Cheers to 30 Years of Midwest Queers

Show Notes

We're back for another serving of the 30th annual Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference. This week, members of the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Diversity team come together exactly 24 hours after the closing remarks to honor the 30-year legacy of MBLGTACC, reminisce on the successes and learning curves of this year’s gathering, and think about what will manifest in the next 30 years.

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Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of programs for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

Cover art: Adrienne McCormick

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Creators & Guests

Host

R.B. Brooks

Director of Programs, Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

Producer

Justin Drwencke

Executive Director, Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

What is Take the Last Bite?

Take the Last Bite is a direct counter to the Midwest Nice mentality— highlighting advocacy & activism by queer/trans communities in the Midwest region. Each episode unearths the often disregarded and unacknowledged contributions of queer & trans folks to social change through interviews, casual conversations and reflections on Midwest queer time, space, and place.

For questions, comments and feedback: [e-mail]

To support this podcast and the Institute, please visit sgdinstitute.org/giving

Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of programs for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality & Gender Diversity

Cover Art: Adrienne McCormick

RB:
Hey,hi,hello y'all, this is R.B., sneaking right past ya to bring you another episode of Take the Last Bite, a show where we take Midwest Nice, pack it into a to-go box and drop it off on your doorstep so you can watch us from the window and grab it when we’re finally gone.

Our team is in full-on energy recuperation mode after an incredible week in Columbus, Ohio after pulling off the 30th annual Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference (mumble-tock for the necessary short). Today’s episode captures some of the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Diversity team exactly 24-hours after the closing remarks at this year’s conference as we reflect on our first MBLGTACCs; the biggest takeaways from this year’s event; and think big about what’s ahead for Midwest queer and trans spaces with MBLGTACC as a template for the future.

Picture this– you enter into a giant ballroom, there’s tables laid out across the space, you’re looking for registration and between you and check-in is a sea of people with hair spanning every hue on the color wheel; incredible outfits and bold shoes; people are hugging and ogling over each other’s backpack pins. There are so many attractive people with rad energy and eager eyes. It feels familiar and warm even though you’ve only met the people you traveled with and you’ve never been here before. You’re anxious, excited, overwhelmed, energized and in awe of what’s in front of you. THAT…. is a deeply oversimplified explanation of what it feels like to attend MBLGTACC for the first time and each year after that still brings warmth, hominess, familiarity, a sense of belonging and infinite possibility.

And for 30 years, this space has been providing comfort, challenges, encouragement, education, connectivity and empowerment to all who have gathered for a brief weekend, a short moment that packs a huge punch and lingers on your heart and mind for infinity. I can speak from personal experience that I wouldn’t be the radical queer I am & I wouldn’t have the invalubale chosen family I have today without this vital, life-saving space.

Even if you’ve never attended the conference, if you’re a Midwest queer I would wager you’ve been impacted by the residual effects of its influence on the region’s sexual liberation and gender justice work. Thousands of Midwest queer and trans folks have traipsed through convention centers and college campuses for 30 years engaging with mass movement concepts such as fat liberation, solidarity with Palestine, intersectional accessibility, and so much more. At this year’s conference, we further emphasized the prevalence of rural and small community organizing; designing a queer future through media; activism as a tool for social justice; creating change on college campuses; and taking care of ourselves as a way to take care of others as key issues facing our communities.

30 years ago, when most of us at the Institute were discovering we had fingers and sucking on a bottle, there were young college students who knew that what was currently available for Midwest queer and trans folks was not enough and they built something from the raw materials of hope, aspiration and ideation to plant the seeds for what has become the largest gathering of queer and trans youth in this country.

On today’s episode, we honor that transformative moment when the original conference organizers came together to form this conference; we reminisce on the successes and learning curves of this year’s gathering; and we think about what will manifest in the next 30 years.

Join us as we project our own hopes and dreams on the future… for this episode of Take the Last Bite

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYING]

Why can't we be in space with hundreds of other queer and trans folks and having these necessary conversations?

When it comes to dynamics around privilege and oppression, and around identity. Well intentioned isn’t actually good enough.

