A Never-ending Gender Odyssey

This post was drafted just after I returned from Seattle a few weeks ago. Part of the post didn't save, but I am posting it anyway. In a few days, I will board another airplane for SCC in Atlanta. Updates to follow (promise)...

This Labor Day weekend marked my second year at Gender Odyssey Conference in Seattle. Later this month, I will attend my fourth Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta. I am starting to feel like a transgender conference circuit veteran, similar to a high school senior who knows what must be done while finding time to play hooky and have some fun. After all, much of this work is about relationship building and the conversations happen in the lobby more organically than in the workshop session.

On Sunday afternoon, I facilitated one of the best Kids of Trans sessions, mainly because I spoke so little. It has been my goal all along to create spaces for folks with transgender parents to share their stories. This weekend, I managed - through years of networking and a bit of serendipity - to assemble a panel encompassing a range of experiences. It worked so well that most questions could be answered in the first person. Now that is a good panel.

Connecting the Dots

In the past three weeks, I've been privileged to attend three very different - yet, in my world connected - conferences. Two were held in the Bay Area - CR10 and Teaching 4 Social Justice - and reminded me, yet again, how lucky I am to live here. I am so grateful for the access to brilliant radical spaces, where I am challenged to make connections between the work I've been doing and the critical work of others. How truly inspiring and, for an experiential learner like myself, necessary to moving forward. Embracing an analysis from in the intersections of transphobia, racism, and classism is vital to the future of my work as an advocate for transgender families. The T4SJ conference gave some solid tools for integrating theory into workshop development for COLAGE Bay Area. I aim to develop a more articulate explanation of how this looks, but for now I am digesting and allowing things to percolate.

Sandwiched between these two local conferences, I traveled to Atlanta for my third Southern Comfort Conference. What a celebration! More than one transgender parent expressed their gratitude for the Kids of Trans Resource Guide. They came out to their kids since May (the release date) and actually gave them a copy of the guide as part of coming out! It meant so much to meet folks whose families are already benefiting from this resource. This work feels like a dandelion that's gone to seed... I am letting the wind scatter the Kids of Trans resources through the world. I am cultivating other things now. SCC was such a great opportunity to see firsthand what sort of impact this work is having.

SCC also provided a venue to launch the No Dumb Questions project. We screened a clip of the new footage in a last minute addition to the schedule. Melissa Regan, the filmmaker, was met with overwhelming accolades from conference attendees. I'm not sure she realized just how much people in the trans community love her film. We met with Jennifer Finney Boylan after a rousing workshop on writing transgender memoir. She is quite the storyteller and was so excited about the new NDQ online community where people can share stories and ask questions about gender identity and sexual orientation. Check out the site to see Jenny talking about storytelling and share your own story.

I am working hard out here to connect the dots. I'll try to update the blog more often, since the NDQ project has me embracing the power of the web.