Intro: This year's annual conference of the Washington, DC-based National Gay

and Lesbian Task Force was the most successful ever with 1400 attendees from

48 states and the District of Columbia and 3 countries. This Way Out's Ron

Buckmire was there:



This is Ron Buckmire, reporting for This Way Out on the 6th annual Creating 

Change conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force held November 

10-14, in Durham, North Carolina. This marks the first time this annual

movement-building conference has been held in the Southern section of the

United States and as I arrived I found myself dealing with personal issues of

geographical bias. As a person of color I found an  ill-defined sense of unease

settle over me as I crossed the invisible Mason-Dixon line into the Deep South,

a region that I had hitherto only read about or seen in documentaries of the

60s. Also, as a gay man it was unsettling knowing I was going to be spending 

several days in a state that outlaws sodomy by declaring it a quote "crime

against nature so vile it is not to be named in the presence of Christians"

quote. However, these misgivings were dispelled for the most part as I walked 

into  the Omni-Durham hotel with a diverse group of fellow queer travellers

and saw the warm smiles and greetings of the staff, who all wore red ribbon

lapel pins for the duration of the conference.

The conference included day-long intensives on topics ranging from the heavily 

attended "Fight The Right" to Age and aging,health care, civil rights slash

right to privacy, international organizing, work slash family issues and youth.

There was a bewildering series of workshops with titles like "Global threats

and challenges","Advancing a gay agenda on campus","rural and small town 

organizing","The March On Washington -- what went right" and many others too 

numerous to mention. In fact, there was an hourlong orientation session on the

first day to assist participants on how to arrange their schedule in order to

maximise the benefits of the conference.

One of the most popular conference attractions was by Digital Queers -- a group

of computer professionals and devotees who have donated over 200 000 dollars

worth of hardware, software and expertise to NGLTF since the group was formed

a year ago at the 1992 Creating Change conference in Los Angeles. This year

DQ was back with a room full of state-of-the-art equipment and proceeded to 

turn activists who previously couldn't turn a computer ON into activists who 

can send email and interact with the NGLTF Online computer facilities.

The conference halls were abuzz with two words all weekend: NAFTA (the North

American Free Trade Agreement) and NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love 

Association). These buzzwords signaled ongoing discussion about the two main

themes of this year's conference: Race, Class and Gender on one hand and Youth

issues on the other. In fact issues of race, class and gender along with NAFTA

itself dominated discussion of Youth issues and thus a series of demands such

as youth representation on the NGLTF Board of Directors, actions towards 

combatting youth suicide and a youth steering committee were presented to the

new executive director Peri Jude Radecic, who accepted them. This slighting of

youth issues ties in with the quandary over NAMBLA's membership in ILGA and I

asked Peri Jude about that:


(Peri sound feed:)

Clearly this is a difficult issue. We disagree with NAMBLA politically about 

their agenda and the problem we as a community face is that the U.S government

and the U.N. will use NAMBLA as a tool to oust ILGA from their status as an NGO

at the UN.

(end feed)

With regards to NAFTA and race, class and gender, noted Southern organizer and 

author Mab Segrest at the first keynote plenary speech made a powerful 

argument for the Task Force to take an official stand against NAFTA as part of

a change of direction of the gay/lesbian/bisexual movement:

(Mab Segrest sound feed:)

#1
I would argue we have opted for the wrong model. We don't need a queer

nationalism-- we need a queer  socialism; that is by necessity anti-racist and

feminist; a politic that does not cut us off from other people, but that unites

us with them in the broadest possible movement.

#2
We gay people bring the knowledge that we humans are not only 'means of 

production,' however much capitalism seeks to define us that way. Our needs

include not only the survival needs of food, shelter, health care and 

clothing, but also dignity pleasure and love.

#3
A Queer Socialism would not be provincially urban. It would recognize that the

most crucial battles for gay/lesbian politics in the next decade will not be in

the cities where we have our power base, where most of our people are 

concentrated. The Right has finally figured out to take us on their turf, not

ours. These battles will be in areas more rural and historically more 

conservative. In these areas, we will develop new models, not dependent on a

criical gay mass and gay infrastructure. A Queer Socialism will create broad-

based movements against homophobia rather than mobements only for gay and 

lesbian rights. It will hold heterosexuals accountable for heterosexism,

generating heterosexual allies then trusting them to do their work.

#4 In my vision of a reinvigorated movement, the Nationa; Gay & Lesbian Task 

Force would take a stand on major issues such as NAFTA in solidarity with 

working people.

#5
My movement wouldn't avoid these stands for fear it would divide our 

constituency -- we are already divided; it would take them to unite us around 

broader principles. In My movement, we see the opportunity in the crisis -- to

do what we should have done 25 years ago, put the determination to keep faith

with one another by not tolerating racism, sexism and class divisions in 

ourselves or in our organizations.

#6
In our momvement we seize the opportunity to face our own fears and isolations

in the messages of the Right and stare them down. As Creek poet Joy Harjo wrote:

	Oh you have choked me, but I gave you the leash

	You have gutted me, but I gave you the knife,

	You have devoured me, but I gave you the heated thing.

	I take myself back, fear.

#7
This re-energized movement will be, in Suzanne Pharr's eloquent terms, "not a

wedge but a bridge"; not a point of division, but of expansion and connection.

A bridge, not a wedge. A bridge, not a wedge. It has a nice rhythm to it. We 

can say it like a mantra when we feel the right getting too hot.

#8
*Applause*

#9
Thank you

#10

As Audre Lord would say " Don't clap for me if you don't intend to do it!"

[end Mab Segrest]

That was Mab Segrest, in her plenary speech at the 1993 National Gay and Lesbiam

Task Force Creating Change conference, giving her call for the movement towards

a queer socialism. Next year's conference is scheduled for Dallas, Texas in 

early November. 

OUT-tro (for some weird reason it's only one channel)

For THIS WAY OUT, I'm Ron Buckmire