Join the Queer Students Alliance for the first-ever Queer Texas Conference, April 13-15. Please take a look at the information below and pass along this invitation to other queer students and organizations throughout the state!

We will convene a large group of high school and college activists, progressives, organization leaders and allies throughout the state — and that’s why we can’t wait to see you and your friends at the conference! We have a great line-up of speakers and 30 break-out sessions, including a keynote by nationally-known gender rights activist and writer Kate Bornstein. Out of this conference, we hope to build a statewide network of high school, collegiate and youth queer activists.

Here’s the mission and description of the conference:
The Queer Texas Conference is an action-oriented, 3 day-long educational gathering of youth and students from across Texas to build community and improve the organizational capacity of our movement. The conference will open with the Texas Networking Reception on Friday evening, followed by the Action Summit on Saturday, and a Youth Leadership Summit on Sunday. Action summit sessions will include skills training and dialogues on social identities and intersecting oppressions. As part of a broader social justice movement, we work to create a nation that respects the diversity of human expression and identity and creates opportunity for all.

Spread the word to other LGBT people and allies who might be interested. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions and let us know if you think you’ll be able to attend!

Here are the details:
What: First-ever Queer Texas Conference
Where: UT-Austin campus, LBJ School of Public Affairs
When: Evening of Friday, April 13 — Morning of Sunday, April 15 (all break-out sessions will be on Saturday, April 14)
Host: Queer Students Alliance, UT-Austin
Housing: Inexpensive local hotels will be listed on our Web site; housing is not provided directly by QSA
Registration: Online registration can be found by clicking on the link at www.queertx.org
Cost: $25 per person, which can be waived if you let us know there is financial need — we will not let cost of registration prevent anyone from attending!

Please contact me directly with any questions.

For updates to the schedule, please visit the QueerTX website.

Monday, April 2nd
Awareness Week Rally
Sponsored by: the Queer Students Alliance (QSA)
11am-2pm, West Mall

Community Town Hall Meeting
Sponsored by: QSA
5pm, Multicultural Information Center (SSB)

Homophobia in the Greek Community
Sponsored by: KDChi
7pm, Texas Union Pearce Hall

Tuesday, April 3rd
Safe Space Training for Faculty and Staff
Sponsored by: Safe Space
12pm-2pm, Union Eastwoods Room

Identity Bingo
Sponsored by: StandOut
6pm-7pm, MEZ 1.102

Domestic Violence in Lesbian Relationships
Sponsored by: SheSays and Voices Against Violence
7pm-8pm, Union Eastwoods Room

Queer Perspectives on Marriage
Sponsored by: QSA and the Gender and Sexuality Center
8pm-9pm, Multicultural Information Center (SSB)

Wednesday, April 4th
Multiple Identities in Queer Communities
Sponsored by: Safe Space
4pm-6pm, Union African American Culture Room

Take Back the Night
Sponsored by: Voices Against Violence and the Women’s Resource Center
6pm, Main Mall

Coffee Night
Sponsored by: HangOut
10pm-12am, Little City Coffee Shop on South Congress Ave.

Thursday, April 5th
Identity Slap
Sponsored by: Queer People of Color (QPOC)
11am-1pm, Gregory Gym Plaza

Intersections of Trans and Disability Identity
Sponsored by: Students for Equity and Diversity
1pm-2pm, Multicultural Information Center (SSB)

Morality Politics Panel
Sponsored by: Harvey Milk Society
1pm-2pm, Thompson Conference Center

Noah’s Arc Screening
Sponsored by: QPOC and Safe Space
7pm, Gender and Sexuality Center (SSB)

Transcending Stereotypes Performance
Sponsored by: Voices Against Violence
8pm-9:30pm, Parlin 1

Friday, April 6th
Visibility Picnic
Sponsored by: HangOut
11am-2pm, Turtle Pond (North side of UT Tower)

As you can see, our illustrious former Director has handed over the website to me. Thanks Jason and KT!

Well, a little bit of news. The Student Action Summit has come and gone (for better or for worse) and Awareness Week is just around the corner. Our event this year will be Identity Bingo! It’s gonna be a lot of fun, though I’d like to remind everyone to send me ideas for our 100 “identities other than GLBTQ.”

Thanks everyone, and I hope ya’ll are having a wonderful weekend!

 ~Sadie Hawkins

Dear lord that was needlessly hard. I am referring to putting all of the new members on the listserve due to UT Listproc’s needlessly bureaucratic procedures. But regardless all of you are here now and that’s a great thing. I want to remind everyone that the StandOut website is at www.standoutbeheard.org and that it has event information as well as gay news. (A reminder to the people that are authorized to post on it: do so!)