How far is too far to drive for a drag show? I don’t know, we’re in Duluth right now, I would straight up go to Nebraska, probably,

If you are not vibing, or something’s not right, or also like there’s an irreparable rupture, you have absolutely every right to walk away.

Definitely going to talk about Midwest Nice and if that's as real as it wants to think it is.

Midwest nice is white aggression. That's what it is.

[END MUSIC]

RB:
Alright fam, let's get into it. So pretty much exactly 24 hours ago, we were wrapping up the closing remarks 30th annual conference. So we are going to chit chat about MBLGTACC past, present and future as we are still buzzing from the conference high of this year's conference. So why don't we start off with just a round of introductions of who folks are, their relationship to the conference, and doing a throwback to one of your favorite memories, perhaps of your first time at MBLGTACC.

Danielle:
I can start. My name is Daniel Kropveld. I am the fundraising coordinator for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity. I first got involved with the conference in 2020. I was a student planner at Western Michigan University. I guess my favorite memory would be, I guess of that first conference. I'm sure the sentiment will be echoed throughout this process, but just being in space with so many people who share my identity was amazing. Additionally, something I really enjoyed about the conference my first year was seeing all the different sorts of programming that we had, the different workshops, things that I had never even thought of being workshops, were available to people and I think that was just one of the best parts of the conference for me.

Nick:
I'm Nick Pfost. I'm the Institute's director of marketing and communications. I haven't actually planned one of the MBLGTACC conferences, so I'm probably one of the only members of our team who hasn't. But I did have a hand in our bid when Michigan State was bidding in 2011 to host it in 2013. My first time at the conference, I had a very similar experience to Danielle. In fact, I almost felt a little bit overwhelmed because I had a hard time even imagining what it was like to be in community and physical space with that many queer and trans folks at the same time. I remember just seeing all of the hair and thinking how fucking cool that was. Like blue, green, red, orange, yellow, every single color. I'm just thinking I wanted to do that and then sadly going home and never actually making that a reality. But having something like that to look forward to every time.

RB:
There's still time.

Justin:
I feel like MBLGTACC is better than a trade show for people who style and color hair.

Nick:
Yes

Justin:
It's just like more vibrant, more vivid. It's great. It's great. My name is Justin Drwencke, my pronouns are they/they. I'm the executive director of the Institute. For those of you who have listened to previous seasons, you've heard me before and I'm back to talk again.

My first time at MBLGTACC was in 2011. And besides the experience of taking a bus that looked like a literal tin can to get to the conference, it was the most transformative experience. Like being in a space with, I don't know, we probably had 1,800 other queer people in that space that year. And it was, for me one of the first times that I understood that there could be queer community. Instead of being in a small rural space where I was one of two, it was being in a space where I was one of 1800, 1600, I don't know the numbers, but being able to see all of those other possibilities was personally transformative.

RB:
So I'm still RB, and I still use they/them, and my role at the conference, that I'm the director of programs with the Institute. My first conference was in 2012 in Ames, Iowa, which is where I also met Justin, which is very significant, I think, to the origin story of the Institute, because here we still are. I think, thinking back to my first conference, I feel like this is also my first year of university because I transferred community college. And when I moved to Kansas City, where I was a student and traveled to the Iowa conference in 2012, like it just seemed like the floodgates had opened already of having moved to Kansas City and then becoming part of the LGBT student group and getting super involved. So suddenly my second semester at university where I'm finally out, away from home, which was a very restrictive and hateful place, and so it just seemed like I got put on the express lane for like queer emergence and queer communities.

So then going to the conference was just like hyper speed. And that was also the year that students from my university bid to host the conference because it was the only reason we would get funding to go to the conference. And surprise, we brought the conference home to then do the two year planning process. So I think without all of the involvement opportunities of going with that student group to the conference, my entire college experience would have been drastically different because it would not have revolved around being then a student planner. The entire time I was at the University of Missouri Kansas City, it was planning this conference, like my graduating year was also the same year that conference happened. Justin, you had graduated hadn’t you by the time

Justin:
Yeah, I’d been graduated for like eight months by the time.

