Members of Salt Lake City’s transgender community came together Saturday for the First Annual Gender Mini-Conference for Transgender Awareness Month at the Salt Lake City Public Library, which provided a number of workshops and presentations to facilitate education and awareness about issues regarding transgender people.
The event was hosted by TransAction, a youth-led transgender advocacy group affiliated with the Utah Pride Center. The U Queer Student Union invited the school’s transgender students and faculty to attend.
“(TransAction meets) weekly to come up with different ways to serve the transgender community, and this conference is one of those ways,” said Bonnie Owens, youth program coordinator for the Utah Pride Center.
The conference is designed to highlight the transgender community and provide a safe place for community members where they can engage with one another and expand understandings, Owens said.
There were laughter and tears throughout the day as community members discussed issues regarding gender, sexuality, transgender experiences in their family and defining their personal identities.
“We are really happy with the way this conference went,” Owens said. “We had a wide variety of sessions, we had a broad diversity of attendees, and I think that we have really provided a space for this community.”
Patricia Carlisle, a professor of gender studies and theory at the U who is working on her doctorate in literature and creative writing, gave the keynote speech, focusing on ideas regarding gender and telling stories from her own gender role journey.
“The main points I wanted to get across in my speech were that we are not alone, that we need to stick with it and hang on, that we shouldn’t expect some kind of sameness between us as a requirement of working together and being together,” Carlisle said. “We’re just too different. And that’s really our strength8212;our strength is our difference.”
The organizers of the event said the attendance was much higher than expected.
“I was so impressed with this conference because to hear the level of thoughtfulness and theorizing that these guys are doing in their 20s, the way they’re making a stance in the world, I was really moved,” Carlisle said. “This wasn’t available when I was younger, and it is powerful8212;really, really powerful.”
For more information about Transgender Awareness Month, TransAction or the Utah Pride Center, visit www.utahpridecenter.org.
Katie Harrington/The Daily Utah ChronicleTransAction hosted a mini-conference at the Salt Lake City Public Library on Saturday for Transgender Awareness Month. ?We had a wide variety of sessions…and I think that we have really provided a space for this community,? said Bonnie Owens, youth program coordinator for the Utah Pride Center.