shorthand “gay and lesbian” or sometimes just “gay.” He also repeated, nearly word-for-word, portions of the “open letter to Dr. Laura” apparently written by Kent Ashcraft and used in a memorable scene of The West Wing.

Less surprising, but troubling to me personally, was Bond’s assertion that LGBT rights are civil rights because both are based on immutable chance of inherent traits. I’ve come to dislike the idea of treating sexual orientation and gender identity as strictly a biologically determined trait. In part, in diminishes and ignores the experiences of many bisexual (or MSMW/WSMW) people, the considerations of gender identity in sexuality, and the true complexity of sexual orientation (which is made up of factors such as relationship orientation, community identification, gender identity and expression, fantasy, etc.). While I completely agree with Bond that LGBT rights are civil rights, I prefer to point out that civil rights protections are based both on immutable personal traits (e.g. gender, race) as well as chosen matters of conscience and identity (e.g. religion, marital status). Whether sexual orientation is chosen or not isn’t exactly the point, the point is that basic equality and fairness for all is worth promoting as a value in and of itself.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s more varied schedule of topics and activities. On a sorta-funny note, I ended up sitting next to some people we work with quite often at the plenary who didn’t recognize me (despite my shirt emblazoned with our organization logo and my visible name badge) and then began critiquing our annual conference in comparison to Creating Change. They didn’t say anything terrible, but it was amusing to hear unfiltered opinions of heavy-duty activists we consider close allies and advisers.

Posted: February 7th, 2008 under creating change, detroit, queer rights.
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