Equality Conference & Gala Breakout Sessions

Click on the session name for a description. Additional descriptions will be posted as they become available.

• Straight for Equality: Inviting and Engaging Allies for Change
  
• The Young Advocate: Making a Difference on Your Campus 
• Talking Trans: An Introduction to the T for LGB
• Partner Abuse in LGBT Relationships
  
• Love, Families, and the Law 
  
• Integration Matters
  
• The School Violence Prevention Act and You!
• LGBT Well-being: Equality as a Force for Better Health 
• Home Town Advantage: Organizing in Smaller Cities
  
• Exposing One of America's Greatest Moral Failures: Growing Up Gay in America 
• Building People of Color LGBT Visibility
  
• Aging in the LGBT Community 
• Winning Transgender Inclusive Legislation 
• Student Caucus
• Speak Out! Maximizing the Media
  

Straight for Equality: Inviting and Engaging Allies for Change

Gaining equality is going to take a diverse team, and it won’t happen without the help of straight allies. Engaging allies takes a good strategy and participants will gain resources to help them in their efforts. PFLAG Winston-Salem members will help you learn how to approach and develop new straight allies and keep them active using tools and messaging from PFLAG’s Straight for Equality project.

Neena Mabe – Neena is a board member with PFLAG Winston-Salem.  She co-chairs the GLBT Youth Homelessness Coalition and works with PFLAG Youth Committee.  She is co-chair of the Green Street UMC Anti-Racism Team and works with the Piedmont Consortium for Suicide Prevention.

Andrea Angelo – Andrea is a board member with PFLAG Winston-Salem. Recently, Andrea received the Winston-Salem Foundation’s ECHO Council Award for her efforts related to building social capital in the community. She is the founder of the Winston-Salem LGBT Friends Meetup.com group that connects LGBT people and allies through events and gatherings in the area.  

Spencer Duin - Spencer is retired after working for thirty-five years with Westinghouse Electric and Eaton Corporation. He and his wife, Carol, have three children and seven grandchildren. Ten years ago, their son came out to them and PFLAG helped them to understand the many issues faced by GLBT people and their families. Spencer grew up in a strong Lutheran family and currently attends UCC Congregational Church. He is a graduate engineer from North Dakota State University and worked most of his career in various management positions.

The Young Advocate: Making a Difference on your Campus

This interactive workshop focuses on how you can effect change on your campus through advocacy, education, and community involvement. The combination of all three elements provides both the key to success in promoting a more hospitable environment for LGBTQ members of your campus and gives you additional tools for taking a stand against intolerance and hate. Join us in learning how to make your voice heard by decision-makers, students, campus media, and the public.

Presenters

Janie K. Long, Ph.D. – Janie is the director of the Duke Center for LGBT Life. She has presented at a number of conferences on LGBT topics and has authored numerous LGBT-related publications. She currently serves as a fellow for the Rockway Institute, a national center for LGBT research and public policy.

Christopher J. Purcell  - Chris is the program coordinator of the Duke Center for LGBT Life. He is the advisor for Duke’s queer undergraduate group and facilitates many of Duke’s LGBT programming initiatives. Before escaping to our warmer climate, Chris worked in LGBTQA services at the University of Vermont.

Talking Trans: An Introduction to the T for LGB

What does it mean to be transgender in North Carolina? How can LGB folks be effective advocates on gender identity or expression issues? This workshop will discuss the experience of being transgender and how all of us can work to be better trans allies. We will cover issues related to identity, health, and how transpeople fit into the wider LGBT community.

Presenters

Stephan Wiseman – Stephen is a student at the UNC School of Social Work, focusing on management and community practice with a special interest in policy. He interns at Equality North Carolina and serves as the graduate assistant at the UNC LGBTQ Center.

Rachel Wertheimer – Rachel is a student at the UNC School of Social Work, focusing on clinical work in health and mental health. She interns at the pediatric oncology unit at Duke Hospital and serves as an HIV counselor at SHAC, the UNC student-run health clinic.

Jenny Williams - Jenny is a second-year master’s of social work student at UNC Chapel Hill. She has long held an interest in issues of gender, sex, and sexuality, and is happy to be working again with Stephen and Rachel. When not in class, she works on indigent defense in capital murder cases.

Partner Abuse in LGBT Relationships

This workshop will explore the dynamics of abuse within the LGBT relationship. Participants will develop the skills needed to identify abuse, provide support to someone in a battering relationship, and have a basic understanding of legal recourses available to survivors and the policy changes needed to better protect against same-sex domestic violence.

