QT-Con: Activism, Advocacy, & Legislation
Relevant Conference Sessions
- Act-up, art making, and methodologies of resistance (Sophia Balsamo)
- Anti-Transgender Bills and the Narratives Surrounding Them (Venus Harvey)
- Educate and Celebrate: Advocating for inclusive education (Elia Morse)
- Fierce Allyship - Resisting & Reposing for Self and Others (Amy Shaiman)
- Humor, Healing, and Self-Care for the Activist (Karen Sati Williams)
- If Only Supreme Court Justice Kennedy Had Read Frog and Toad! (Grace Foor)
- In my Anticapitalist Era (Emily Cluen)
- LGBTQIA+ Allyship in Academia & Beyond (Salem Holden)
- Making the Classroom a Safe Space (Ellie Brennan)
- An Overview of LGBTQ+ Resistance Within the US Military (Brennan Wall)
- Pleasure as Resistance: Embracing Rest and Liberation (Jane Grant)
- Resisting Norms, Refusing Burnout, and Repositioning Advocacy (Gillian Oakenfull)
- Sociocultural Bias and Subversive Violence in Medical Institutions (Casey Olthaus)
- Trans Athletes: Let Them Play! (Gretchen Sable)
- Unity in Diversity: Embracing Intersectional Struggles (Amelia Whitney)
- Unveiling Frida Kahlo (Molly O'Keefe)
- You're welcome. You're allowed to love each other (legally) (Grace Gaston)
Activism & Advocacy
Allyship
Legislation
The Engagement America's Quarter-Century Struggle over Same-Sex Marriage by ISBN: 9781524748746Publication Date: 2021
Related Leisure Reading
Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest, and Mutual Aid by
From the cooks who have quietly fed rebels and revolutionaries to the collective kitchens set up after hurricanes and floods, food has long played a crucial role in resistance, protest, and mutual aid. Until very recently, food-based work-steadfast and not particularly flashy -s lipped under the radar or was centred on celebrity chefs and well-funded non-profits. Adding to a growing constellation of conversations that push against this narrative, Nourishing Resistance centers the role of everyday people in acts of culinary solidarity and mutual aid. Twenty-three contributors-cooks, farmers, writers, organizers, academics, and dreamers-write on queer potlucks, BIPOC-centered farms and gardens, rebel ancestors, disability justice, indigenous food sovereignty, and the fight against toxic diet culture, among many other topics. They recount bowls of biryani at a Delhi protest, fricasé de conejo on a Puerto Rican farm, pay-as$1]you-want dishes in a collectively run Hong Kong restaurant, and lemon cake cooked in a New Jersey disaster relief kitchen. They chronicle the communal kitchens and food distribution programs that emerged in Buenos Aires and New York City in the wake of COVID-19, which caused surging food insecurity worldwide. They look to the past, revealing how 'Bella Ciao' was composed by striking women rice workers, and the future, speculating on post-capitalist worlds that include both high-tech collective farms and herbs gathered on the side of highways. Through essays, articles, poems, and stories, Nourishing Resistance argues that food is a central, intrinsic part of global struggles for autonomy and collective liberation.
A Renaissance of Our Own: A Memoir & Manifesto on Reimagining by
A deeply personal and illuminating approach to antiracism and allyship, revealing the power of imagination and action to dismantle oppressive systems and build liberating ones, from a highly lauded lecturer, public academic, writer, and activist.
In Beyond Love and Light, Rachel Cargle details the seminal event that put her on the map--her viral 2017 Women's March appearance that thrust her into the national conversation on feminism and allyship--and how she soon woke up to the fallacies of a movement she had believed in. Discovering and unpacking the white-washed lies she'd been fed about intersectional "solidarity," Cargle's awakening, although painful and seismic, gifted her the opportunity to see the world through a new lens.
Now, Cargle shares her journey, depicting a framework for allyship, and beyond, that she developed along the way. In creating KEA (Knowledge, Empathy, Action), or as she calls them "from the head to the heart to the feet," Cargle learned to craft a world independent of oppressive constructs that allowed her to critically examine her surroundings. Alongside KEA, she established a set of intentional values based on an individual sense of purpose, known as higher values, and through the combination of these tools, reimagined her approach to the personal, societal, and structural components of life that are often stifled. She provides the same tools and prompts that she used to unearth and align her own values so anyone can wield them, and ultimately, identify the structures and mindsets that hold them back and learn to move forward.
Beyond Love and Light serves as a reminder of the power of reimagining as an engine for critical learning, radical empathizing, and intentional action.
Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: How to Change the World in Quiet Ways by
Social justice work, we often assume, is raised voices and raised fists. It requires leading, advocating, fighting, and organizing wherever it takes place--in the streets, slums, villages, inner cities, halls of political power, and more. But what does social justice work look like for those of us who don't feel comfortable battling in the trenches?
Sensitive souls--including those who consider themselves highly emotional, empathic, or introverted--have much to contribute to bringing about a more just and equitable world. Such individuals are wise, thoughtful, and conscientious; they feel more deeply and see things that others don't. We need their contributions. Yet, sustaining justice work can be particularly challenging for the sensitive, and it requires a deep level of self-awareness, intentionality, and care. Alongside inspiring, real-life examples of highly sensitive world-changers, Cheng-Tozun expands the possibilities of how to have a positive social impact, affirming the particular gifts and talents that sensitive souls offer to a hurting world.
Becoming Nicole by
The inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning science reporter for The Washington Post
When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn’t long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt. Jonas preferred sports and trucks and many of the things little boys were “supposed” to like; but Wyatt liked princess dolls and dress-up and playing Little Mermaid. By the time the twins were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt’s insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart. In the years that followed, the Maineses came to question their long-held views on gender and identity, to accept and embrace Wyatt’s transition to Nicole, and to undergo an emotionally wrenching transformation of their own that would change all their lives forever.
Becoming Nicole chronicles a journey that could have destroyed a family but instead brought it closer together. It’s the story of a mother whose instincts told her that her child needed love and acceptance, not ostracism and disapproval; of a Republican, Air Force veteran father who overcame his deepest fears to become a vocal advocate for trans rights; of a loving brother who bravely stuck up for his twin sister; and of a town forced to confront its prejudices, a school compelled to rewrite its rules, and a courageous community of transgender activists determined to make their voices heard. Ultimately, Becoming Nicole is the story of an extraordinary girl who fought for the right to be herself.
Granted wide-ranging access to personal diaries, home videos, clinical journals, legal documents, medical records, and the Maineses themselves, Amy Ellis Nutt spent almost four years reporting this immersive account of an American family confronting an issue that is at the center of today’s cultural debate. Becoming Nicole will resonate with anyone who’s ever raised a child, felt at odds with society’s conventions and norms, or had to embrace life when it plays out unexpectedly. It’s a story of standing up for your beliefs and yourself—and it will inspire all of us to do the same.