RB:
So, like doing your senior year college while planning a conference is a lot, but I cannot imagine, like, my college experience and my conference experience are like one in the same essentially because my formative years of college were also doing this giant, giant space. I think everything for me in what I do now, whether it's with the Institute or whether it's my paid job or anything else I do like stems from that first.

So here we are several years later from 2011, 12, and 20, and there's been just a couple of things that have happened since 2020, just a couple. Like I said, we are fresh off of the 30th annual conference. We are currently hanging out in a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, tired but also inspired, I think, by what we saw this weekend in collaborating with some phenomenal student planners for this conference who gave us a lot of their perspective in episode one of this season. So if you haven’t checked that out, go check that out. I love those students.

We wanted to chat, too, just about, like, from our perspective and just having been to so many of these conferences, what were some of the big takeaways? What were some of the highlights of what we experienced this weekend with content, with our experiences? I might put you on the spot, Nick, because you cried this weekend. Oh, my God.

Nick:
It me.

RB:
We’ll get there, it you. So, what was good this weekend, y’all, besides so much but what were some biggies.

Danielle:
I think something I really want to speak about is sort of the part of the planning process that we were privy to with the students was really choosing programming and keynotes that were relevant to current day issues that we're experiencing. And I think having Schuyler Bailar as a trans athlete with all of the anti-trans legislation that's happening now, was very provocative to the attendees of the conference. I think that's very valuable for folks who were able to see that keynote. I think that's one of the things that really stood out to me, that I was roaming the hallways and heard, oh, that keynote was so, I think there was a line of people waiting to talk to Schuyler after the keynote that went for quite some time. I think that just proves how impactful that specific bit of programming was and all the other programming that people were just so thrilled about, I think I personally was thrilled about as well. So that's something that I am really taking away from this year to bring to future years.

Nick:
And I was really struck by his eagerness to stick around and have that conversation with folks. He said in his keynote, when I was at Harvard swimming—this was Schuyler—I didn't set out to be an activist, I sort of eschewed the term activist because what I really wanted to do is swim. But through his work and through his life experience, has come to adopt that label and seems to be one of the best examples of folks that I see today, of folks who really want to not only be offer their thoughts and perspective and help other people in their sense making of the world, but also that he was just so eager to do so.

Justin:
Yeah, like, what a gem to have Schuyler, and Imani, and all of the workshop presenters. The content throughout the weekend, I think, is obviously it's the reason that folks come. One of the reasons that folks come, sometimes they come just to have community, right? And I think that's the other piece that I saw this weekend is so many relationships being formed or rekindled or renewed throughout the weekend where, like, you connect with people who share similar identities with you, who fall under the same letter as you, and that relationship transcends state boundaries. Right? So we're bringing folks together from across the region and just to see the relationships that form and the joy that is so visible on everyone's face when they are in this space is my biggest, I think takeaway is seeing that joy, right?
I think at the end of episode two, one of the speakers was talking about joy is the antidote to despair, right? And we need more joy in order to continue building this movement work. And that's what I saw happen in this space this week.

RB:
I think we saw that too, in a way that we were both not sure of and also didn't fully anticipate with the maker market. So that kind of came out of several very early on planning ideas of wanting to really promote art and creativity in a way. And so a couple of thoughts kind of all funneled into, well, why don't we pilot a maker market? And I think the tagline I'd given that was queer Etsy, but in person. It was just really cool to see like, A, the vendors come in and just get so much traffic to their tables and get folks just fawning over there like crocheted creatures and their stickers and the books and the tarot cards, just like so much cool stuff. But then also we sprinkled into that the, what we call the creation stations. I'm clever. But just like, it was so simple, like conceptually, but it was such high impact to see folks, like, gathering around a table to put together like little beaded friendship bracelets and like, we have the community, like, mural banner thing that folks just, like, had no restrictions on what they could add and they took advantage of that. And there's some NC 17 phrases on that banner. But it was cool to have kind of these community contributed art, craft pieces. Folks were really hyped about being able to decorate their own swag bags. So I think just like, it was very like innocent, wholesome programming, like passive programming that folks could kind of choose their own adventure and do in a time where obviously we're still rebounding from the thick of the pandemic that we're still in. But you know, what I have tracked is like, folks’ social batteries are just so not at the capacity that they used to be and so offering something that folks could kind of interact with while still being in community, but not have to interact with people in a way that might drain their energy, I think is an element that I appreciate that we were able to incorporate.

