Astraea at Creating Change 2015!

Below is a list of what Astraea grantee partners* are up to at Creating Change! Check out the many opportunities to see and learn from them throughout the conference. Astraea is proud to support the work of our U.S. grantee partners. Their work against the criminalization and militarization of LGBTQI people of color communities and queer and trans migrants in the U.S is timely, urgent and courageous.

We also want to congratulate Carlos Padilla from the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project from United We Dream for being awarded the “Leadership on Immigration Reform” award.

Creating Change 2015 Schedule Highlights

Thursday, February 5, 9-6pm

Long day Institutes:

From Stonewall to Stop and Frisk: Policing and criminalization of LGBTQ communities

This Institute will explore the current moment and historical legacy of policing and criminalization of LGBTQ communities. “Policing” comes in many different forms. Policing appears as a larger systemic structure of control and violence against the self determination we seek over our bodies. Participants will discuss patterns of policing, police violence and criminalization of LGBTQ communities across the country. The Institute will highlight various campaigns and organizing models across the country to provide resource sharing and tools for participants to organize against policing and criminalization in their communities.

Organized by: BreakOUT!*, Lambda Legal, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Native Youth Sexual Health Network, PrYSM*, and Streetwise and Safe*

Transgender Self-Empowerment: Building Communities for Resilience, Safety, Health, and Life

In this Day Long Institute, we will explore community building across race, class, and cultural barriers to assist both individuals and the community at large in being resilient in the face of systematic oppressions and violence. We will unpack different community building models traditionally used outside the LGBT community and others. The hope and intent is to be practical as well as about sharing analysis and ideas so that there are “take aways” for everyone to improve community building.

Organized by: Kylar Broadus, Senior Public Policy Counsel, Trans Civil Rights Project, National LGBTQ Task Force. Presenters: Cecilia Chung, Transgender Law Center; Milan Alexander, BreakOUT*; Bamby Salcedo, Trans Latina Coalition; Elliot Fukui, Audre Lorde Project*; Danny Kirchoff, Transgender Law Center; Arianna Lint, SunServe; Andrea Jenkins, Senior Policy Aide for Minneapolis City Councilmember Elizabeth Glidden and Trans People of Color Coalition; Mara Keisling, National Center for Transgender Equality; Kris Hayashi, Transgender Law Center; Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, National Center for Transgender Equality; Tiq Milan, GLAAD; and Gabriel Foster, Trans Justice Project.

Workshops:

Friday, February 6, 10:45 AM – 12:15 PM

POC & Indigenous Traditions of Giving

Surviving and Thriving • Intermediate

What are our experiences and relationships to giving and fundraising as people of color and indigenous communities within the conditions of white supremacy? How can we engage our own communities and build effective alliances with allies to resource our collective survival and liberation? This workshop, co-designed by FIERCE and the Audre Lorde Project, will include storytelling, and games as we map our traditions of giving, share current strategies, and lessons learned within our communities and movements. Presenters: Cara Page, Organizer, Audre Lorde Project*, New York, NY; Alok Vaid-Menon Communications and Grassroots Fundraising Coordinator, Audre Lorde Project, New York, NY; Krystal Portalatin, Co-Director, FIERCE, New York, NY

Friday, February 6, 3PM – 4:30PM

Challenging Institutional Power

Community Organizing • All Audiences

This workshop will tell the stories of how presenters have confronted institutions of power in order to win progress and will explore how workshop participants can do the same thing in their own communities and do so with limited resources. Participants should expect to analyze the barriers to progress in their home communities and to create a rubric for how to interrupt and redirect those systems of power. Presenters: Angela Peoples, Co-Director, GetEQUAL Washington, DC; Gregory Cendana, Director, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Washington, DC; Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, Deputy Managing Director, United We Dream*, Washington, DC; Charlene Carruthers, Director, Black Youth Project, Chicago, IL

The Queer Left: Strategies Going Forward

Fundraising • Fundamentals

We will share lessons, and critical strategies that are working to resource the Queer Left. We will explore questions of how do we resource our longevity? What are the roles of allies and the roles of people of color in giving and fundraising for our collective survival and liberation? What are fundraising strategies that build effective alliances? We will explore the larger fractures within our movements caused by competition, co-optation and liberal frame. Presenters: Caitlin Breedlove, Co-Director, Southerners on New Ground*, Atlanta, GA; Alok Vaid-Menon Communications and Grassroots Fundraising Coordinator, The Audre Lorde Project*, New York, NY; Cara Page, Executive Director, The Audre Lorde Project, New York, NY

