FRIDAY SESSION DESCRIPTIONS:

Recruiting Queers: Affirmative Action on Campuses
(10:45am to 12:30pm)
In the last few years, campus-based affirmative action programs have come under attack from a number of quarters including those who oppose antidiscrimination initiatives in general or affirmative action in particular, those who criticize universities for failing to implement existing provisions, and those who believe that affirmative action must be expanded to incorporate groups (including lgbt people) not generally included. This session presents an opportunity for an update and conversation about affirmative action, especially as it relates to lgbt folk, at Ryerson, York, and University of Toronto. Nancy Nicol, David Rayside, Fred Hahn, Jody Warner, George Bielmeir

Risk, Representation & Resistance: Organizing in the Black Queer Community
(10:45am to 12:30pm)
This session will explore the diversity of the Black Queer community about our experiences, while we continue to take risks by putting our lifestyles, our ideologies and our bodies on the line. It will also give a glimpse into grassroots organizations, events, and forums where Black Queer culture is produced and shared with others. These are seen as acts of resistance as we deal with the complexity of organizing against oppressions of sexuality as well as race, gender and class. Trevor Gray, Cassandra Lord, Christopher Smith, Njeri-Damali Campbell, Jamea Zuberi

Teaching Beyond Tolerance: Barriers, Divisions & Bridges in LGBTQ Education
(10:45am to 12:30pm)
Tara Goldstein, OISE, University of Toronto
Performed Ethnography for Anti-Homophobic Teacher Education:
This presentation will discuss a new three-year research project that will explore the ways in which the pedagogical approach of "performed ethnography" can disrupt and challenge homophobia in teacher education programs.

Jordan Cantwell, Rainbow Resource Centre, Manitoba
This presentation will provide an overview of the Breaking Barriers in Education Project. It will highlight the partnership relationship between the Rainbow Resource Centre and the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Education. It will also discuss challenges and strategies for influencing school boards and district policies.

Debra Sutherland, University of British Columbia
This presentation will provide a narrative summary and discussion of some interesting and some difficult experiences as an out lesbian instructor/advocate encountering student teachers with religiously-based (and other) resistances to LGBTQ issues, in a required course on social justice issues in education.

Student Leadership: Livin' in Tolerance
(2pm to 3:45pm)
What is the state of queer student leadership in the twenty-first century? How do we organize ourselves, create inclusive spaces and foster new leadership? As queer student leaders, how do we take care of ourselves? How do issues of race, class, gender, age, gender identity, ability and academic status play out in our organizations and wider communities? Hear the experiences of three panelists whose organizing and activist experiences range from working with first year students to being involved in student government as an out and proud transsexual woman. This roundtable session is an opportunity for everyone involved in queer organizing on campus - in any capacity - to get together and network, and share ideas and experiences. Immediately following this session will be a caucus opportunity for students. (Susan Gapka, York University, Anthony Collins, University of Toronto, Ishwar Persad, York University, Nadia Bello, T.E.A.C.H. Program of Planned Parenthood Toronto)

Doing IT For FREE. Queering the Non-Profit Sector
(2pm to 3:45pm)
John Grundy, Carleton University
This presentation will explore the Political Economy of Toronto's LGBTQ Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector will convey preliminary research from the project Bringing Identity In: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) Voluntary Sector Organizing in Toronto.

Miriam Smith, Carleton University
This paper will report preliminary research results from my current study of the voluntary sector in the Toronto area. The aim of the research is to map voluntary sector (charitable or non-profit) organizations that serve the LGBTQ communities, to explore the networks between queer non-profits in the city, their relationships to governments at all levels and their role in relation to the queer communities of the city.

Christopher Smith, York University
This paper provides a general history of lgbt voluntary organizing by non-"white" people from the 1980's to the present. The bulk of this discussion deals with the shift from consciousness raising models of the Post-Liberation era (i.e. feminist movement, gay lib) to the more complicated context we live in now. In this paper I argue then that the site(s) of such endeavours has shifted due to advances in technology and what can be deemed as a "professionalisation" of activism.