Justin:
And I think that to me highlights the importance of art in movement work, right? It can't all just be sterile academic papers, right? Like, we have to be centering art and creators and musicians in our movement work, that is a huge part of our community and like, the experiences that we have together.

Nick:
And the art not only, oh gosh, I'm going to lose my train of thought here already as soon as I start talking. The art is not only a form of expression for the individual artist, but it is a way to help translate experience and emotion and relationship and understandings of our world around us that can impact other people, that can cause people to be inspired, that can inspire people to act on their campuses and their communities interpersonally with one another. One other piece of art that I was really thrilled that we did this year was, we launched a commission. So we set out at the beginning, I think this might have even been an idea that we co created with the students, but that had sort of been on our mind for a while as well. And that was to make sure that we were sort of putting our money where our mouth is in how much we value art. So this year we put out a call, a request for qualifications for queer Midwest artists who were going to design some key art for the conference. And ultimately we used that process to select the cover art for our program, but also had custom posters made, sort of like if you were to go to a show, whether it's in a dive bar or you're just like favorite local venue that serves lovely non alcoholic beverages, it was really cool to see people get excited about them at the table. We gave them away for free because we felt like that was an important part of that public art piece in general, but also for appreciating that work and what it meant.

Danielle:
Everyone kept asking me, Can I have that? Are you sure I can? Yeah.

RB:
I'm really glad.

Nick:
Yeah, we have to do that next year.

RB:
I think, too, launching the tracks this year. I know that’s something you were wanting to chat about, too. But like, you know, over the years there's definitely certain common tropes and themes in the workshop submissions we get and just by nature of being a conference where college students and those who support them come, we see certain through lines with the content. But this year, taking a step further and kind of identifying what some of those streamlined content packages are, if you will, I think was a really wise move to, A, kind of showcase like what we prioritize, like what are some of the thematic elements such as rural and small community organizing, design and media work. Doing work on college campuses obviously is such a huge life force at this conference.

And then also then having through some of our existing relationships with other educators and advocates to kind of pull together additional tracks. I think it's really important this year to have two folks who specifically do extensive work for trans women and femmes of color to bring a track that explicitly centers and prioritizes those narratives. And then also being led by two trans women of color, Merrique and Jade. The phrase that Merrique kept using that I think I really appreciate and also offers a challenge and some room for growth here is that the sessions that were part of that track, called The Dolls are Thriving, was a small and mighty group, she kept saying. Right. And I'm like, that feels, you know, very emblematic of the history of this conference being one where we have open questions about who has access to the space. Who feels like there's space for them, in this space. And how we continue to really need to be in right relationship with queer and trans folks of color. Especially to kind of continue to coalition build and ensure that all narratives are incorporated into this conference. And so I was really grateful that through that relationship with Merrique, that that was a piece of programming we were able to incorporate as well.

Danielle:
Something I really liked about the tracks. I think for attendees, it makes it a lot easier to sort of curate your experience, to say either I want to go to all of these workshops that are about rural experience, or I want to go to one workshop that's each of the tracks, so that you get a large amount of content or something. It just makes it a lot easier for folks to decide. Of the 60 some workshops we have, what do I want to go to? What do I want to prioritize? I think it's important for us to recognize that sometimes the conference can be a little overwhelming in terms of content. What do I want to go to? What do I want to learn? I think that's very valuable for us to experience and remember moving forward.

Justin:
When you talk about, like, we had 60 workshops at this conference, right. What that also highlights for me is just how brilliant young people are.

Danielle:
Absolutely

Justin:
Right. This conference generally centers college age young folks, right? Where we've got folks from 18 to 25 is the largest of our audience. And those same folks are the ones that are presenting a majority of the content at this conference. And all of it was brilliant. Brilliant. And so we have to be looking at our young people to guide the future of this movement. Right. Like the folks that are going to take up the reins in a few years already know. Already know. Right. And they're already sharing. We just have to listen.