Queering Healthcare in the Southwest

Health • All Audiences

This workshop will provide participants with strategies led by Queer and Trans* people of color to increase access LGBTQ people have to a full range of healthcare including: reproductive/sexual health, birth, parenting and nursing support, and midwifery models of care. Participants will identify resources and barriers to healthcare in their own communities, and envision the inclusive spaces they want to see. Participants will also come away with concrete community advocacy tools, provider education strategies, and community health care assessment models they can utilize to shift policy and culture to build culturally safe access to healthcare. Presenters: Denicia Cadena, Communications and Cultural Strategy Director, Young Women United, Albuquerque, NM; Cecilia Kluding-Rodriguez, Branching Seedz of Resistance*, Denver CO

Queering Immigration

Immigration • All Audiences

From local campaigns to stop the criminalization of immigrant people of color, to advocating for federal reforms on immigration and deportations, Queer folks have been central to advancing migrant and immigrant rights, as well as unprecedented intersectional movement wins. As more and more LGBTQ organizations are building campaigns to intervene on Police-Immigration [ICE] collaborations, racial profiling, and fight to expand immediate relief measures like DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), it’s imperative we come together to strengthen our shared strategies. Join us to learn more about key lessons from the ways we’re helping to advance sexual liberation, migrant / immigrant rights and racial justice unity struggles, and find ways to connect! Presenters: Pabitra Benjamin, Director of Organizing, NQAPIA, Washington, DC; Salem Acuña, Virginia organizer, Southerners On New Ground / SONG*, Atlanta, GA

Friday, February 6, 4:45 PM – 6:15 PM

Film Screening: Out in the Night

Plaza Ballroom Section A

Out in the Night is a documentary that tells the story of a group of young friends, African American lesbians who are out one hot August night in 2006 in the gay friendly neighborhood of New York City. They are all in their late teens and early twenties and come from a low-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. Two of the women are the focus: gender non-conforming Renata Hill, a single mother with a soft heart and keen sense of humor, and petite femme Patreese Johnson, a shy and tender poet. As they and their friends walk under the hot neon lights in the West Village, an older man sexually and violently confronts them. The women defend themselves as a fight begins, captured by security cameras nearby. The man yanks out hair from one woman’s head and chokes Renata. Patreese pulls a knife from her purse and swings at him. Strangers jump in to defend the women and the fight escalates. As the fight comes to an end, all get up and walk away. But 911 has been called and the man involved has been stabbed. Police swarm to the scene as their radios blast out warning of a gang attack. The women are rounded up and charged with gang assault, assault and attempted murder. Three of the women plead guilty. But Renata, Patreese, and two others claim their innocence. They are called a “Gang of Killer Lesbians” by the media. In activist circles they become known as The New Jersey 4. Following the screening, a discussion will be led by director Blair Dorosh-Walther, Renata Hill of the New Jersey 4, and Krystal Portalatin of FIERCE. Written/directed by Blair Dorosh-Walther. 58 minutes. (USA/2014)

Movement Strategies Healing Justice

Surviving and Thriving • All Audiences

This conversation will ground us in the historical context of healing justice both inside of social movements (eg. prison abolition movement, environmental and disability justice) and responding to the systemic violence of the medical industrial complex as a means of controlling the bodies of people of color and our communities, specifically queer and trans bodies. We will then explore the concepts of “self care” and “collective wellness” practices as transformational and necessary for our organizing strategies and survival. As well, we will share examples of practice within our movement building that have included or centered a healing justice lens in our organizing strategies. Presenters: Susan Raffo, Minneapolis, MN; Cara Page, Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project*, New York, NY; Anjali Taneja, Co-Founder, CureThis.org

Saturday, February 7, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM

Queers In Detention-Stopping Deportations

Immigration • All Audiences

QUIP, a program of United We Dream, addresses the issue of criminalization and incarceration of UndocuQueers and offer a movement building and liberation strategy that Dreamers have used to create a united front in resisting this deportation machine. Presenters: Carlos Padilla, QUIP* Coordinator, United We Dream, Washington, DC; Carolina Canizalez, END Coordinator, United We Dream, San Antonio, TX; Daniela Hernandez, QUIP END National Lead, NC QUIP, Charlotte, NC; Cynthia Domenzain, QUIP END National Lead, AZ QUIP*, Phoenix, AZ

Rainbow Warriors: Lifting Up Queer and Trans Youth Leaders

Youth • All Audiences Learn about a national queer and trans youth of color-led culture shift campaign on queer and trans youth resiliency. Members of the Strong Families’ RAD (Revolutionizing a Dream) Youth Movement share how their base of queer and trans youth leaders and allies have launched a campaign to counter the narrative surrounding queer and trans youth of color as victims, at-risk or powerless and lift up stories of creativity and resilience. Presenters: Quita Tinsley, Youth Organizer, SPARK Reproductive Justice Now, Atlanta, GA; Eleanor Dewey, Co- Executive Director, COAVP: Branching Seedz of Resistance*, Denver, CO; Denicia Cadena, Communications and Cultural Strategy Director, Young Women Unitied, Albequerque, NM; Nathaniel Faulk, Leadership Development/ Healing Justice, BreakOUT!*