Queer Intersections in Toronto History
(2pm to 3:45pm)
This workshop will explore intersections of race and sexuality in Toronto queer history. Workshop leaders will present short historical texts from the past and participants will discuss multiple ways of interpreting the meanings of these texts. Elise Chenier, McGill University, Laila Haidarali, York University, Didi Khayatt, York University, Steven Maynard, Kingston based historian, Katherine Perdue, York University, Marc Stein, York University, Mariana Valverde, University of Toronto

SATURDAY SESSION DESCRIPTIONS:

Playing Well With Others: Allies, Positive Spaces and Solidarity Groups
(10:45am to 12:30pm)
Dale Smith & Lisa Seymour, University of Manitoba
The Identifying Allies project at the University of Manitoba is one of many variations of different "Positive Space", "Safe Space" and "Ally" programs at university campuses across North America. Within this workshop, Dale Smith, will present on the project developed. Facilitators will critique both the benefits and the challenges that exist.

Fraser Hall, McGill University
Will present on the whys and how to's of establishing Queer Straight Alliances and Queer People of Colour Collectives.

Jen Bradd, Simon Fraser University, Byron Lee, Simon Fraser University
We are in the process of creating a game-styled workshop that hopefully creates allies people fighting homophobia and heterosexism. We believe that it is necessary for our own communities to examine their internalized homophobia and heterosexism in order to move beyond tolerance. Without sounding like smartasses, our discussion will hopefully be the manifestation of the ideology of anti-homophobia because it centers on action. Re/learning anti-homophobia comes from action and role-plays instead of textbooks.

Who's Queer? Whose Queer
(10:45am to 12:30pm)
Chris Bell, Chicago, Ill.
Queer is the preferred term of choice for a significant section of our community. Despite this preference, the term can also exclude some individuals, specifically, for the purposes of this paper, people of color. In this paper, the author discusses two distinct and recent examples of how people of color were excluded from queer communities, drawing particular light to the difference in resolution in the examples.

Sky Gilbert, University of Toronto
For many contemporary queer theorists and artists gay and lesbian identity politics have become old-fashioned. Club drag queens through their liberating humor and scathing honesty, access a site of pleasure in which sexual and racial identities play. I suggest that club drag queen performance offers us a theory of postmodernity in which subject and object become truly synonymous. It is thus through the performance of club queens that we can access a more relevant postmodernism, one that acknowledges the materiality of the world.

Leanne Gillard, Toronto, Ont.
What does queer faith feel like? What are the typical contradictions that people face while trying to worship without shame? What are some guiding ethics in current sex and faith-based activities, such as the Pussy Palace, art/sex salons, and cultural events and private practice? How is religious activity queered? What are the political implications of faiths that include the labour of sex-workers, the contributions of sex radicals (i.e./ polyamorists) and queers of all sexes, genders, races and classes?

Clits, Cliques & Closets: Dykes on Campus
(10:45am to 12:30pm)
What is the experience of dykes on campus? How are dykes creating spaces on campus? Is there's a dyke culture or there are different dyke cultures on campus? What are the experiences of dykes of colour and dykes who are members of various ability, class, size, and faith? Are women leaving campus and creating particular spaces/scenes in the communities such as in the bars, on sports teams, in the arts. Who gets left out, tolerated, intolerated? How are we moving beyond tolerance? Come talk about what you think of these questions, what questions you think are important, and your experiences are as a dyke on campus. Didi Kayatt, Lisa Silverman, Verlia Stephens, Kate Bride, Valerie Lebreux

Beyond Toronto: Campus Change on the East Coast & West Coast
Leslie Bella, Memorial University, NFLD.
Being Bent on Change: Faculty, students and community people have been "bent on change" through their work on the Heterosexism Enquirer as researchers, journalists and editorial board members. This presentation will look at our experience of working for change, including the impact on us of being involved in improving the world.

Silvia Vilches, University of Victoria, BC
We know that heterosexism and homophobia present challenges: but what would gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirited, transgendered and self-identified queer people in the academic environment identify as the top priorities to address in their lives? The findings of a five year organizational project and masters thesis topic will be presented, highlighting discoveries about effective ways to change the system and work across difference.

Networks, Partners, and Allies: Community Regional, and Provincial Models
(2pm to 3:45pm)
Kevin McBean & Cheryl Cooke, Pride York Region
PRIDE York Region is bent on changing York Region into a community of which its queer population can be proud. This presentation explores the visibility-focused strategies used to accomplish that goal.

Kristopher Wells & Andre P. Grace, University of Alberta
In this presentation Wells & Grace discuss their involvement in two community and two educational action initiatives used to profile Queer issues of equity, social justice, safety, and inclusion in education and the larger culture.

