About 135 LGBT college students and allies came to campus Saturday for Spectrum’s second Louisiana Queer Conference.
Spectrum organized various leaders in the Louisiana LGBT movement for a State of the Movement Panel where panelists and audience members discussed how to increase youth participation, race in the LGBT movement and allies in the movement.
Elaine Maccio, assistant professor in the School of Social Work, was on the panel representing Capital City Alliance, a Baton Rouge LGBT organization. Maccio also taught a workshop on suicide in the LGBT community.
She said she enjoyed the panel because she “loves interacting with college students, and this is another way to do it.”
Matthew Patterson, physics graduate student, taught two workshops and was on the panel representing Equality Louisiana, a statewide coalition of LGBT organizations.
The panel at last year’s conference led to the creation of Equality Louisiana.
Patterson said he enjoyed the panel because no one got too worked up or uncomfortable.
LGBT college students and allies attended three workshop sessions with 29 workshops to choose from, which covered a variety of topics from LGBT politics to sexual health.
Nathan Gerany, president of Prism, Louisiana Tech University’s LGBT organization, attended “Becoming the Unicorn: Identity Erasure,” a workshop on identity and how people make assumptions based on identity.
Gerany said the workshop was enlightening. He said he isn’t going to identify as a “queer nerd” anymore because people use the word “queer” too broadly.
Not all students who attended the conference were involved with the LGBT movement.
Mechanical engineering sophomore Hayato DeSouza said he was at the conference to get contacts for his summer research internship on homosexuality in academia and higher education.
DeSouza said he was surprised at the size of the LGBT community and how much he enjoyed the conference.
Along with the panel and workshops, the conference hosted keynote speaker Mara Keisling, executive director of National Center for Transgender Equality.
Keisling, who speaks at several conferences a year, said the LGBT movement’s common themes are progress in education policy and addressing unfair laws that suppress people.
She updated attendees on the LGBT movement in Washington, D.C., discussed inclusion of transgender people in the LGBT movement and urged students to not become complacent and continue to work.
“I have an obligation to fight. I have an obligation to win, and I have an obligation to do it justly,” Keisling said.
The slogan for this year’s conference was “It’s all of us or none of us.”
Shane Cone, geology junior and Spectrum president, said the keynote speaker reaffirmed the commitment to represent the whole LGBT community, not just part of it.
LGBT college students and allies were encouraged to attend the Feminists in Action production of “The Vagina Monologues” and the Queer Prom 2012: Masquerade Ball.
Mary Catherine Roberts, mathematics senior and the Spectrum chair, said she wanted attendees to have a good time and make connections.
Roberts said this year’s conference was more organized and less frantic behind the scenes.
“I like to see an increase in awareness in how important it is for all of us to support each other, because if we leave one group out, we aren’t getting any closer to equality,” she said.
 
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Contact Marylee Williams at [email protected]