Nick:
And to tie a couple of those pieces together. One other layer of the conference this year was that we really put more intention, more investment into a virtual track. That was a track that ran concurrently with Saturday of the conference. And I think also the sessions themselves that were in person. But it expands the pool of folks that we can reach to include folks whose institutions perhaps couldn't send them to the conference and pay for their lodging and travel, which is, of course, one of the largest shares of the cost of attending. And we're secure in the knowledge, I think, that going forward, virtual components to this kind of programming are going to be expected, are going to need to continue to improve. So what we learned last year and sort of being thrown in, having to add a virtual layer during the pandemic, which was our actual first technical pandemic conference. It was really informative. I think it made the quality of the programming this year better. We knew how to organize it better. So I think we really delivered on it. We certainly learned some things that I'm excited to put to use next year, too.

RB:
Yeah, I think the piece there that became very clear this weekend is that this pandemic has really warranted needing to reconceptualize these types of spaces. I think that we are positioned feels very daunting but also really, like, is that a lot of the other notable long stand conferences didn't make it and maybe they'll come back or maybe there will be new iterations of them. But most of our counterparts, regionally based college conferences, even some of the large scale kind of broader based conferences are suffering. And not to say that we came out unscathed. What does it mean that some of those conferences hit the brick wall and may not rebound? May not, I think that's very frightening and also I think it means some very, very, it's going to mean something to figure out what does it mean to hold space for our communities when we are all interpersonally and institutionally shattered by kind of the ongoing impacts of the pandemic. So what does it mean to be in a position where we were one of the only conferences that held space last year, held space this year and did not move entirely, virtually still committed to doing something. I don't know where the end thought is there but just like what does that mean for a whole national, international community of people who have lost certain spaces that offer a version of what we know MBLGTACC is. I think it's stressful

Justin:
Stressful but exciting. I mean, there's room to continue to reach new audiences and continue to do this work of convening queer and trans young people and building community. We'll probably talk about why building community is so important, and I think that the short answer is that it literally saves lives.

RB:
It does.

Danielle:
It does.

RB:
I felt very affirmed and also just like, had a moment, right, because in addition to Schuyler being very gracious at the time, he also graciously signed the poster, and Nick, you had shared us a picture of the signature on it and I didn't look at it right away. And I feel like that almost cosmically was on purpose. I happened to look at it later in a moment where I could actually comprehend the fact that in his little message on poster he had said, you know, thanks for creating life saving space. And I was like, the fact that someone who has interacted with us for all of 2 hours gleaned that from this space. Right. Like, heard about the conference, had never been to conference before, heard about it through being contracted and hung out with us for 2 hours, right. Was able to glean from that, that we are doing something that truly does impact folks livelihoods and material needs, you know, is something that I think is just like, it's something that we generally know, as because we are in it, and we are here and we were those students once upon a time. But to have this kind of person who's far removed and doing the work he is doing and it's looked at as someone that is doing his own life saving work to get that kind of feedback. I don't think we've ever been told that before by an external person. And I was like, oh wow, we are actually doing something. I knew it. And I can know that, but to hear it from that a person in that way. Shit. Okay. Yes.

Nick:
And I think it sometimes takes on an extra special meaning when it's someone who you might independently respect, admire for their work and think very similar.

RB:
Right.

Nick:
There was a gut check that we were on the right track.

RB:
I think it's really simple for us to kind of get in our feels when we get, sometimes, either feedback or critique that we don't know what to do with or just like any critique, right? Like it's very simple to take this work personally, whether it's planning this conference or being a student leader on campus, right? Because it's so bound up in ourselves, our literal selves, our personalities, our identities, who we are as people. So it can feel very personal when you receive feedback, commentary on how you're doing something, especially when you put in the volunteer labor that we all have. Volunteer labor that we all have. Let me emphasize that again, to construct and curate the space that we have. So yes, that one's going to stick with me for a while, to get that type of feedback, because it's so simple to take just the littlest critique about this, that and the other thing, about the space you've created, because it's always going to be a thing. But those are small potatoes in comparison to getting the type of feedback, whether it's Schuyler, or whether it's someone I didn't catch the name of, like interacting in the hallway that says this is the coolest thing I've done, or thank you for putting this together, or we came from bumfuck nowhere and there's nothing like this where we're at. So just like that all greatly outweighs any of the little pragmatic errors or things that folks just aren't feeling. Absolutely.