Presenters

April Burgess-Johnson – April is the director of outreach and prevention for the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a statewide nonprofit organization which works to enhance safety for survivors of domestic violence through public policy advocacy, training, and technical assistance.

Beth Froehling – Beth is the public policy director for the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence where she works to promote polices and laws to assist victims of domestic violence and their children. She graduated from UNC School of Law and has served as an assistant district attorney.

Love, Families, and the Law

Recently, there have been significant changes in North Carolina laws that affect the LGBT community and our families. Join us for a lively discussion of current legal issues and what’s on the horizon. Three prominent North Carolina attorneys along with keynote speaker Kate Kendell will discuss topics ranging from marriage to children in this informative workshop.

Sharon Thompson – Sharon’s career has focused on public service and enhancing the legal status of those still not treated fairly or equally under our laws. Sharon was co-founder of the NC Association of Women Attorneys in 1978, the NC Gay and Lesbian Attorneys (NC GALA) in 1994, and the NC GALA Institute for Equal Rights in 2003. She was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives for the first of two terms starting in 1987. Her law practice has been “cutting edge” in family law and sexual orientation litigation. She has worked to ensure that gay and lesbian parents keep their children, have their partners adopt their children, and have the ability to protect each other and their children legally. In 2004, Sharon secured the first decree of adoption for the domestic partner of a biological mother in a same-sex family. Since then, more than 150 children of domestic partners have received this protection, and now have the security of two legal moms or dads. In 2007, Sharon received the Frank Porter Graham Award from the ACLU of North Carolina and was inducted into the North Carolina Bar Association General Practice Hall of Fame.

Connie Vetter – Connie is an activist, attorney, and mediator. Her legal practice focuses on the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clients. Connie has been involved in a number of organizations over the years, having served on the boards of the Lesbian & Gay Community Center, Equality NC, NC GALA, MeckPAC, Time Out Youth, and OutCharlotte. She regularly speaks to community organizations on LGBT law and has given presentations across North Carolina to various PFLAG groups, LGBT organizations, churches, college classes, and at community events.

Angela L. Haas - Angela is an attorney/mediator who advocates for the use of alternative dispute resolution within the legal system. She focuses on the issues faced by the LGBT community in the areas of family law (including adoptions and surrogacy) and estate planning. Her trial practice includes representing defendants in criminal district court, representing parents in DSS court, and representing plaintiffs and defendants involved in all types of family disputes. She has served on the boards of NC GALA and the NC GALA Institute for the past five years, and is very supportive of political candidates and officials who support the LGBT community.

Integration Matters

This workshop will provide participants with resources for communicating a more inclusive agenda regarding GLBTIQQ policies and initiatives. Participants will share experiences and develop strategies in large and small group learning circles.

Presenter

C.P. Gause PhD – CP is on the faculty of the Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He is the author of Integration Matters as well as many other groundbreaking texts. His areas of research include gender identity, black masculinity, queer youth, and collaborative activism.

The School Violence Prevention Act and You!

This workshop will give a history of the School Violence Prevention Act (“Anti-Bullying Bill”) in the North Carolina General Assembly, and its future in the 2009 session. Your participation is imperative to the passage of this bill, and we will focus on action steps that can be implemented in any community to help win this much-needed legislation.

Presenter

Rebecca Mann – Rebecca is the community organizer for Equality North Carolina. She has worked as an advocate and organizer with the YWCA of High Point and Planned Parenthood Health Systems, and in the communications departments of IntraHealth International and Ipas. A compulsive volunteer, she serves on the boards of North Carolina Women United and the Guilford Coalition on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and on the North Carolina board of the National Organization for Women.

LGBT Wellbeing: Equality as a Force for Better Health

Health is necessary for LGBT individuals to lead quality lives. Additionally, health is fundamentally related to social conditions, being inextricably linked to those same policies and efforts that prevent LGBT people from being viewed as equals by society. Using the areas of sexual health, violence prevention, mental health, and chronic diseases, this workshop will discuss why these inequities exist and explore what we can do to remedy them.

Presenters

Justin C. Smith – Justin is the coordinator for Project Style, an HIV/AIDS program for young black men based at the UNC School of Medicine. Justin’s research interests lie at the intersection of race sexuality, and health. 

Dr. Lisa Hightow-Weidman – Lisa is an assistant professor in infectious diseases at the UNC School of Medicine. Her areas of work are HIV prevention among adolescents, African Americans, and men who have sex with men, as well as engagement in care for HIV-infected clients 

Sally Herndon Malek, MPH – Sally is the director of the North Carolina Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch.

