Panels

Youth at Risk

LGBT youth are at especially high risk for homelessness, and they additionally face vulnerability and discrimination in institutional settings.  Panelists will explore LGBT youth homelessness, with a particular focus on NYC and Boston.  Attention will also be paid to challenges LGBT youth face in foster care and the juvenile justice system.  Panelists will address the question of how state and local agencies, legislation, and nonprofits can better work to keep such youth from being exploited, as well as providing services that are sensitive to their needs.

Transgender Youth

This panel will take an interdisciplinary look at the experiences of transgender youth.  Speaking from their experiences in the medical, nonprofit, and legal sectors, panelists will examine the challenges currently facing these youth.  They will also discuss successful support models that their own organizations use.

Elder Law and Services

Does entry into long-term care and medical facilities force LGBT seniors to reenter the closet?  How does sexuality impact end-of-life rights and financial planning?  Panelists will tackle these questions, as well as discussing policy reforms and institutional changes that can help to better address the needs of LGBT seniors. The panel will also include a discussion of how current taxation policies affect LGBT seniors.

Youth in Schools

Several panelists will speak on the topic of bullying due to real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. The discussion will include cyberbullying, since the rise of electronic media has created new forms of bullying, leading to the need for updated legal and pedagogical tools to address it.  Other panelists will focus on discrimination against LGBT students in schools; this portion of the panel will consider the use of litigation as a tool against schools with discriminatory policies.  Panelists will include representatives of the ACLU, GLSEN, MassEquality, PFLAG, and HLS.

Age and HIV/AIDS Discrimination

This panel will address the medical needs of seniors with HIV/AIDS, as well as the housing and employment discrimination that they may face.  Panelists will speak from their experiences both in national organization and in local nonprofits in Boston and New Orleans, allowing for reflections on differing regional approaches to serving elders with HIV/AIDS.

Stonewall Generation

This panel will round out the conference by comparing the first generation of LGBT activists with their current-day counterparts.  Panelists will take a historical look at the aims of the LGBT-rights movement, discussing the goals of activists at the time of the Stonewall riots.  To what extent have their aims been achieved?  How do the methods and goals of the newer generation differ?  Are such changes the natural progression of a long-term civil rights struggle, or do they risk losing sight of essential characteristics of the movement?  This panel promises to provide a fascinating conversation as the panelists grapple with these difficult questions concerning historical memory, group leadership, and activism strategies.