 |
 |
| Kristin Reichman and other organizers of the Southern Comfort Conference expect record crowds to greet conference speakers, who include author Jennifer Finney Boylan, Lambda Legal attorney Cole Thaler and Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. |
|
|
| | |
|
Southern Comfort event highlights
In addition to hours of workshops and seminars each day, more than 100 in all, Southern Comfort offers a variety of other events to entertain and inform attendees. A few are also open to the public. For complete information, visit www.sccatl.org.
Tuesday, Sept. 11
Onsite registration opens, 2 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 12
Georgia Aquarium trip
Mid morning, $35 fee
Georgia Equality welcome reception
4 p.m. – 8 p.m., Suite 1221
Thursday, Sept. 13
Robert Eads Health Project
Daylong
Free and low-cost health screenings for Trans Men
FTM welcome reception
8 p.m., Suite 1221
Open to the public; $1-$3 donations suggested to benefit Melvin Arundelli, also known as PeeWee, an Atlanta trans performer and activist who was critically injured in a motorcycle crash last month.
Twinkledome TG: Rock of Ages
Late night
Free for SCC attendees; $20 for outside guests
DJs, live music, costume contest
Friday, Sept. 14
Transgender Career Expo
Daylong, open to the public
Trans in the Workplace Luncheon
Noon
Featured speakers include Zeek Christopoulos, Joe Solmonese and Cole Thaler
SoCo-A-GoGo
10:30 p.m.
Free for SCC attendees; $10 for outside guests
Featuring “drag kings, drag queens and in-betweens.”
Saturday, Sept. 15
Lunch: Our Intergenerational Family
Speakers include GLAAD’s Neil Giuliano, SCC Conference Chair Cat Turner and keynote speaker Jenn Burleton.
Homecoming Gala Banquet & Play
Features a performance of the play “Inside/Out”
A sampling of Southern Comfort seminars
Sept. 13:
Raising Our Southern Voices: Transgender Activism in a (Sometimes) Hostile Region
10:35 a.m. – noon
Children of Transgender Parents Panel Discussion
2 p.m. - 3:25 p.m.
Sept. 14:
National GLBT Advocacy Leadership Summit
2 p.m. - 3:25 p.m.
Sept. 15:
Anotha Kinda Brotha: By Men of Color. For Men of Color.
9 a.m. to 10:25 a.m.
Leveraging LGBT Business Initiatives
10:35 a.m. - noon
MTF Gender Reassignment Surgery
2 p.m. - 3:25 p.m.
FTM Gender Reassignment Surgery
3:35 p.m. – 5 p.m. |
|
| |
| |
|
|
| | |
HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: ZACK HUDSON
COMMENTS |
| 
Organizers of the 2007 Southern Comfort Conference for transgender men, women and their families are preparing to greet record crowds with a distinct — if unofficial — conference motto: It’s time to bring transgender issues and individuals out of the closet.
Lifestyle and health topics, as well as plenty of time to socialize, will continue to take up much of the conference schedule. But attendees will be hard pressed to miss programming geared to turn their attention to activism, politics and working with advocacy organizations.
With nearly 1,000 attendees expected to register for the six-day conference, political and business stakeholders like the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Equality will lobby conference guests in an effort to harness transgender support and numbers for their causes.
The efforts of gay political organizations, some of which previously shunned transgender issues as distracting obstacles, are welcomed by Southern Comfort organizers, who say the stage is set for increased awareness of transgender issues, and people, in the larger society.
“It’s just time,” explained Cat Turner, chairperson of the 2007 conference. “Thirty years ago it was time for gay and lesbian rights to move to the forefront. Now it’s our time.”
The conference — with a budget of about $120,000 and likely attendance of 1,000 people who pay between $100 and $325 for registration — is big business itself. In 2006, the first round of Southern Comfort Conference corporate sponsors came calling, including Raytheon, a munitions manufacturer.
This year, giants like Microsoft, American Airlines, Turner Broadcasting System are on board as paid sponsors or participants in the First Annual Transgender Career Expo.
Bringing in corporate partners to the conference was “not as difficult as you might think,” said Kristin Reichman, a Southern Comfort board member and organizer for the career expo.
Southern Comfort board members utilized HRC’s Corporate Equality Index to determine trans-friendly companies to invite to participate in the conference and the expo.
“We sent out invitations that said, essentially, ‘It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and join us,’” Reichman said of the correspondence with about 200 presumably trans inclusive companies. The 21 companies who are listed as career expo participants include a span of technology, service industry, business support and accounting, and non-profit organizations.
While recruitment is not a requirement for business participation in the expo, organizers sought companies with track records of dedicated education, training and inclusion of transgender employment issues.
“The reality is, it’s very easy to simply apply the letter ‘t’ to the LGBT alphabet soup of inclusion without it meaning anything,” Reichman said.
‘Not Just
mtf’ Confab
Conference attendees will have the opportunity to hear from national gay advocacy and business group leaders like HRC President Joe Solmonese and National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce President Justin Nelson.
Turner attributes at least part of the attendance swell to efforts by conference organizers to attract attendees from diverse backgrounds. In recent years, significant additions have been made to include programming for transgender men. And programs are up for people of color, Turner said.
“It’s certainly not a conference for white, middle-aged cross-dressers. And it’s not just an MTF [male to female] conference either,” she said.
She also credits the popularity of the 2001 documentary “Southern Comfort,” which chronicled the last year of Robert Eads, a female-to-male transsexual who died of ovarian cancer after many doctors refused to treat him. Eads’ Southern Comfort Conference attendance was documented in the film.
“People still ask me about that all the time. They want to know if we’re the same conference they saw in the movie,” Turner said.
And as much as the film brought exposure to the conference, Turner and Reichman said they hope the conference will cause its attendees to show themselves more often.
“I think we’ll see the community start coming out more. I think that, if anything, it’s time for us to quit being afraid to go out in public,” Turner said.
|