Nick:
Yeah. And earlier RB outed me for having cried a little bit. And it was exactly that. We were in a debrief meeting, or sort of a collaborative meeting, with the students who planned this year from Ohio and Indiana, and the students who would be planning next year's conference in Lexington. And as we were just sort of having this conversation, I saw this one student's eyes just light up. I saw them turn to someone else that was seated next to them, one of their friends and classmates, and with such unadulterated glee say, like, I'm so excited for this.

And after a weekend of being working for twelve hour days and sort of the culmination of all the hard work that we had put in together, that fatigue, I was just like, primed and ready. And the dam had broken, the town was flooded. But it was such a beautiful moment. It reminded me, this is so much of what I do this work for, is to give people that kind of feeling, that kind of validation, that kind of purpose. It was really special.

Justin:
Every year, about two weeks before the conference starts, I think to myself, what are we doing? Why are we doing?

Nick:
Are we ready?

Justin:
Yeah. Because there's always that moment of panic before a large scale event. And then we have those interactions and we see that joy, and it answers that question, why are we doing?

Danielle:
It's all worth it. All of the stress that we may encounter, everything is worth it. To see the experience that the students and attendees get out of this conference, it's truly amazing.

Justin:
I'm not going to say I don't want a paycheck eventually. Oh, yeah. If you're listening to this, we are volunteering our labor, to reiterate what RB just said. So if you know any sugar daddies, send them our way.

Nick:
We are looking for a sugar daddy with a conference.

RB:
Glucose guardians may apply. Yeah, I'm having a, thinking into an interaction I had with two students, and I never met these students, but they attend my alma mater. And so that's very important because when I was at the University of Missouri City Kansas City, that's when I planned this conference. And like, UMKC was a really great place, and we built great relationships that were fractured at the time of bringing the conference back to that campus. So it took a lot of work. There were two things we were doing. We were doing a lot of work planning the conference and doing a lot of, like, institutional work to mend and rebuild relationship between students and administrators. And I've got administration that became to my very best friends, or like, pseudo parent types for me because that's what I needed at the time that I can contact anytime. And so, UMKC is a very important place to me.

So, you know, I've lost touch because there's been a lot of turnover and those folks that were there that are no longer there. So it was a really rewarding moment interacting with two students who are currently there, who are like, student leaders on essentially this council that oversees the six LGBTQ student organizations that apparently now exist on it. And when I was at UMKC, a handful of years ago, the council that the students are now on had just been voted into existence by the student government, when I was there. And I think thinking about kind of the multigenerational scaffolding of how only by way of this conference would I have been able to literally see the results of something that manifested, and was a result of what I had done, is something that I don't think a lot of student leaders get the opportunity to see.

It's what makes student leadership and student organizing sometimes unsatisfying, and I think can contribute to burnout, is that they do this work for the two to six years they're on a college campus. They pour all of themselves into doing uncompensated labor for a University that should be doing the shit the students are doing on their own, and they leave, either because they graduate or they call it quits and they stop, and they don't necessarily get to see the literal fruits of their labor. And there I was seeing some of mine, and it only would have happened by way of being part of this organization, overseeing this conference, where students from my alma mater are still going, and I think this is what, I'm literally processing it as I'm naming it, but I want to see more of that. I want to see ways in which students who have had relationship or connection with this conference or any of our programs or have done their student organizing in the Midwest actually be able to see what comes out of the work that they did.

So we could certainly talk for many more hours, to the chagrin of Justin as editor, about this year's conference. Was there anything else that folks really have sticking to their head or heart about this year's conference that you want to add before we maybe pivot into what's next?

