Check out the workshops that will be going on during NYQueer’s Beyond Tolerance Conference for youth and REGISTER TODAY! The conference will take place this Friday, May 29th at Vanguard High School (317 E 67th St). The afternoon will open with tabling and snacks starting at 4:30 and will close with an open mic. For more information contact nyqueer@nycore.org or to RSVP click HERE.
Workshop Descriptions- Session 1 (5:30- 6:25)
Gender Justice and School Push-out – Girls for Gender Equity
This workshop will work through and highlight the ways in which young women of color and LGBTQ+ youth of color experience school push-out. Our workshop will define “gender justice” and “school push-out,” and talk about how the two are interconnected. The workshop will give time for students to practice storytelling through their experiences with gender justice and school push-out. The workshop will end with students constructing their own poems about what they have talked about in the workshop. All participants can then share their poems at the Open Mic.
Introduction to Theatre of the Oppressed – Theatre of the Oppressed NYC & The Ali Forney Center
Have fun, play games, and use that to enact quantifiable change! Dipping into theatre games from the arsenal of Theatre of the Oppressed learn to craft a forum theatre demonstration. Connect the tool of Theatre of the Oppressed to human rights and oppression as it affects your community through dialogue and brainstorming.
Ballez – Ballez
Ballez is a dance class to explore the historically gendered and Imperialist movements of Ballet, and to radically re-imagine those potentially oppressive tools into a physicalized site of play, freedom, strength, and liberation.
Katy Pyle and Jules Skloot will lead a 50-minute Ballez workshop for youth and adult educators. No prior dance experience necessary. Participants are asked to engage with each other in a friendly, non-competitive way in order to maximize fun and allow space to uncover the difficulties of interacting with the problematic form of ballet.
AG = Aggressive + What? – UA Bronx Academy of Letters & The Door
Aggressive, or Ag, is a common term used to describe masculine-of-center, queer women, particularly in Black and Latinx communities. This workshop will unpack what it means to be a masculine-of-center woman, in terms of expectations and labels from the heterosexual community as well as within the queer community. Participants will guide this discussion by sharing the beauty and complications of masculine-of-center identity.
Queering the Movement – New York State Youth Leadership Council
Queer and undocumented youth, or “UndocuQueers”, have been a dynamic part of the immigrant rights’ movement. UndocuQueers have been at the forefront of the movement, taking leadership positions, and bridging queer and immigrant communities. Queering the Movement is an exploration of the queer and undocumented perspective.
Don’t Stand By, Stand Up!: Strategies to Stop Bullying – Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth
This interactive workshop allows participants the opportunity to identify and explore types of bullying and bystander behaviors. Through role-play, participants will better understand bystander behavior and have the opportunity to practice effective and appropriate responses to bullying.
The Pleasure Principle for LGBTQ Youth – Grand Street Settlement
Safer sex can be fun and pleasurable! This workshop will go over tips and strategies for how to add pleasure and safety when you’re intimate with someone. We’ll be inclusive of all genders and sexual orientations!
Signature Workshop on Teen Dating Violence and Healthy Relationships- NYC Family Justice Center
This workshop is a guided discussion about the dynamics of teen dating violence and abusive behaviors, the dynamics of healthy relationships and healthy behaviors, warning signs of an abusive partner, and how to help a friend who may be in an unhealthy relationship.
Black Trans Youth in Media – Scenarios USA
Centering one of Scenarios new youth written and Hollywood directed short films, House Not Home, this presentation will discuss ways to use media to begin conversations on equity, justice, and affirmation within schools and communities to discuss the needs and experiences of Black transgender youth, especially Black transgender women and those on a feminine gender expression continuum. Screening of the film followed by a discussion and activities will make up this workshop.
House Not Home is about Terran, a young Black trans feminine high school student living with their single father and attending high school for the first time in the gender expression that is most comfortable for them. Terran experiences violence at school and their father struggles with accepting their child’s gender identity and expression. The film features Terran’s use of technology to build and create friendships and chosen family.
Workshop Descriptions- Session 2 (6:30- 7:25)
Music is Revolutionary – Rude Mechanical Orchestra
In this hands-on workshop members from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra will explore the idea that music making can be a powerful act of protest to achieve an activist goal or simply communicate a radical point of view. Participants will be invited to create their own protest chant focused on an issue that is important to them. No experience necessary!
Introduction to Theatre of the Oppressed – Theatre of the Oppressed NYC & The Ali Forney Center
Have fun, play games, and use that to enact quantifiable change! Dipping into theatre games from the arsenal of Theatre of the Oppressed learn to craft a forum theatre demonstration. Connect the tool of Theatre of the Oppressed to human rights and oppression as it affects your community through dialogue and brainstorming.
Queering the Movement – New York State Youth Leadership Council
Queer and undocumented youth, or “UndocuQueers”, have been a dynamic part of the immigrant rights’ movement. UndocuQueers have been at the forefront of the movement, taking leadership positions, and bridging queer and immigrant communities. Queering the Movement is an exploration of the queer and undocumented perspective.
Don’t Stand By, Stand Up!: Strategies to Stop Bullying – Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth
This interactive workshop allows participants the opportunity to identify and explore types of bullying and bystander behaviors. Through role-play, participants will better understand bystander behavior and have the opportunity to practice effective and appropriate responses to bullying.
Queering Wikipedia – Media Masters Alliance
Media MA will introduce you to the in’s and out’s of Wikipedia. During this workshop you will learn how to create Wikipedia articles, with the goal of highlighting the lives and work of LGBTQ folks, people of color and other communities that are often written out of history. While we Wiki, we’ll have an active discussion on ways information can shape cultural understanding and how we can become actively engaged in promoting, creating, and mining content that is diverse and reflective of the expansive range of realities and histories.
During this workshop, we will teach you how to create a Wikipedia account, author or edit a Wikipage, and you’ll be introduced to basic wiki-markup, and participate in group discussion.
Images of Queerness – The Forum Project
What does it mean to be queer? How do we shape our own genders and sexualities? In this interactive creative workshop, participants will use Image Theatre to explore how society impacts our understanding of gender and sexuality and reimagine and recreate what gender and sexuality mean to us.
World Star Hip Hop! Navigating Safety as a Queer Youth! – The Door
This workshop is an interactive workshop that helps young people to identify skills and develop skills on how to be safe in the subway and in the streets as a queer, trans, or gender non-conforming youth.
TechnoLOVE – NYC Family Justice Center
TechnoLOVE focuses on the dynamics of healthy v. unhealthy relationships that arise through social media and technology. This workshop is a discussion on these dynamics, healthy communication skills, and how to recognize worrisome behaviors.
LGBTQ Youth Making Media for Educational Justice
Join Global Action Project for a screening of two creative films made by LGBTQ youth of color about about their experiences in schools dealing with everything from school safety agents to textbooks and bathrooms. Following the films youth will lead a discussion about how we can identify and organize against forms of marginalization and violence in schools as teachers, students, parents and youth!