Special Edition: Creating Change 2023: We Are Not Okay – Monday, February 20, 2023

Now for the news. The news today is all about the National LGBTQ Taskforce and the Creating Change conference. The Taskforce is celebrating its 50th anniversary while also celebrating the Creating Change conference’s 35th anniversary. They are honoring our past, present and future. Let’s talk about why we should care and why it’s a pretty special place. Let’s go.

00:00 – Welcome & Intro

00:55 – Top Stories

01:53 – Black HIV in the South: How Did We Get Here promo

2:22 – Intro Music by Aina Bre’Yon

03:05 – Creating Change 2023: We Are Not Okay

10:30 – Imara Jones 

11:05 – Friend Duo 

12:38 – Jaimie 

13:18 – Mary Morten

14:22 – A clip from the Urvashi Vaid tribute at Creating Change

15:30 – Outro

Things for you to check out

Our First Qube Original

Creating Change 2023

Join the QCrew

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Listen to More Queer News

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Transcript

Family, it’s your favorite queer radio personality Anna DeShawn with our queer news for today. Now, I want to make you a promise. We will continue to bring you the latest in queer news, culture, and politics every Monday by 7am CT. So, if you are digging our intersectional take on the weekly, consider joining the QCrew.

The QCrew is our monthly membership program we started to help us grow the podcast. You get weekly emails from me, exclusive interviews with LGBTQ influencers from across the country and beginning this year special behind the scenes footage too. With your support, we can bring you more stories celebrating our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & comrade communities. Click the link in the show notes to join the QCrew today. 

Now for the news. The news today is all about the National LGBTQ Taskforce and the Creating Change conference. The Taskforce is celebrating its 50th anniversary while also celebrating the Creating Change conference’s 35th anniversary. They are honoring our past, present and future. Let’s talk about why we should care and why it’s a pretty special place. Let’s go.

Oh and y’all know we dropped our first Qube Original on February 7th titled Black HIV in the South: How Did We Get Here? Episode 1 is about the history, episode 2 is about the fear and episode 3 which drops tomorrow is about the community. Take a listen inside The Qube or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Family, I’m currently sitting in my hotel room at the Hilton recording this podcast from the 35th anniversary of the creating change conference. It’s a historical moment not only because it’s the 35th anniversary of creating change but because it’s also the 50th anniversary of the National LGBTQ Task Force. Urvashi Vaid started this conference to teach and train LGBTQ activists and advocates. Now Urv made her earthly transition just last year in May and left an incredible legacy for so many to continue. I never had the honor of meeting Urv personally but I knew of the legend who stood up to power at every turn to fight for the humanity of LGBTQ folks. That’s the work we can never let time allow us to forget it.

When you walk into Creating Change all you see is the beautiful tapestry that is the queer community. When we talk about community not being a monolith it is the Queer community. All the identities, all the ethnicities, all the differently abled, all the religions and everything in between. We are here at Creating Change. 

What’s really beautiful and why this space is to be celebrated is because no other space like it exists. It is a gathering of people from across the country who at some level care about the liberation of queer people. 

Let me give you a taste of some of the sessions.

That’s just a few and for some context. This conference has over 3K attendees, 113 workshops, 44 caucuses & 14 special events. 

What’s also very special about creating change is the reality that we don’t all agree on how we get to this liberation. There are protests here and actions. There are impromptu call-ins when people are harmed. There are disruptions. All of this makes Creating Change a special place. 

Audre Lorde told us that our “Silence will not save us” & this conference embodies that. We are a community where state by state right wing white suprematists are taking our books out of school. Protesting at our libraries. They are systematically introducing anti-trans and anti-lgbtq legislation to intentionally break our community. 

As the communication director for Creating Change, Cathy Renna said “We are sick & tired of thoughts & prayers.” We are. It’s time for action. And the people taking action are at this conference strategizing on how we work together and support each other in this fight. 

Kierra Johnson in the Sate of the Movement Plenary decided not to use her prepared speech. She decided to speak from her heart. She said the state of our movement is that “We are not okay” and we don’t have to pretend to be. She couldn’t be more right about that and yet we will still win. 

I’ve had the opportunity to interview a few folks here and we’ll be doing more and I asked them Why do you come to creating change. Why is this space important. I want to share some of their reasons why with you on this podcast. Then we’ll close with a from Urvashi that was shared during a tribute of her life. She gave this speech in ?? and everything she said then still resonates today in such a real way. I hope it touches you like it touched me. Till next week, peace.