2016 Intersectionality Programming

--Rev. Elijah C. Nealy, PhD, M.Div., LCSW

--JR Ford

--Tim Snyder

As many clinicians and family support providers can tell you, fathers of newly “out” transgender or gender expansive children often have a different perspective, and a more difficult time, than mothers do dealing with this news and what they perceive to be a major change in their family foundation.  But in the end, many dads are their child’s greatest support.  It is a given that family support is a critical indicator in the well-being of transgender and gender expansive children. This workshop is an opportunity to hear from fathers of transgender/gender expansive children to learn about their processes and struggles and how they are different from a mother’s.  Given how dynamic modern families are these days, this session aims to show how father-figures ultimately go through life supporting a transgender child.​

Incorporating Family Acceptance Messages into Programming to Create Structural Change

--Lisa Koffler, MPH

--Annette Cottle

--Geneva Musgrave

Presenters will draw on their experience launching CAMBA’s Project ALY (Accept LGBT Youth) in Brooklyn, NY to encourage attendees to consider how they can incorporate the promotion of family acceptance into their own work. Project ALY promotes acceptance through educational workshops, parent groups and social marketing campaigns. Attendees will gain an understanding of how Dr. Caitlyn Ryan’s, Director of San Francisco State University’s The Family Acceptance Project, groundbreaking research findings on the connection between family acceptance and health outcomes were translated into a real world program. We will discuss introducing the concepts of gender identity and sexual orientation in workshops at churches, schools, and community-based organizations. We will highlight the concepts of acceptance as a process for parents/family members and of drawing on the strengths of a particular community. Participants will learn concrete ways to support parents/families of LGBT youth.

--Vanessa Ford, MA
--Dr. Patrick Connelly, Psy.D.
--DeShanna Neal
--Joanna Cifredo

Human Rights Now: The Intersectionality of Gender, Race, Disability and Class 

--Reginald Nettles, PhD, CGP
--Reverend Sylveta A. Hamilton
--Luis Ramirez, LCSW
--Geneva Musgrave

This workshop is designed to address intersectionality; that is, the interconnection of oppressive institutions regarding multiple identities (race, class, immigration experience, etc.), both within members of the LGBTQ community, and between LGBTQ communities.  Participants will explore their own identities through a social location activity, looking at how their identities are connected with dimensions of privilege and oppression.  This activity will provide participants with language to engage in conversations around the ways that trans identity intersect with other social identities, help participants gain a better understanding of intersectionality and social location, help promote self-awareness of cisgender privilege, and how to use intersectionality as a framework to promote social justice in their practice with trans-identified clients.  In addition, one presenter will provide a brief autobiographical sketch describing his visible, and invisible identities, and some of the challenges associated with each. Participants will be invited to reflect upon diversity as they understand it, and will be guided through development of self-assessments of their majority and minority identities.  Key concepts will be defined and discussed, and a framework will be provided for understanding the inclusion of people with disabilities and LGBTQ groups as cultural minority groups, independent of their relative numerical status in the population.  Opportunities for small group and large group sharing will be provided.  Strategies for providing support for and enhancing resilience within and between diverse LGBTQ populations will be discussed.