Explore LGBTQ+ Programming at SXSW EDU 2022

SXSW EDU kicks off tomorrow and we are so excited to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community through our many programs. Join discussions, meet ups, mentor sessions, and more where themes range from making curriculum in schools more inclusive to learning how to have open discussions at home.

Explore LGBTQ+ programming below and add events to your SXSW EDU Schedule:

Talks

When Culture Wars Come to School | NBC News' Antonia Hylton & Mike Hixenbaugh’s #1 hit podcast, Southlake, tells the story of how an idyllic Texas city became a symbol of a new national reckoning over race & education. The journalists will be joined by author George M. Johnson & school librarian Carolyn Foote to discuss the next front in the classroom culture war: The movement to ban books on race, sex, gender & sexuality.

Harmonizing DEI, Free Expression, and Academics | Gen Z students are the most diverse in our history but are arriving from “think-alike communities,” unskilled in discourse across differences. For them, DEI seems to be in direct conflict with free expression. How do presidents and administrators create a welcoming and respectful learning environment for all students that upholds commitments to open intellectual inquiry? This panel will explore this tension, analyze the contributing factors, and provide a strategic framework for addressing it.

Workshops

Out Youth: Be a Beacon for LGBTQIA+ Youth | Research shows that when LGBTQIA+ youth view school personnel as supportive, they feel safer, have fewer absences for safety reasons, report fewer school-related problems, and have higher grades. Join us as we dive deeper into the research, why we developed our online LGBTQIA+ Competency Training for K-12 Staff, and how you can make your school and your curriculum more inclusive for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

Teaching Creative Authenticity | This workshop is an introduction to the process of recognizing, activating, and supporting students’ unique creative identities so that they may create work that is original, authentic, and identifiably theirs. Activities will include useful exercises and discussion frameworks to model leading students through acts of self-reflection and exploration. It will also help us as educators be more authentic in bringing our whole selves to our teaching.

Mentor Session

Heather Ashley Hayes | How do we think about disability in relation to educational settings and larger conversations in the public sphere about education? Especially as disability, and neurodiversity, relate to gender, race, and LGBTQ+ concerns? Join Heather as she talks about inclusion and equity in education, how to balance research, teaching, and public facing work, and building a public facing profile in education.

Meet Ups

It Gets Better: Queer Educators & Allies Meet Up | It's official - 2021 was the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history due to the sheer number of anti-LGBTQ measures - particularly anti-trans measures - that swept through state legislatures across the country. Join this Meet Up hosted by the It Gets Better Project to discuss how we can push back against these attacks and better support our queer students in every school and every classroom across the country.

Your Opportunity to Empower Trans/TGE Youth | This meet up explores how to have an open conversation about pronouns, how to create avenues for conversation between trans youth and their parents, the importance of autonomy for youth in their coming out process, and how to advocate for an inclusive environment in the classroom. Participants will leave with resources and activities to implement in their spaces.

Future20

Centering Youth Voice in DEI Training | Founded in 2017, Diversity Talks specializes in providing youth-led professional development grounded in diversity, equity, and inclusion, guided by the PERM Framework, a unique method for measuring cultural competence, which was developed by Dr. Butler herself in 2019. In this session, Dr. Butler will speak on her experience in the DEI world over the past 4 years and why Diversity Talks' unique methods are crucial to their success in shifting mindsets across the nation.

Performance

Drag Queen Story Hour | Drag Queen Story Hour celebrates reading through the glamorous art of drag. Our chapter network creates diverse, accessible, and culturally-inclusive family programming where kids can express their authentic selves and become bright lights of change in their communities.

Photo provided by Amanda Stronza