Workshop

Stand Out in the Job Market 💼

If you’re engaged in a gay-straight alliance or a group like oSTEM your experiences have probably shaped who you are, your skills, and how you work. Still, coming out on your resume or at work is an important personal decision for LGBT+ professionals. This workshop will provide guidance on how to position your fabulous experiences in LGBT+ activities to align with business needs, and propose ways to stand out in your workplace by openly identifying yourself.

Presentations

Uncovered: A New England Romance for the Ages 🧵

While researching her dissertation in early American history, Rachel Hope Cleves stumbled upon a personal letter that eventually inspired her to write Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. Her book opens a previously buried and forgotten tale of two women who lived in a same-sex marriage in colonial New England. Theirs is a powerful story that underscores the need for preserving personal histories and challenging old stereotypes. Even under the weight of discrimination, Charity and Sylvia remind us that there is hope for LGBTQ+ folks, that it is possible to overcome challenges and live authentically.

Happiness Is the Driver for Career Advancement 🧗

Developing your career is an ongoing process: excavating your unconscious desires, shrugging off the burden of external expectations, coming to terms with your ambition, making decisions for the long term… it’s hard! If you wrestle with aligning your personal desire for achievement, fulfillment, and human connection with career advancement opportunities, Vince has some pointers for you.

Queer Rage 🤬

Rage can be a source of empowerment, resistance, and healing, but it can also be destructive and self-defeating. Uncover how the ways we express and how others receive our anger at injustice impacts our options down the line. By searching our feelings and exploring the dimensions and origins of our queer rage, we can channel this energy into positive and productive change.

The Value of Mentorship for Early Careerists 🤝

Mentorship is an invaluable resource for early careerists. Mentors can provide guidance, support, and advice, helping mentees to develop their skills, knowledge, and networks. This presentation explores the benefits of mentorship, the qualities of a good mentor, and how to find and get the most out of a mentorship relationship.

Beyond the Rainbow: Hidden Struggles of LGBT People Near and Far ⚖️

While significant progress has been made in LGBTQ+ rights, numerous challenges persist worldwide. This program explores lesser-known issues affecting LGBT people, focusing on both domestic and international contexts. By highlighting these issues, we can raise awareness and advocate for continued efforts to promote equality and inclusion within the LGBTQ+ community.

The Lavender Menace: How Radical Lesbians Fought Homophobia and Chauvinism in National Organization for Women ⚢

Lesbians were initially excluded from the mainstream feminist National Organization for Women, being labeled a “menace” to women’s liberation and issues affecting them characterized as a “lavender herring.” However, in the early 1970s, lesbian feminists challenged NOW’s leadership and argued that lesbianism is a political identity that is key to understanding the ways that heterosexuality separates and disempowers women to reinforce male supremacy.

Thomas Barrow, Man Out of Time 🕰️

Thomas Barrow, the sometimes-villain of Downton Abbey, is notable in the series because he experiences same-sex attraction. Today, he might identify as a “gay man”—but perhaps he is too recognizable to modern ideas about identity and sexuality for a man born in the nineteenth century. Turn back the clock and check out how ideas about what we now understand as “sexual orientation” has changed over the past 160 years, and explore the different ways that upper- and working-class British men thought about themselves.

A Place for History at Pride Festivals 📜

Interest in the history of queer movements, persons, places, and ideas has exploded over the last decade. Now we see municipalities, museums, non-profits, and corporations seeking to participate in various ways and for various reasons. But Pride starts at home! Every Pride festival and parade can host a connection to the past—both the happy and the sad times—and the future of our peoples and movements. As a programmer of a large LGBTQ festival, Vince outlines the important points to consider when developing a holistic community education program about and for queer peoples.

Flyover Country ✈️

Contributions of the Midwest to LGBTQ+ liberation are often-overlooked. By showcasing the vibrant activism that has always existed in these regions, we challenge the misconception that the Midwest is backwards compared with the urbanized coasts. We’ll explore how the Great Lakes region pioneered marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws, and LGBTQ organizations, often ahead of the coasts.

Through Science to Justice: Legacies of LGBT people in STEM 🧪

LGBTQA+ people are often recognized for work in the arts and humanities, but we work in all fields – including STEM! Explore the often-hidden history of incredible contributions made by scientists, inventors, engineers, and mathematicians of every gender and sexual orientation. Many struggled against prejudice, even as they broke new ground and revolutionized our understanding of the world. This session delves into their triumphs and struggles, showcasing the power of diverse perspectives in scientific exploration.

Speculative Gender 👾

Love the Doctor? Self-identify as a Trekkie? Peer into what genders might exist in the distant future among interstellar societies, and how they compare to the established and emergent social identities we have now. Red alert: surprising revelations about science fiction writers’ minds ahead!

Lady Gaga Studies 🦄

Queer the idea of a booklist by including a complex political and artistic statement that is all too often misunderstood, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” music video. Allegory and allusion wink at the “born this way” school of identity. A great examination of identity and literature before you compile a syllabus or independent study booklist.

Media Circus of the Grotesque: Rhetoric of Privilege and Violence 💔

There’s a reason why the name Dana (Chanel) Larkin might not ring a bell, but Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi probably do. Answers the question how do the “insider” LGBT and “outsider” media coverage of hate crimes, suicide, and war erase people of color, women, and transfolk?

Queer Theory in a Nutshell 🌰

Queer theory is a complex philosophical discourse that goes beyond binaries to question categories like sex, gender, desire, and identity. Unfortunately, its founding authors and predecessors are often dense and hard to understand. Folks of all experience levels will find an amusing and approachable breakdown of the methods and maxims of queer theory.

Every Revolution Needs a Little Treason ⚜️

Do gays belong in the Boy Scouts? The U.S. Supreme Court has heard many cases on discrimination based on religion, race, sex, and sexuality, and the answers to those cases reveal the justices’ ideas about identity and association rights. Investigate what defines membership within a group, and how social identities like “gay” “black” or “female” are applied to individuals.