By Cathy Renna–
We could not be more excited to bring the Creating Change conference to San Francisco—for the first time and as we celebrate 50 years of advocacy, activism, and organizing for the LGBTQ community.
Not familiar with the conference? Imagine a world that is the kind of space our movement would like to create for everyone, every day; you will be hard pressed to find a more diverse and powerful experience than Creating Change. There will be thousands of activists, advocates, and allies from every walk of life, from cities and rural areas, teenagers to seniors, and from extraordinarily diverse backgrounds of all kinds. It can be a bit overwhelming, to be honest. But it is where you should be if you want to network and build your skills in a variety of areas, take a day-long deep dive into a topic you care about, and spend time in a caucus of individuals who may share your goals.
I know this from experience, as someone who has attended nearly all of the Creating Change conferences these past 30+ years. As a new activist, I attended my first media training workshops, met future mentors, friends, and chosen family. I found my people as I embarked on a life of activism. In later years, I would be a presenter at workshops and eventually worked as a consultant to support the Task Force staff at Creating Change.
I am now privileged to be on the staff now, but it is in many ways the culmination of being taken in as Task Force family for my entire adult life. And I cannot wait for this conference for a few reasons, with the main one being the fact that we will be launching our 50th anniversary and gathering in person for the first some since 2020. This will be an historic milestone anniversary that we will share with other groups, including Lambda Legal, PFLAG National, Whitman-Walker, and Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. It seems that 1973 was a big year for the gay rights movement, and as we look at 2023, there are many lessons we can learn from the past—and leverage for the future, especially in the current climate and attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans people and young people.
I have been thinking that 2023 feels a lot like 1973. Our anniversary comes at a time when those in power threaten to undo our 50 years of progress. And we all need to be in the fight to meet these threats with strength, unity, and support, more than ever before. We must connect the dots, something the Task Force has been doing for its entire history. Reproductive justice, gun control, racial equity, immigration, climate change, disability rights, and so many other issues are queer issues. At Creating Change, you can learn more about how to advocate at the intersections in a way that is simply not found anywhere else.
The spirit of the conference reflects the soul of the Task Force. We have always taken an intersectional, proactive approach to our advocacy, underscoring our fundamental interconnectedness. The Task Force must be everywhere because queer people are everywhere. As we look toward the next 50 years, we will evolve and expand our work to positively impact LGBTQ folks’ ability to thrive.
But back to the conference! The main goal of Creating Change is to build the LGBTQ movement’s political power from the ground up to secure our overarching goal of full freedom, justice, and equality for LGBTQ+ people. But we also celebrate queer joy—something we value as an important part of our work—so in addition to plenaries with powerful speakers like Angelica Ross, X Gonzalez, Dyllón Burnside, and so many others, as well as over 100 workshops and a dozen institutes, we have an Agents of Change House Ball, Gayme Night (this year hosted by the incredible Jeopardy! winner Amy Schneider), and an open mic variety show.
The bottom line is that, if you want to experience one of the most fabulous, moving, and life-changing gatherings the queer community has, join us.
Cathy Renna is the Communications Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force: https://www.thetaskforce.org/
Published on February 9, 2021
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