14 J u s t o u t ■ february 20.2004
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National conference taps into community consciousness
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Lori Buckw alter (back row, center) was one of 2 0 leaders who attended the Transgender
Collaborative C onference last month in Washington, D .C .
A
group of leaders from across the
country gathered in Washington,
D.C., in early January for the first-
ever Transgender Collaborative
Conference. Though conversa
tions around trans and genderqueer political
identity and activism have taken place in many
venues, this was the first leadership gathering of
its kind organised by the Transgender Fpnd.
T he purpose of the conference was to encour
age collaborative dialogue among leaders working
in the legal, legislative and direct action fields to
advance the status of trans and genderqueer peo
ple in the United States. Participants did not set
out to find solutions to the many challenges fac
ing the trans community but sought rather to
open a dialogue about the nature of those chal
lenges on interpersonal, local and national levels.
Lori Buckwalter was one of 20 participants
invited to join the conference. T h e Portlander,
who works on diversity education through
Multnomah County and serves as the head of
It’s Time, Oregon!, was one of the few grassroots
activists among a conference of litigators and
civil rights attorneys.
“This conference was the perfect size to allow
interplay o f ideas,” Buckwalter says. “We were
able to talk from legal and technical perspectives
as well as in emotional and pragmatic terms."
According to Buckwalter, roundtable conversa
tion focused on two overarching themes. First,
assessing the challenges to the development of a
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genderqueer cultural consciousness and the conse
quent roadblocks to political solidarity. Second, dis
cussing legal and legislative strategies that may be
used to resist the current conservative political cli
mate, ensure safety for trans people and contribute
to the complicated process of community building.
Discussing the formation o f a genderqueer
consciousness is a politically and emotionally
multilayered issue. “This is the dialogue that has
to start, even when it is difficult,” Buckwalter
says. "There is such a diversity o f approaches to
identity that keep people at different perspec
tives to the problem. Different trans people
experience their identity differently.”
Disparate theories about the origin, forma
tion and expression of gender, debated owner
ship over trans legitimacy and divisiveness
among trans identities all contribute to a lack of
community consciousness. U ntil a trans com
munity is formed, there can he no trans agenda.
Buckwalter believes fundamental questions
need to be discussed in order to work toward com
munity building. “How do we weigh the balance
of identity vs. expression? How do we address the
vacuum of genderqueer cultural reference and
belonging? How do we deal with essentialist defi
nitions of sex and gender? AH of these conversa
tions relate to public action. Developing con
sciousness is about modifying the public con
science through exposure and education. There is
a lot of healing to do within our own community."
W hile a great deal of work remains to be done
back
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