Nov 12
5
Members, we had a lovely day at the LGBT Conference at Georgia Southern. And I’d like to thank the GSA at Georgia Southern and the GSU Multicultural Student Center for their work in setting this up.
To elaborate, I and Mack Perkins left from the Macon campus at around 7:30 in the morning, arrived at around 10 am in the morning, and we split up to attend different workshops. I first attended Dr. Dionne Bates’ panel on “True Reflections: Dispelling Messages that Separate You from Who You TRULY Are”, which I found interesting to listen to (although I faded in and out because of lack of sleep).
Following that, I went to Mr. Faisal Alam’s workshop on LGBT Muslims and his work as leader of Al-Fatiha, an organization for LGBT and Allied Muslims, which I thoroughly enjoyed and asked questions. During lunch (which consisted of grilled chicken, salad, green beans, rice, cheesecake and iced tea), we watched Dr. John Corvino (writer and philosophy professor at Wayne State University) deliver a lecture on stage about his review of how folks on both sides of the debate on homosexuality and marriage equality have often used flawed arguments in order to boost their advocacy against each other. We caught up with Em Elliott, who operated the Georgia Equality table and talked with GSU Secretary Cydnee Jones as well. Em was presenting a workshop on the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition.
After lunch, I went to Mr. justin adkins’ presentation on his evolution from being an evangelical missionary to being a transgender Buddhist. After that, me and Mack joined with Cydnee and VP Corey Jones from the GSA at GSU and talked for a full hour on what we can do to make our GSAs more active and engaging. We stayed afterward for the Sex and Chocolate, and they had free candy and condoms for participants. We all asked anonymous questions on all possible aspects of sex, gender, rights, media and so on, receiving answers from the hosts and audience members.
Only the facts that I only had 2 hours of sleep and quite a bit of homework to finish and Mack had stuff to clean up and work on at home prevented us from staying for the prom that was held from 8-12, which I’m sure was delightful for all the staying participants. We left during the ending QnA panel discussion featuring 5 of the guest presenters, and came back with quite a bit of swag.
This was an interesting trip, one that I hope that we can come to replicate here at Macon State.
Video:
Peace!
Harry Underwood,
President, Macon State College Gay-Straight Alliance