StandOut is meeting this week, like it will every week for the rest of the semester, at 6:00 pm in the Texas Union African-American Culture room. Can’t wait to see everyone there. Be sure to come with your thoughts on the Blood event and anything that you would want to do this semester. For those of you who have made it this far down the email, I just wanted to say a few words about StandOut, specifically to our newer members, about what StandOut can give them and what StandOut wants:

If you are a gung-ho civil rights political activist-to-be that just hasn’t had the opportunity yet, then StandOut can give you that chance. Both Jake, the former director, and I are senior fellows in Young People For, a progressive organization that trains young leaders. Our other officers like Satina, Clay, and Sadie are all experienced in gay activism. We all can help you foster your talents as activists by help your skills in: event planning, messaging, media, organizing, fundraising, and a host of other skills. If this is who you want to be, we can help you get there.

If you are a bright-eyed student that cares but just doesn’t have the time, then we’re here for you too. All we need from you in a willingness to come to events that are planned by others, attend meetings when you can, tell your friends about our events, work the table for an hour during important times, and vote. We can use as much time as you are willing to give us. If you think you don’t have the time to help out the queer cause, then you haven’t seen how small I can make a project.

But there is one type of person that StandOut doesn’t need: people who don’t care. Quite likely, that type of person hasn’t even made it this far down the email but that’s all right.If you don’t care about whats going on in the country, if you don’t care about the rights taken from you, the rights that you never had to begin with, if you don’t care about the any issue that could be called political, or controversial, or queer, then we don’t need you.

For all the people that do care, there is StandOut. Come help us.

–
Jason Orne

Campaigns Wikia is quite possibly the coolest new thing on the web.

From their mission statement:

“This website, Campaigns Wikia, has the goal of bringing together people from diverse political perspectives who may not share much else, but who share the idea that they would rather see democratic politics be about engaging with the serious ideas of intelligent opponents, about activating and motivating ordinary people to get involved and really care about politics beyond the television soundbites.”

Too cool for school, which, I suppose, is why they put it on the web.

As the summer starts to come to a close and people start thinking about what to do in the upcoming semester, I just wanted to welcome anyone that comes to our website. Some of you may have heard of us at the freshman orientation, seen us on the web or in the newspaper, or heard about us from a friend. Regardless of how, welcome to StandOut. We can really use your help.

This coming semester we have alot to do. Our long awaited gay blood donation event will hopefully be put together for this semester. In addition to that, mid-term elections are around the corner and we will probably try to education people about the queer-friendly choice that they can vote for. At the beginning of the semester, we always have a meeting to discuss what we will be doing so be sure to get on the listserve or come back here to hear about when that will be.

(You can get on the listserve by clicking the JOIN button to the right of this post!)

Again, welcome to UT and welcome to UT’s only Queer Political Group.

Hey everyone!

Its been awhile since I have had a chance to talk to you. This is an invitation to come to StandOut’s meeting this Tuesday at 7pm in the Texas Union room 2.404 for a very special event.

First, we will be hosting Anne Wynne from Atticus Circle. She will be talking on the importance of straight allies to the GLBT cause. We hope this will be a wonderful opportunity to get some more allies involved in the StandOut’s upcoming events.

Afterwards, we are going to be preparing for Day of Silence which is this Wednesday. Here is our plan for Day of Silence:

* All day everyone involved will not speak (obviously!)
* Everyone will wear a white T-shirt that has a phrase or statistic on it. We are going to be making these at the meeting this Tuesday. Examples of things to put on the shirt are: “Gay Teenagers are more likely to attempt suicide because of harassment in school” or “I was killed by the silence” which is the one I will be using.
* During the main part of the day, StandOut will be tabling on the West Mall to provide a place where silent people can gather and pass out filers talking about the day.
* That night we will gather at 4:45 at the steps of the Tower and silently march towards the capitol where we will join others that have participated that day in a Breaking the Silence event.

Thus at the meeting we will be making the T-Shirts and any signs that people want to carry for the march/capitol event/tabling.

I hope everyone will join us if they can!

Read the full story here.

As if the whole marriage/adoption/safe-schools/non-discrimination/health care issue wasn’t enough, now the Bush Administration is saying that gays should be celibate as part of abstinance-only programs saying kids should “wait to engage in sexual intercourse until married.”

They then define marriage.

The only proper response at a time like this seems to be “go #$@% yourself,” but then, that would be advocating sex before marriage…

StandOut would like to invite you to the Trans Panel that we will be hosting this Tuesday as part of Awareness Week.

It will be in Garrison Hall room 7 at 7pm.

It will be a great opportunity to hear the stories of our panelists, learn about what it means to be Transgendered, ask any questions you may have, or learn about the resources available for your own journey.

I look forward to seeing you there.