Nick:
Well, in episode one, when you were talking with Abby and Daleelah and Lulu, one thing that stuck out to me was Abby was really excited for all the lesbian workshops. And so my angle on this is I was really excited for a Kirk and Spock fan fiction workshop called Space Husbands. It was done by, I think, April Callis at a university here in Ohio, I think. And I'm a lifelong Trekkie, so that was really exciting for me to see, like, such a strong fandom of mine come into intersection with a space that I haven't had that kind of overlap with before. So it showed to me or made me realize in a new way, like, how varied our community's interests are and how rich a base of content there is, how much you can learn from everybody in ways that you would not have even expected.

RB:
Which I think is significant. Right. Because I live in what I would call a more rural area, or at least it's kind of a hub that bridges mostly rural areas, something that I think is complex about building community in spaces where there's less resources or less opportunity for connection, is that like, just sharing similar or the same identities does not a relationship make, right? I think we generally know that, but then it gets trickier, too, in these kind of spaces of scarcity to then find those overlapping interests, right?

Like, I think about my partner who just wants someone to go fishing with, and unfortunately, it's not me. Right. So just like, how do you find folks in these spaces where driving force isn't just going to be, oh, you're both asexual, or you're both trans? Like, that can be a place of connectivity. But if you don't have any shared interests, like, if you're not both, what is the fandom Trekkies.

Nick:
Trekkies.

RB:
If you're not both Trekkeys, right, there's a missed opportunity to be able to connect on that level about something that you're emphatically interested in. So I think, too, seeing that kind of content where it's not just about identity development or exploration, it's about this thing that April is really hype about and i.e. so are you, right? You now have someone that you can contact and nerd out about with, who has several points of connection about something that y’all are just all nerds on?

Nick:
Absolutely.

RB:
So thinking about, kind of the history of the conference, it was the 30th anniversary. It's almost as old as some of us, if not older. It has shifted and shaped and folded and molded, and now we are at a place in its timeline and legacy contributing to some of that shaping and molding and direction. Thinking about what's next and what role MBLGTACC plays in the what's next of Midwest organizing, Midwest communities, Midwest sexual liberation and gender justice, right? Like, what do you feel like MBLGTACC exemplifies? And then also maybe some of the additional work that we're doing with the Institute. How does it serve as a model? And then what might we see manifest in the next 30 years for building community, building knowledge, building relationships and connections, right? Like, what are we positioned to see and do in a future of this conference and more Midwest work? Simple question, because I'm really good at that.

Justin:
So I think that a key point here. We're talking about in what ways does MBLGTACC serve as a model for organizing for the future? And what I want to highlight and maybe kick off this part of this conversation is that this conference is founded by students, for students, right? And this type of convening is done within the community, for the community. We don't need institutional bureaucracy in order to bring this space together. Right? We need folks who are activated around bringing their peers together to create life saving space. We don't need some institution saying that you can't organize unless you meet these specific steps and you have this liability waiver signed and you commit to this amount of paperwork. Right. That doesn't help anything.

RB:
No.

Justin:
And so the way that this space survives is because there are people who are passionate within the community about bringing the community together. And that, I think, is a hugely important model for the future.

Nick:
One thing I think about is how we assess or even understand expertise in society writ large, but certainly within the context of the conference. A narrative that I've heard crop up in what I think is a righteous fight for science, and the value of science, is maybe sometimes an overemphasis on the kind of expertise that people bring to the table when they have certain credentials and an undervaluing of that kind of expertise when folks simply come from the community and have a lived experience.

Here at the conference, these are college students who are coming in and bringing their knowledge. Their experience. Their activism. Their circumstance. All of that context around their lives and their interests and passions for doing the work. I think there's a lot to be said for community wisdom, and we have that in such rich abundance here. I think it makes the conference really unique, really valuable for folks. If I can know as a student in Michigan, for example, I'm not a student in Michigan, used to be, what folks are doing in Minnesota, maybe in a similarly situated community or on a similarly situated campus, how can I think about the work that they did there and how might it apply in my instance? There's certainly a place for papers and professional conferences. Those are valuable too. But I think this is a gap that we fill really well.

Danielle:
Having that peer to peer knowledge base is very important, that people can see, I can do this work too. Someone on this campus has developed this thing with similar resources that I have, look what I can do on my campus or in my community. And that's really activating. I do agree that's something that we bring to this space that is very important.