Kendra Smith, PhD – Kendra Smith is a counseling psychologist specializing in psychotherapy, outreach, and peer education with experience and interest in working with gender identities and expression, LGB culture and identity development, recovery from sexual assault, and spiritual wellness at UNC Campus Health Services.

Janet Joyner, PhD – Janet has devoted over a decade to changing policies that negatively impact LGBT youth in NC schools.

Home Town Advantage: Organizing in Smaller Cities

This workshop will explore organizing efforts for smaller North Carolina towns and cities. Panelists from across the state will discuss their first-hand experiences and offer practical strategies for small-city and small-town organizing. Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences.  

Presenters

Aaron Lucier - Aaron is on the staff at ECU and has advised their LGBT student group for twelve years. He was an active part of the Down East Pride Festival. He was recently awarded by the Association of College and University Housing Officers for his work with LGBT students, and is on the board of the Pitt County Aids Service Organization. 

Kurt Wooten - Kurt began his involvement with the OutWilmington Community Center in the fall of 2005. During his two years on the board he founded Wilmington PRIDE, encouraged and developed membership through social and fundraising activities, and worked with other nonprofits in the community such as CARE, Coastal Carolina HIV Care Consortium, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Kurt was also given the opportunity to write a column for ENCORE Magazine in Wilmington concerning LGBT issues and was awarded the Outstanding Male Community Member Spirit Award in 2007. Having moved back to Raleigh a year ago, he recently became involved with the efforts of the LGBT Center of Raleigh and looks forward to the future it promises for the community here in the triangle. 

Jessica Ackley - Jessica is the field organizer for Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina in Fayetteville. She works to advocate for public policies which support reproductive rights, access to reproductive health care, and medically accurate comprehensive sex education. Jessica is originally from Anchorage, Alaska, and graduated from Western Washington University in 2006 with a degree in community health. She has had previous experience working as an outreach worker for the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association as well as for the Breast and Cervical Health Check Program at the YWCA of Alaska. Jessica and her husband, Zach, currently live in Fayetteville. 

Exposing One of America's Greatest Moral Failures: Growing Up Gay in America 

This workshop will focus on the harm caused to gay youth by attitudes of hostility and prejudice that so often are justified with religious teaching. The subject of the discussion will be Mitchell Gold’s new book, Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America. We will be highlighting several of the personal stories in the book and discussing how these stories demonstrate the immense pain that a gay or lesbian teen must endure because of the social climate of rejection, condemnation, and discrimination. The discussion will pay particular attention to how such attitudes pervade our public schools and the adverse effect on gay and lesbian teens.

Presenters

Jimmy Creech - Jimmy is co-founder of Faith In America. He is a native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, and he was an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church from 1970 to 1999. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Divinity from The Divinity School of Duke University. He served as a pastor in churches of The North Carolina Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church from 1970 to 1990. Jimmy has traveled around the country preaching in churches and speaking on college and university campuses, as well as to various community and national gay rights organizations. He recently completed writing a book, entitled Adam’s Gift, about his experiences of the church’s struggle to welcome and accept lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. Jimmy is active in a number of organizations and has been recognized with numerous distinguished awards for his work. North Carolina Representative Susan Fisher—Susan is a fifth-generation native of Asheville who has served her community in many roles, including as chair of the Asheville City Board of Education, president of the Asheville-Buncombe League of Women Voters, and as director of Kids Voting Buncombe County. She was first elected to the North Carolina House in 2004 and represents District 114 in Buncombe County. She is a 2007 Flemming Fellow. In the North Carolina House, Susan serves or has served in many influential roles, including co-chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education and as a member of the Speaker's Initiative on Dropout Prevention and High School Graduation. 

Brent Childers - Brent serves as executive director of Faith In America, a N.C. non-profit organization that works to educate Americans about the harm caused when religion is misused to justify prejudice and discrimination toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. He served as vice president of Inform Inc. prior to joining Faith In America in 2007 as director of strategy and communications. Childers has spent most of his life in the evangelical Christian church and today advocates for the end to the type religion-based bigotry he espoused for many years.

Matt Comer - Matt Comer serves as editor of Q-Notes, the LGBT newspaper of the Carolinas. Comer was reared in Southern Baptist denomination and his chapter in Crisis is a reminder of the struggle that young gays and lesbians still face in so many parts of the country today.

