Next month, a couple thousand activists from all over the country will congregate for five days in downtown Oakland. They'll commiserate and rally, learn, strategize, and socialize.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which produces Creating Change, said he's fully expecting his peers to raise a ruckus.
"It wouldn't be Creating Change if we didn't have a protest or a controversy or a picket or a demonstration," said Foreman, now in his third year of leading NGLTF. "They're activists. They feel free to express their feelings in a very strong way, and that's part of Creating Change."
Foreman estimates about 2,500 activists will flock to the Marriott City Center November 9-13 for the 18th annual Creating Change conference. The task force's signature grassroots event coincides with its mission to promote LGBT equality through legislative campaigns, lobbying, and policy analysis.
You never know what's going to happen when this many queer activists get together.
Back in 1999, when the conference was last held in Oakland, a transgender person (who did not attend the event) was allegedly assaulted at 14th and Broadway streets near the Oakland Convention Center where Creating Change was being held and was subsequently mistreated by the police, said Patricia Kevena Fili, one of seven local conference organizers and an employee of AIDS Project East Bay. Most of the conference attendees marched over to the police headquarters in protest. As a result, the Oakland Police Department established its first LGBT community liaison, and Fili trains cadets in trans sensitivity.
Fili said she looks forward to this year's focus on building an anti-racist movement. Oakland is an ideal place for it, she added.
"The only people who are going to save us are the people we see in the mirror," she said. "And we can do that."
The conference is noted for its diversity. Those who fill out this year's registration form can expect to choose between nine genders (check all that apply), 13 ethnicities, and five sexual orientations.
They'll attend a cornucopia of seminars, workshops, lectures, and other activities. Some of the highlights:
• Fourteen daylong "pre-conference institutes" on November 9-10 will cover everything from racial justice to getting the gay angle on Social Security into American politics.
• Budding and veteran organizers alike can sharpen their political organizing skills with three-hour seminars November 11-13 that include how to use opposition research in campaigns, how to get federal funding, and how to respond to "preventive" conversion efforts that target LGBT youth.
• Activists will march on the USS Potomac, anchored in Jack London Square, November 11 (Veterans Day) to protest the U.S. military's homophobic "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
• In the "Pride Techno Ritual," Q-Spirit's Christian de la Huerta will guide participants Friday night, November 11, through a no-horrendous-events-censored history of the gay movement and ritual dance celebration.
• Saturday, November 12, at 9 p.m., the public is invited to join the crowd at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center at 388 9th Street, for "Bump Up the Heat," an evening of comedy, drumming, drag kings, spoken word, and music.
• Youth activists can decide for themselves what to talk about. The under-24 crowd typically composes 40 percent of the participants, Foreman said.
The marriage debate
Tackling this community's issues is never easy, Foreman said.
"There have always been tough discussions about the role of working within the system or working to bring down the system," he said.
One of the hardest questions on the table this year will undoubtedly be the community's strategy for marriage equality. According to the Christian Coalition, 18 states will consider antigay marriage constitutional amendments in coming elections. Texas has one on the ballot November 8.
"When you're closer to your goal, the resistance gets harder," said Fili, who's been helping organize the conference since April. "We've got to realize that we're under siege."
Activists must decide whether to push for full equality now or start with more incremental routes: domestic partnerships, alliances with other communities, nondiscriminatory protections.
"How do we get through those incredible challenges and come out on the other end as a stronger community?" Foreman said.
Organizers will offer a quiet room for those who need a timeout from intense discussions, Fili said.
But all that queer energy is just what creates change, Foreman said.
It also sparks fires.
"There's a lot of sex," Foreman said. "People hooking up with kindred souls. And that's a great thing."
On-site registration begins Tuesday, November 9, at the Marriott City Center hotel in downtown Oakland. Registration forms and a complete schedule of events and conference costs are online at http://www.creatingchange.org.
Participants can also volunteer for four hours and participate the rest of the day free; volunteer orientation is Sunday, November 6, at the Marriott. E-mail Julie Childs at mailto:[email protected] for more information.