"Creating change" offers activists opportunities for organizing, infighting

Off Our Backs, Jan 1999 by Brown, Jessica

About 1,800 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender activists from all over the United States came to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from November 11-15 to take part in the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 11th annual Creating Change conference. Creating Change, billed as a grassroots training center for political organizers, was attended by activists from across the political spectrum and included workshops and plenaries on a range of issues from sexual liberation and the politics of desire, to voter identification and faith based organizing.

"Whether you advocate, educate, demonstrate, or celebrate we understand that these are all forms of action," NGLTF Executive Director Kerry Lobel told the assembled participants the first night "You decide what action is right for you."

Although there were not as many people there as`NGLTF's hopeful projection of between 2,000 and 3,000, Creating Change was, by any standard, extremely well attended. Speakers addressed workshops that were often standing room only, and the crowd quickly exceeded the capacity of the Westin William Penn hotel's elevators, lobby, and dining facilities.

The overflow, or in at least one case the mere presence, of the visibly queer crowd caused friction with some of the other hotel guests. On Saturday night representatives of a Pittsburgh accounting firm who had booked the Westin's grand ballroom for a company function tried to force an exhibitor positioned near the ballroom's entrance to cover his display of Gay and Lesbian newspapers with a sheet. The exhibitor challenged that his display had the hotel's permission to be there and refused. The only other external disruption occurred when two representatives from the anti-gay group Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) were discovered attending workshops and ousted by NGLTF conference director Susan Hyde.

Americans [or Truth about Homosexuality later put out a press release charging that the conference featured "homosexual prostitutes" and "public sex advocates," as well as a film in which a woman was depicted "giving instructions on how to `strap on' an artificial penis." In the release, AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera is quoted: "We must expose these homosexual events because the politically correct media refuses to do so."

In addition to those people physically in attendance over the five days of the conference, plenary sessions were simulcast in audio over the Internet for those activists unable to make the journey to Pittsburgh.

Besides workshops and caucus sessions, conference goers were invited to attend any of three queer friendly religious services held on site throughout the weekend;'a Shabbat, a Catholic Mass, and an interdenominational service.

Filmmakers Shosana Rosenfeld and Joyce Warshow were also on hand to screen and discuss their respective works "Scent uVa Butch" a film about "butches, butchness, and butch as a state of being," and "Some Ground to Stand On," a documentary about the life of lesbian feminist peace activist Blue London. Authors including Sarah Schulman, Barbara Smith, and Kate Clinton held book signing sessions, and for those participants who felt they had been deprived of the opportunity to attend high school dances with a same-sex partner, Creating Change also hosted a "prom" from the fictitious "Rainbow High, Home of the Fighting Poodles".

From a field organizing perspective most of the strategic dialogue focused on the need to shift away from national and urban organizing to a more community based and rural focus, much like the successful strategy long pursued by the conservative right. To this end, NGLTF used the conference as a vehicle to promote the "Equality Begins at Home" project, a joint venture between NGLTF and the Federation of LGBT Statewide Political Organizations. "Equality Begins at Home" will consist of a week of queer positive events in all U.S. States and Territories and will be held in late March of 1999. According to event organizers, more than 40 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, have agreed to take part. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has pledged to award each state an organizing grant of $5,000 to help offset the costs of participation, although state groups are charged with deciding what types of events the money will go to. Activities that have already been planned include za billboard campaign in Louisiana, a youth conference in Florida, and a series of regional "town meetings" in Pennsylvania culminating in a rally on the State Capital.

"For many years people thought gays only lived on the coasts, and our movement promoted that mythology" Kerry Loebel told reporters at a Friday press conference "And for many years people fled their homes for those communities in search of a better life. But people aren't fleeing anymore."

Nadine Smith who is working on "Equality Begins at Home" projects in Florida agreed.

"For those of us who do live back in those smaller towns, this has been incredible." She said. "The work we are doing now will go down in history as the day we changed our movement."