Building People of Color LGBT Visibility

LGBT people of color have always been part of our North Carolina LGBT community, yet the visible LGBT community that is usually seen, both in activist and advocacy representation, is over-represented by white gay men and lesbians. How can our community bring people of color “out of the closet”? Is there a way to reach LGBTs of color in social settings to encourage participation in “out” activism? What are the barriers in communication and reaching that comfort zone between establishment organizations and the average person of color who, for whatever reason, may be reticent to be out? Can we establish a North Carolina statewide LGBT people of color network? Can we get more involved in the advocacy work of Equality North Carolina? Keynote speaker H. Alexander Robinson joins Mandy Carter and Pam Spaulding to address these important questions.

Presenters

Mandy Carter - A long-time North Carolina black lesbian social justice activist, Mandy Carter is Co-Founder of Southerners On New Ground and the National Black Justice Coalition, and served this year as one of the five Obama Pride National Co-Chairs. 2008 wraps up her celebrating 40 years of social, racial, and LGBT justice organizing since 1968.

Pam Spaulding - Pam Spaulding is the editor and publisher of PamsHouseBlend.com, honored as Best LGBT Blog in the 2005 and 2006 Weblog Awards. A regular contributor to the progressive blogs Pandagon and The Bilerico Project, Spaulding has also guest blogged on Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory on Salon, and Americablog. She received the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award from The Monette-Horwitz Trust for making significant contributions toward the eradication of homophobia. Spaulding has provided commentary on CNN during the 2008 presidential election cycle; Pam's House Blend was also  credentialed as part of the general press pool to cover the 2008 Democratic National Convention. A Durham native, Pam lives in the Bull City with her wife Kate; they legally married in Canada in 2004.

Aging in the LGBT Community

LGBT people face a number of particular challenges as we age. We often do not have access to adequate health care, affordable housing, other social services that we need due to institutionalized biases and phobias. Mainstream senior providers have limited information or training in how to appropriately work with and serve our diverse communities. This session will provide an overview of aging issues and challenges of LGBT people and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Aging Initiative’s efforts to address these issues.

Presenters

Laurie Young, Ph.D.- Laurie is the Aging policy analyst at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.  Prior to joining The Task Force, Dr. Young was the Executive Director of the Older Women’s League, a national grassroots member organization focused on women and aging. For four years she was the Senior Vice-president of the National Mental Health Association.  Laurie is an experienced trainer having traveled the country training local area service providers on developing state-of-the-art community based services for adults with serious mental illnesses. She continued her training advocacy again, cross-country in educating the public, service, state and local advocates on issues critical to women and aging.  In, 2005, she created community forums in twelve cities on “Social Security Matters”, to educate and advocate against the administrative plan to privatize Social Security.  Laurie’s career continues to focus on advocacy and public policy on the local, state, and national levels. In 2005, she was a delegate at the White House Conference on Aging, and a panelist for The Task Force summit, Making Room for All.

Winning Transgender Inclusive Legislation 

Where are we now? What have we learned? Can we pass a trans-inclusive ENDA this year? Keynote speaker Mara Keisling shares her remarkable journey over the past year and how she sees the fight going forward.

Student Caucus

How are LGBT students making a difference on their campuses? What challenges do student organizations face? Can students work together beyond their own campuses? This session will be an open discussion for students to network, share, and learn from each other. Got a burning issue and want to learn how other students across the state approach it? This is the place for you.

Facilitator

Justine Hollingshead - Ms. Justine Hollingshead was hired as the new Director of the GLBT Center in January 2008 and is responsible for the overall operation of the center, including programs and services, and will supervise the Graduate Assistant, who will assist with these activities, as well as advise the GLBT student organization AEGIS. Her background includes over twenty years of success working as an administrator in Higher Education on three different college campuses across the country. She offers particular expertise in training, supervision, programming, and administration, with an in-depth working knowledge and passion of the issues facing the GLBT community.

Speak Out! Maximizing the Media

Come learn some of the fundamental media skills necessary to being an effective advocate. You will leave with practical materials and useful information for any field of advocacy. This workshop will cover basics in print, television and radio – message development, drafting press releases, letters to the editor Op-Eds and news advisories. Also covered will be tricks of the trade to make sure you are a disciplined messaging expert.

Presenters

Sean Kosofsky - Sean is the Executive Director for NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. Sean hails from Detroit, Michigan where he served for twelve years as the Director of Policy for Michigan’s leading LGBT civil rights organization, Triangle Foundation. Since 1994 he has been one of the most recognized LGBT organizers in Michigan and is known nationally for his expertise in the areas of legislative advocacy, diversity training, canvass operations, political campaigns, fundraising and media advocacy.

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