Marcus Logan, Halton Pride Committee, Diane Hendry, Constable, Diversity Officer, Halton Regional Police Service
Halton Anti-Homophobia Committee (HAHC): TorontoÕs Neighboring Community Ð A model of Community Partnerships. In this presentation, the committeeÕs activities and their community collaborations in the Halton Region will be discussed. Listen to the challenges the volunteer committee faces as the only LGBTQ service available to a largely dispersed and invisible LGBTQ community on Halton (Oakville, Burlington, Halton Hills, Milton, Acton and Georgetown), how they meet these challenges, build strategic partnerships and move the Halton Region beyond tolerance and into an inclusive and accepting community.

Sex In and Out Of the Classroom
(2pm to 3:45pm)
Gary Kinsman, Laurentian University
"Sex, Experience, and Power" In this paper I reflect on ten years of teaching sociology of sexuality classes to largely (but not entirely) 'heterosexual' students and the various strategies I use to get students to challenge heterosexual hegemony in their lives, in the classroom and beyond. This moves far beyond liberal tolerance for queers to a critique of heterosexual hegemonic practices and the implication of many students in these practices. The various ways I try to destabilize heterosexual normality by turning a critical queer gaze on institutionalized heterosexuality will be mentioned.

Susanne Luhmann, Laurentian University
Theorizing Queer/ Speaking Queer: Talking Sex in the Classroom

(Trans)People of Colour and Two Spirit People: Fighting Racism Transphobia & Homophobia In Our Community – open to People of Colour and Two Spirit People only
(2pm to 3:45pm)
This workshop/panel will: (1) strive to articulate the pervasive experiences of exclusion (i.e., racism, transphobia and homophobia) experienced by transsexual, transgendered and intersexed people of colour and "two-spirit" people, and (2) urge participants to act as change agents and allies, calling upon them to help create effective solutions towards a positive process of change: a world that is race-, sex-, trans- and queer-positive and inclusive of all. Rupert Raj, J.D., Karleen Pendleton JimŽnez, Joanne Adolph, Nicole Tanguay, Tatianna Adams

Marginalized Queer Youth: Experiencing Intolerance In and Out of Communities
(4pm to 5:45pm)
This panel explores youth, leadership and education from a peer perspective. Listen to the experiences, challenges and successes of queer youth in the city of Toronto who are working in and with social service organizations to provide safe, supportive spaces for other queer youth. Queer youth: come out and network, learn about resources and support, and share your own experiences. Panelists include representatives from the Soy Black Queer Youth Initiative, Trans Youth Toronto and the Asian Coalition for AIDS Services.

Gavin Downie
Will be discussing the creation and evolution of Trans Youth Toronto, the first trans youth program at the 519.

Cassandra Lord
The development of a Black youth program entitled "The Black Queer Youth Initiative" funded by a mainstream Queer youth organization will be discussed in relation to the impact this Black initiative has within the larger queer youth organization.

Florence Heung
Will speak to her experiences as co-ordinator for youth and women's services, and the issues facing queer Asian youth, at Asian Community AIDS Services.

Vtape Sponsored Event: Richard Fung & B.H. Yael films
(4pm to 5:45pm)
This workshop presents the work of two important Canadian video artists and activists. Each artist has, in very different ways, addressed the idea of going beyond tolerance in terms of gender, sexuality and the complexities of ethnicity and race. Richard Fung will screen Sea In the Blood and B.H. Yael will screen selections from her work Fresh Blood. Richard Fung, B.H. Yael, Lisa Steele

Vtape is a Toronto media arts centre, providing distribution services to over 600 artists as well as an on-site research centre and an up-to-date web site listing over 3000 titles and a recently launched bibliographic section on video art and artists. www.vtape.org.

Class Passing in Queer Communities
(4pm to 5:45pm)
Andrea Huskie, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
From lesbian cruise ships to designer vodka, from Will and Grace to Queer as Folk, the LGBTQ community is being "reflected" in images of leisure-class luxury. My presentation will examine the language and imagery of queer consumer culture as well as "mainstream" companies' desire to homoeroticize their advertising message to attract straight and gay consumers alike. At the center of this interactive discussion will be an examination of our community's desire to "class pass" beyond our financial reality.

Fred Hahn, CUPE 2191, Ontario
Coming Out of the Class Closet -- Are Queers leading ClassAnalysis in CUPE? This presentation will explore 1) How "Queer" issues are framed as "union" issues in CUPE -- challenges, successes, and current situation 2) Equality Seekers United: Queers working with other marginalized folks in our Union -- challenges, successes and current situation 3) Why we're all in the "class closet" and how queers are pushing open the door in CUPE.