Have you registered for this year’s Carolina Conference on Queer Youth? Registration is FREE for youth! Click the link to register: http://www.timeoutyouth.org/youth/conference
Registration and Information on the fourth annual Carolina Conference on Queer Youth
Registration for the fourth annual Carolina Conference on Queer Youth is now OPEN! Please join us for this amazing educational experience. Click above for more information and registration. Youth register for FREE!
On Friday, October 14, 2016, students, K-12 school staff, helping professionals, and community members from around the Carolinas will convene on the campus of UNC Charlotte for the fourth annual Carolina Conference on Queer Youth. The one-day conference is a unique opportunity for area representatives to network, dialogue, and organize around issues important to the healthy development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth in K-12 education.
Five College Gender and Sexuality Conference: THE DEETS
So this weekend was the Five College Gender and Sexuality Conference at Hampshire. It marked a kind of momentous occasion for me because it was at this conference last year that I went to my first real ace event and met real ace people and started talking about real ace things. My 1 year ace involvement anniversary awwww
Short version: Even though I got really overwhelmed and had anxiety issues both days that really sucked, the conference was overall really excellent and I got to hang out with a bunch of really cool ace friends and meet new people which was super exciting.
Day 1: I went to a discussion about scientific models of inversion that was very informal but the presenter knew a lot about the topic and was really impressive at speaking extemporaneously. He also responded well to silly questions about nature versus nurture playing a role in trans and non hetero identities. The second workshop of the day was about navigating disability in radical spaces and it was an incredible workshop. We talked a lot about self-care and how to make sure people were providing good accommodations (whether you were attending or hosting an event) and about being supportive and compassionate and knowing how to self-advocate. It was a really friendly environment. We also talked about how to navigate spaces and relationships when a disability changes from day to day or space to space.
There was also a panel about Asexuality and BDSM that I did not go to but Shapes from gray-asexuality did so if you have any questions about how that went you can ask her!
Then there was a spoken word performance that by two pretty cool poets but I can't remember that much of it because it was overwhelming and I left and then had a fairly awful evening. But everyone tells me it was really good!
Day 2: I spent the day doing ace things because obviously. First was the ace closed space which included CAKE and CUPCAKES and wonderful people. We basically just sat around in a circle and talked about whatever came up. We introduced ourselves with our favorite wild animal and I sort of bonded with Hez about our love for orcas. We told people about meetups in the area and how to contact us and how to hang out and that was exciting and everyone was adorably wonderful. I also had someone come up and ask me if I ran a "fairly prominent ace blog" and I was like well I run an ace blog but I don't know how prominent it is? But we got to chat and say hi and it was nice to be recognized for my reblogging of random things.
I played some Cards Against Humanity (an edited version) with Julie, and Hez and his family and bought a ton of patches from frompastmetofutureme and talked about gender and things. Then I went to a workshop about Asexuality and Relationships hosted by frompastmetofutureme and we had a room of great people having a really helpful discussion. We talked a lot about boundaries and passed on techniques for communicating with partners about different needs. We passed on the ace community's love for charts and diagrams and explored what it means to be in mixed romantic/sexual orientation relationships and someone told a really cute story about how their partner made them 3 pies and a galete for their pi anniversary (3.14 pies!!) which they had calculated and we all awwed a lot.
All in all, it was a good experience but I kind of feel like I need to hide under a rock for six years before I interact with anyone ever again. If you want to ask me any questions about specific workshops or experiences let me know! I'm happy to answer them.
Five College Gender and Sexuality Conference Ace Times WERE AWESOMEE and I met so many new people and had really excellent conversations and some people even knew about this blog??
So basically this is an official attempt to try to do more active things with this blog
We're excited to say that the wonderful New York Toy Collective will be tabling on Friday and Saturday and will be bringing lots of goodies for interested people to buy!
