Subject: Creating Change 1995
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 1 May 1995 11:56:00 -0400

NATIONAL GAY & LESBIAN TASK FORCE
PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Robin Kane, (202) 332-6483, ext. 3311, [email-masked]
     Beth Barrett, (202) 332-6483, ext. 3215, [email-masked]

 EIGHTH ANNUAL CREATING CHANGE CONFERENCE
TRAVELS TO THE MOTOR CITY

Washington, D.C. --  May 1, 1995 -- Creating Change, the pre-eminent national
gathering of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender activists, will be hosted this
year in Detroit Michigan, November 8 through 12.  All conference events
during this eighth annual conference sponsored by the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) will be held at The Westin Hotel, Renaissance
Center in downtown Detroit.

  Major program elements of this year's Creating Change Conference have been
locked in.   NGLTF is pleased to announce that Urvashi Vaid, writer, veteran
activist, dynamic speaker and executive director of the National Gay &
Lesbian Task Force from 1989-1992, will address the conference at the
traditional Sunday closing brunch/plenary session.  Vaid is currently
completing a book that critiques our political movement.  Vaid's book,
Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (Anchor
Books), is due out on October 11, 1995, just weeks before Creating Change.

  As in past years, several all-day pre-conference institutes are scheduled
prior to the core workshops and roundtables of the conference.  On Wednesday,
Nov. 8, the two simultaneous institutes will be the annual "People of Color
Organizing Institute" (coordinated by Don Kao of Project Reach, NYC) and
"Eliminating Racism: Doin' The Right Thing" (facilitated by Suzanne Pharr of
the Arkansas Women's Project).  On Thursday, Nov. 9, the two simultaneous
institutes will be "Building Alliances Across Race, Class & Gender Lines,"
(organized and facilitated by Pam McMichael and Pat Hussain of Southerners on
New Ground) and the new "Youth Organizing Institute" (coordinated by a
coalition of youth organizers).  

  To make Creating Change more useful as an organizing and strategy-building
event, this year's conference will feature a new format -- Organizing
Roundtables on a number of topics.  These all-day sessions will allow
attendees to immerse themselves in one issue.  The Organizing Roundtables
will cover the "how do we do it?" stage of an issue and will then progress to
the "what to do next?" stage of organizing.    

  Some topics that will be covered in the Organizing Roundtable format
include: rural organizing; people of faith organizing; speakers bureaus;
equal marriage rights; anti-violence work; family issues; and
workplace/employee organizing.  

  Back at this year's Creating Change by popular demand -- skills-building
intensives.  These all-day instructional sessions will be offered on topics
such as fundraising and campaign management.

  The always provocative Hot Topic Series this year will include
presentations on transgender/gender identification issues and the New York
City sex club/safe sex debate.

  Creating Change attendees will also be provoked and enlightened by a
screening of Black Is...Black Ain't, Marlon Riggs final and award-winning
film.  The 82-minute film, made available by California Newsreel, prominently
features the perspectives of those who have been silenced because their
complexion, class, sexuality, gender or speech have rendered them "not black
enough," or  conversely, "too black."  Riggs became an on-screen character in
his own film after he was bedridden by AIDS.  Many scenes are shot in his
hospital room as he contemplates his own life and his own answers to the
question: What has "blackness" meant to African-Americans?

  For more information or to receive a Creating Change 1995 registration
brochure, call 202/332-6483, ext. 3329.

  To reserve a room at The Westin Hotel, Renaissance Center, call
800/228-3000; mention "National Gay & Lesbian Task Force" to get the special
conference room rates of $80/single & double; $90/triple & quad. 

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