Winter Digital Learning Event

“Gender Liberation is For Everyone:

A Path Toward Stronger Allyship with LGBTQ+ Congregants”

Thursday, February 26, 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Neak Loucks & Charlie Curtis, members at First UMC of St. Cloud Region

This presentation supports participants’ capacity for LGBTQ+-inclusive community building by offering a lens that breaks down hard and fast boundaries between trans and cis experiences to assert that gender liberation is for everyone and that such a perspective can spur more effective allyship. Drawing on a notion of Jesus born into and speaking from the margins and of his ministry breaking down barriers between the center and the margins of society, we will approach discussions of trans experiences (e.g., gender dysphoria, nonbinary gender identity) in a manner that pushes participants to consider similarities in trans and cis gender experiences and to pay attention to the societal conditions that result in disproportionate harm to trans people despite those similarities. By breaking down a sense of “otherness” that is often a part of even well-meaning perceptions of trans experience, we aim to cultivate allyship that more effectively translates into more integrated congregational communities.

Presenters
Charlie Curtis (they/them) is an educator and anthropologist currently working as the Director of the LGBT Resource Center and Interim Director of the Women’s Center at St. Cloud State University.

Neak Loucks (they/them), PhD, is an anthropologist and educator who works part-time as the Executive Director for the Healthy Kane County Foundation and fills the rest of their time with a wide array of work and play, ranging from manuscript editing and workshop facilitation to coaching youth sports and guiding hikes in southern Utah.

Event Recording   here