This is a very positive toned article, so I don't want to be a stick in the porridge, but: (I guess I'm going to.)

You said:

...talk about the economic disparity in our families, the lack of resources, poverty, and other issues dealing with race and class that effect LGBTQ families.

The struggling frontline agencies that actually help these people in hundreds of towns across this continent are underfunded and overworked. Enthusiasm surrounding more rhetoric is not going to cheer up anyone's day.

I volunteer at an NGO that serves those living with and at the greatest risk of acquiring HIV / AIDS and/or HVC. People who have difficulty obtaining services elsewhere, especially due to substance use, mental illness, sexual orientation, gender identity, race and ethnicity, and/or other social barriers.

I'm finding articles and blogs everywhere that describe trips to 'The Inauguration', great workshops such as those you describe - there is no shortage of people urging, teaching, lobbying etc.

I know I certainly can't afford a quick jaunt over to the Prez Inauguration or to attend workshops to heighten my knowlege, awareness and capability. I'm scraping together money for my next round of electrolysis sessions in between grocery shopping for two boys. It seems that everyone I look to for transpolitical interpretations are so out of my league, in every way.

I'm only scraping the surface, I'm not talking about HRC or any higher level organization. I mean all the popular, well known 'activists' who are blogging, writing and publishing books, flying everywhere to give lectures to more people who are writing blogs and flying in to hear them talk. Sure, I know - they all 'paid their dues', worked their asses off etc., and now they are in the position to be 'the interpreters'. Yet to me, the lgbtq movement is controlled by an elite - complete with a standard pyramid structure, within which exists an minority which blithely avoids interactions with lower classes, like a new world order lgbtq caste.

I'm sorry, because I know I could easily get chewed out for this (or simply ignored), but I believe we should be thinking, listening, writing, reacting and dreaming more wholistically.

We need workshops that are accessible to everyone, with no exclusion for any reason - bringing everyone together, forming unity amongst transgender people around the continent (or world - dream, dream, dream) should be forefront. What we have is a divisionary tone of language, exclusions, elitism, a continuous proliferation of groups that function in hierarchical patriarchal settings. There's really only a handful of transactivist women who seem to be compassionate and live at ground level. I know that the vast majority of trangendered people are not even interacting online, because the way things are set up - the lower end of the pyramid fades into the background - and that's where all the numbers are - AND those are the people I want to somehow connect with. Those people don't have degrees, they don't have access, and the ones who are driven to desperation and tragedy, are the ones that all the bloggers use to 'make their points'. This isn't humane journalism - it's just an intellectual form of ambulance chasing.

I hope I can encourage people in the journalistic / political arena of the lgbtq sector to consider similarities, detente, compassion, perhaps even liking and loving people rather than asessing their viewpoints and moving on. We are involved in a bloodless, spiritless pool of data - and we are turning against each other as our compassion weakens and our perceptions narrow.

I want to research this idea and try to write something about it in a post form, because what I believe in is: a level, wholistic playing field for all of us. I dream that people who are outside the circle of lgbtq could one day look in and see us all truly caring and loving each other, instead of trying to prove that we are the 'one'.

..did anybody read this far? :)

The toughest part about today was choosing where to go, since all the topic where so important and interesting.

topic(s) were

Thanks for the response Waymon.

It does bring things into a more realistic sense for me. I just feel that the kind of exchanges you are witnessing should somehow be integrated to the web. I think that if (as an entire lgbtq network - somehow!) we made a pool of contacts who had varying fields and degrees of expertise, and made them available to individuals for one-on-one contact - the wave would be unquestionably more real than the kind of duplication in rhetoric which now exists. I am just making that up as a quick suggestion for a new model right now. There must be other ways, other models, which will produce the unity and strength in this movement that everyone wants.

I'm just dreaming hard and out loud.
thanks again
B.

I too feel that classism and elitism is ravaging the movement, for lack of a better term. Seems that too much intellectualizing, and philosophizing, along with activist bloggers being more concerned with technological aspects and gadgets, and techniques instead of working for funding and recruiting of volunteers for the agencies who deal with the carrying out and tending to those who need care and shelter. Add to that those who seem to be involved in the cause more for self-promotion or looks good on their resume', and provides for the right connections politically. Too, it seems that activism is now so unbecoming. So, "Pre-" POST-PARTISAN. So much more evolved gathering at internet cafes and bistros. All while our rights have not progessed much since the times of Harvey Milk. And, yes, race and class have alot to do with that. It's fashionable to be principled pragmatists now. An organizer, not an activist. Hopefully, the conference will help us find our way.

Waymon,
It's one of the reasons I love that conference. When you have such plentiful and wonderful seminar topics that you're agonizing over which ones to attend if they stat at the same time, you know you're at a powerhouse event.

Brielle,
One of the local GLBT orgs here in Louisville used to send several weren't primarily local activist on the organizations dime to Creating Change provided they agreed to report on what they witnessed and shared it at a community post Creating Change meeting.

Perhaps. you should check with your local GLBT org and see if they're doing a similar program for next year's event.

Was wondering if you've run into any groups from MI, there? Thanks for the coveage. Been following on twitter. Appreciate your hard work. STEVE

EVERYDAY TRANNY- SWEETIE, you make my heart cry, and my soul ache. For wot u say is so true. AS a latin man that lived and saw so many things, and have lived and felt the bias and discrimination as well as the tragedies that result, I feel ur anger. CUZ, I feel it too. Our own community tends to be worse sumtimes. And that enrages me. And, I feel the same about how the elitist and insulated natures of those in power at orgs. and activist blogs.Read my earlier comments. Yet, don't let hurt and anger deter u or blind u to the fact that there are those who care 2 learn, 2 c, and 2 change the injustices. Too, think about wot u can do to help ppl c. Today u began doing that. Waymon I c is listening. Think about wot u can do next. I kno u have in u. I kno I do 2. So wot r we gonna do now? PEACE, AND LOVE. STEVE