Beginning today, the Creating Change Conference is happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota, featuring day-long institutes, celebrity speakers and sessions on how to create change in your own organization and community. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force hosts the conference every year in hopes of providing the LGBT community and allies with organizing and skills-building events – as well as fun networking opportunities and cocktail parties. Some of this year’s highlights: Thursday night keynotes from Rev. Elder Nancy L. Wilson, Metropolitan Community Church and Bishop Yvette Flunder, Founder of City of Refuge Community Church UCC; Friday State of the Movement address from Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (pictured above); Saturday session Social Media: How Facebook Can Help Win LGBT Equality; and God-Des and She performance at the Closing Plenary with Brunch on Sunday. And this is just an incredibly brief selection of a few things happening all weekend. And if you’re not attending the conference but are in the area, you can come to the night events such as Friday’s Bilerico Project Blogger Reception. I’ll be there representing AfterEllen.com, alongside Bil Browning from the Bilerico Project, Daniel Villareal from Queerty.com and Zack Rosen from The New Gay. It starts at 8:30 p.m. so come on by.
If you are attending the conference, check out the Saturday afternoon panel I’m on with the above-mentioned men, called “The Penis that Ruined Marriage Equality.” But that’s a catchy title for what we’re really discussing, which is how to include sex or sex-positive images on our sites and blogs without crossing the line into pornography. It’ll be a conversation with attendees on how to straddle the line when it comes to creating campaigns and other forms of media without it being, you know, penis and vagina all up in your face.
Visit creatingchange.org for a detailed schedule of the entire weekend. See you there!
