Written by:
Rachel Pepper
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this Issue of Curve:
18#1
The fifth annual Gender Odyssey conference took place over Labor Day weekend in Seattle. Known as a trans friendly city, Seattle is home to several important organizations such as the Ingersoll Gender Center and Gender Odyssey. Several hundred transmen and their partners arrived to a city decorated with black banners welcoming them to Trans Awareness Week, which had been officially proclaimed by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. Attendees came from all over the U.S. and several other countries including Canada and Australia.
The conference, held at the Washington State Convention Center, consisted of a multitude of receptions, workshops and special events like films, barbeques, and parties.
And Gender Odyssey also hosted a concurrent, smaller first-of-its-kind conference for families raising gender variant and transgender children and teens. Gender Odyssey Family hosted about 25 families, including affirmed transgender children as young as six, as well as handful of researchers and writers. Workshops on cutting edge topics like family disclosure, medical advocacy, and dealing with legal and school issues were well attended by parents looking for guidance on how best to support their children’s gender expression.
Geared towards supporting a wide range of experiences and perspectives related to an FTM identity, participants entered a space geared to the non-binary gender world. This included making convention center bathrooms into gender-neutral restrooms, and providing a marketplace offering wares ranging from carrying bags for sexual apparatus to FTM porn specialists Trannywood Pictures.
But the heart of the conference were the workshops, a multitude of choices on topics like chest reconstruction, trans identity, trans health benefits, workplace issues, racism, passing, disability, transmen and pregnancy, faith, and sex and partner issues, all with catchy titles like, “Testosterone 101”, “Chest Surgery Show and Tell,” “Fierce Dyke Found Doing Husband’s Laundry: Changing Roles in a Gender-Blurred Marriage” and the town meeting “Dykes, Trannies and FTMs, Oh My!”
Conference speakers and presenters included Stephan Thorne, Dr. Irene Sills, the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Shannon Minter, Stephanie Brill, Sky Renfro and Jamison Green. Seattle’s Translations film festival provided many film going opportunities, as did conference screenings of documentaries like “Red Without Blue.”
For more information contact www.genderodyssey.com or for family conference information, www.genderspectrum.org.
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