Creating Change Conference: Friday

Today was the first day I was able to attend the National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change.  This is also my first conference/convention such as this and it was fabulous!  There were so many things to do and people to meet that I didn’t really know where to start.

The first workshop I attended was entitled “What Your Parents Never Taught You About Sex”.  Naturally, I thought this would be fascinating and informative, however I was wrong.  While it was very informative to those who have not been taught things like I have, it was basically just an overview of safe sex, condoms, “alternatives to sex”, age of consent and other such things.  Though there were two notably interesting events.  The first, one of the presenters had a dildo in his hand the entire time.  I have no idea why.  We didn’t talk about it at all and he used it as like a hand gesture thing.  I am happy that we can be open and unashamed but I still don’t see why the dildo was so important.  Secondly, a merely amusing quote from the presenter.  He was talking about alternatives to sex and described how sitting on the washing machine or dryer can be fun and he said, “I like it when my butt is vibrating.”  Taken out of context, this is possibly one of the most awesome quotes ever.

The second workshop I went to was entitled, “Making music, building the future.”  This workshop had the artistic director of the Turtle Creek Chorale as a speaker as well as two people from the Gay Mens Chorus of Los Angeles.  This was probably the most moving workshops.  There may be more tomorrow but this moved me to tears.  The LA Chorus goes around to high schools and basically engenders acceptance of LGBT people by proving that they are just one of us. They usually have a few stories from the members about their lives and how they can relate to the students.  They also tell their jobs and proves once again that they all are just “normal”.  They have jobs ranging from engineer to art director to flight attendant to director of Information Security.  The songs the Turtle Creek Chorale sang were moving and totally amazing.  Below are some pictures of the performance taken from my trusty iPhone!

The second group, in black shirts, is called Dallas PUMP which stands for “Pride, Unity, Music, Power” which is kind of like a youth version of the Turtle Creek Chorale that is sponsored by Youth First Texas.

The last event of the night was the “Queer Youth Caucus.”  This entry will be a short one since I was asked not to report anything that happened in there.  I am allowed, however, to tell you all that this was one of the best events of the night and it really gave me hope about the world.  I am proud to be a member of the “youth” that is going to change the world.

It is dammed near impossible to capture all of the thoughts and amazing moments I had today and I am sure that tomorrow will be just as good.

Please ask any questions you may have in the comments or feel free to email me or facebook me.  I am greatly honoured to be able to attend this event and if I get enough questions, I will happily post more blogs about this soon.