Movement Fam Across Colleges & Communities

College Campus Issues and Organizing for Students • All Audiences

Working to create change on college campuses and within communities can often be an isolating experience. Not only do queer activists face institutions and community members hostile or apathetic to their survival needs, we often find ourselves lacking tangible movement family to lift us up and catch us when we fall. This workshop targets that need for movement building among young activists by examining strategies for cross-campus, cross-regional, and cross-issue solidarity among young people. Presenters: Jon Hoadley, President, Badlands Strategies, Kalamazoo, MI; Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, Deputy Managing Director, United We Dream*, Tampa, FL; Erik Lampmann, Klagsburn Outreach Fellow, Alliance for Justice, Washington, DC; Marion Humphrey, Fellowship Program Manager, People For the American Way Foundation, Washington, DC

Criminal Justice System: Organizing & Engaging the LGBT Community

Community Organizing • All Audiences

Have your communities been overly policed/harassed by law enforcement or treated unfairly in detention facilities? Join us for a panel discussion and advocacy planning on how to mobilize against unfair treatment of LGBT people interacting with the criminal justice system. Presenters: Joey Hernandez, Community Engagement and Policy Advocate, ACLU of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA; Chip Charles, Skadden Fellow, ACLU LGBT Project, New York, NY; Jorge Gutierrez, National Coordinator, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement*, Los Angeles, CA; Christopher Argyros, Project Manager, Anti-Violence Project, Los Angeles LGBT Center, Los Angeles, CA

Saturday, February 7, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM

Trans and Queer Immigrant Rights Direct Action Organizing: A Case Study

Immigration • All Audiences

This workshop will highlight the current momentum and importance of intersectional organizing between LGBTQ and immigrants rights across the country. Attendees will be trained on direct action organizing as a tool/tactic to push for pro-LGBTQ and immigrant rights policies and legislation. The workshop will look at a trans and queer civil disobedience action that took place in May 2014 in Santa Ana, CA as a case study. Currently, the Santa Ana city jail includes an LGBTQ pod where LGBTQ undocumented immigrants are held. Attendees will engage in skill-sharing and learn about the process of organizing an effective direct action in order to advance a message and demands. Also, the workshop will present attendees with a model to ensure that communities most affected by issues take front center and are part of the strategy and organizing process from beginning to end. Presenters: Marco Castro-Bojorquez, Community Educator, Lambda Legal, Los Angeles, CA; Jorge Gutierrez, Director, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement*, Los Angeles, CA; Isa Noyola, Community Advocate, El/La Para TransLatinas*, San Francisco, CA

Saturday, February 7, 4:45 PM – 6:15 PM

Our Community Is Our Campaign

People of Color • All Audiences

In this workshop participants will get a better understanding of how queer justice looks like through media justice. Participants will be lead through the process of creating a queer people of color campaign through the usage of in-person surveying, photography, and videography. Participants will get an insight on how to build and maintain cross racial and intergenerational organizing, through lessons learned and best practices on how to create culturally specific spaces and making sure those who are most impacted lead. Presenters: Zon Moua, Community Organizer, Freedom Inc*, Madison, WI; Monica Adams, Community Organizer, Freedom Inc, Madison, WI; Kayleb Her, Freedom Inc, Madison, WI; True Yee Thao, Freedom Inc, Madison, WI

Know Your Rights, Get Your Rights

Youth • All Audiences

In this workshop participants will learn about a growing national network of LGBTQ youth-serving organizations, Get Yr Rights, who are doing “know your rights” work around youth interactions with law enforcement. We will focus on three projects Get Yr Rights has developed over the last year, including a website, policy toolkit and curriculum. Participants will learn how to navigate the online database of KYR tools and tactics, as well as how to use the policy toolkit, which highlights the strategies of organizers in achieving effective change. The final project discussed in this workshop will include interactive role-plays in which participants will have the opportunity to act out portions of the KYR curriculum, as well as ask questions and share experiences from their own work. Presenters: Mitchyll Mora, Researcher and Campaign Staff, Streetwise and Safe (SAS)*, Brooklyn, NY; Andrea Ritchie, Coordinator, Streetwise and Safe (SAS), New York, NY; Wes Ware, Director, BreakOUT!*, New Orleans, LA