Creating Change adventure

Finally back from the Creating Change Conference in cold Minneapolis, MN. It was: amazing, exciting, thrilling, empowering, enlightening, celebrating, learning, and of course, exhausting. So here’s the brief summation of how my 3 days and 3 nights went.

Wednesday night:

• Arrived to single-digit temperatures, snow, dry skin, and static electricity
• Had dinner with my cohort (Ryan Miller) and one of his colleagues to an extremely busy hotel restaurant jam-packed with LGBTQA leaders, youth, advocates from across the nation. You could feel the energy of excited people exchanging ideas, expectations, and resources
• Called it a night in my 20th floor suite, which happened to be on the same floor as the POC (people of color) hospitality suite

Thursday:

• I was so excited about being there I decided to hit the gym… at 7am! I am NOT a morning person but I just could not stay asleep so I hit the gym and of course, everybody’s hogging the cardio machines. Good thing I prefer free weights anyway. Did some circuit training, went back to my room, showered, and dressed in my usual shirt/tie combo.
• Started a full day of LGBT campus administrators sessions from 9am – 6pm. A great ice-breaker of sorts and mingles makes me realize that not only do I NOT fit in the gender binary but I also do not fit in the Mac vs PC binary (I use both). I guess I am pre-destined to forever be in the middle
• During the day-long session I broke off into a POC group and found it both welcoming but also frustrating. Welcoming because I was no longer the 1 non-white person there. Frustrating because of all the horror stories that come with being both queer and a minority. I still walked away with a sense that there’s a purpose for everything.
• Went out afterwords to have dinner and explore COLD downtown. Thankfully, all establishments in the city of Minneapolis prohibit smoking – in other words, if a person wanted to smoke a cigarette, you’d have to go outside and freeze (if that’s not incentive to quit, I don’t know what is).

Friday:

• Session 1 (9-10:30am) — Woke up early again, still not feeling tired, but man my skin’s super dry! I forgot how much winter wreaks havoc on skin. There are more 25 (1.5 hr) sessions I can choose from or I could go to one of 6 academy workshops (3 hrs). I go for the sessions, unfortunately I picked one that I didn’t like (info was too specific and dis-heartening). I almost wanted to demand a refund of my morning.
• Session 2 (10:45am-12:15pm) — went to an AMAZING session on guerilla marketing. The facilitator was very knowledgeable brought relevant examples, and was humorous/entertaining. I hope to get her sources soon via email.
• Lunch (12:15-1:30pm) — went walking around in the Skyway (human-sized hamster tunnels) and found a subway.
• Plenary (1:30-2:45pm) — State of the movement Address from Rea Carey. I didn’t stay for the whole thing but I did catch that we need to advocate for Social Security. Many people rely on social security for their main source of income and she drove the point home with “if our parents no longer have social security, and have no other financial means, they will end up moving back in with us!”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people running to sign up to send a letter to their senators.
• Session 3 (3-4:30pm) — Learned how to be a board star. Man this is a lot harder than I thought since I am on the board for both OUT Jacksonville and OASIS.
• Session 4 (4:45-6:15pm) — More board related stuff, learning how to ask for money. Also very important and very good.
• Caucus 1 (6:30-7:30pm) — Ryan and I facilitate a Southeastern US session on the issues that LGBTQ populations face in the southeast region: racism, heterosexism, gender binary, HIV infection rates, poverty, religion, lack of trans resources, etc. The only unfortunate part about the timing of this caucus is that it’s also during POC caucuses and we were lacking in both trans and POC representation.
• Evening events — Decided to go out and explore Hell’s Kitchen (which by the way, is NOT named after the TV show). Awesome restaurant that turns into a great night club/bar/hot spot. It not only gets packed but what was great was that several people and I had a really in-depth conversation about what it meant to be queer, young, and a person of color. It was great to have that conversation just for the hell of it.

Saturday

• Session 5 — Learned about community center resources, and a great survey and statistics of the state of CBO’s (community based organizations) and NPO’s (non-profit organizations).
• Session 6 — originally went to learn about interpersonal violence and campuses and it turned out to be something else. Disappointed, I ducked out as soon as I could and went upstairs to Kink, Race, and Class. It was a packed house of people discussing the issues of being a POC and how we’re sometimes tokenized, made to play a certain role, and how it can trigger safety issues and psychological reactions.
• Lunch at Hell’s Kitchen, which was insanely packed for not only weekend brunch, but people from the task force looking to get out of the hotel. It was warm, I walked around in a sport coat and I was fine, it was 25 degrees. Guess I’m still a mid-westerner at heart.
• Session 7 — went to learn about how to move swing voters but this was after a very full lunch and I had a hard time staying awake. Tried to look for coffee but since it’s the weekend everything (in downtown) is closed.
• Session 8 — HOORAY! A session on API (Asian Pacific Islanders) LGBT organizations! Jacksonville is severely lacking in queer API visibility. I got some ideas on how we could try to bring some visibility, but let’s see if it happens.
• Caucus 2 — had a HUGE space to talk about butch/femme issues. It was great to talk about all the issues and all the perspectives.
• Evening events – decided to stay in, pack, and study (the joys of being a grad student)

Sunday:

• Wandered around for a bit and said goodbye to the feeling of inclusion and celebration of all my identities. That and the great view of the city I had. Back to humid Jacksonville.

Can’t wait until next year!!!

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