Justin:
And it came up in the space this year. One of the keynote speakers, Imani, was answering a question about disability justice work and said, people are already doing this work. Pay attention to what they're already doing and then you can build on it. Right? And that's the resource sharing and the knowledge that this space provides and what future organizing I think should center around, is not reinventing the wheel every year, but like improving the process or just applying the process in different spaces.

RB:
I think I've shared the story probably with y’all, but, I don't know if I've brought it up on the show before. But when I was a grad student back at University of Kansas, I created a group of students to come to the 2015 conference. And it was a practice of mine which I highly encourage, but have slightly gotten out of, to do a debrief and unpack because it is a lot, right? Especially if you've never attended. I remember being in that debrief space with my undergraduates from the University of Kansas, and I emphasize that because it's very complex place in general, right. A lot of rurality. I had this student who said, why can't every day be MBLGTACC, right?

And this student had certain identities that were generally more privileged than even some folks in that cluster and so even for that student say why can't every day be MBLGTACC? I think the backdrop to that is, we are working towards an existence where every day feels where you're surrounded by hundreds of LGBTQ folks. Instead of only having that one person, you may be an acquaintance with in some small town. Or, having folks who are dreaming and scheming around liberatory practices and mutual aid projects and this, that and the other thing to activate and pull together LGBT folks into shared space, shared project, shared work, reclaiming power, building power, doing all of this, right?

And it shouldn't be one, no, it shouldn't be that you have to travel x amount of hours to experience this little small bite of this type of space. It should be every day. And I think that for me, since that moment where that student named that, has been a bit of a guiding light to say like, how do folks taste it one time by way of MBLGTACC and then continue to grow that right. Once you've had a taste of it it, like, how do you continue to try to implement that into your own spaces? Because now you know, you've had this little glimmer of what it means and what it feels like if every single waking moment you're just surrounded by queer trans people. It is a game changer.

And I also am thinking about, too, during the lunch and learn session where we had about 100 folks come together to hear from Merrique and Jade about striving towards liberation essentially where at one point Merrique had asked for folks at college campuses, have they ever, ever had an educator of any kind be a trans woman of color. And not a single hand went up, right? And that was very notable and very significant and speaks to how the type of educational space that MBLGTACC is and the type of knowledge building and the ways of knowing that we have and are also building at the same time, is going to be starkly different than what is capable at institutions.

Knowing what I know of someone who works in higher education, there's a reason that that is a reality. There’s a reason that trans women of color are not in abundance and being the folks who are teaching things because they would probably just be pigeon holed anyway. So I think knowing that we're also crafting this essentially alternative space that needs to be the model for education. Period. Like not just queer trans education, not the LGBTQ minor that's not surviving, this is the model that needs to be adopted in academia, period.

So to figure out how to slowly wrap this up. In 30 years, what do you hope has manifested? What do you expect will exist? What is it going to look like in 30 years? What are we about to speak into existence today?

Nick:
I love how well this question ties in to, or connects with, aligns with this year's theme.

RB:Yes.

Nick:
Limitless: Queer activism of the future. When we were working on how we would sort of explain what the theme meant to the student planners, one word that kept coming up was, or, one idea that kept coming up was allowing ourselves to dream and unlocking our imagination of what could be. So in 2052, obviously, we'll be in space, on the moon.

Justin:
With Space Husbands.

Nick:
So, everyone can hop on your nearest shuttle craft and meet us in the hidden lake?

Danielle:
The sea of tranquility

Nick:
Thank you. The sea of tranquility. Clearly not spacey enough for actual science. I would love, while I'm dreaming, I would love to see the resurgence of MBLGTACC-like programs around the country. I think that, I don't think that it would be appropriate to say that a hiatus or discontinuation of these programs is any indication that there's not an interest in them. There's a lot of circumstance, especially in the last couple of years, that could sort of factor into that and help explain it. I would love to see more iterations of MBLGTACC, maybe multiple times a year in different places around the region in pockets that will make it more possible for students in small and rural communities to come. So you're not paying airfare to travel from Duluth to Kansas City or to Wichita or to Lexington. That's a pretty big expense already. Why don't we have these programs where people are, when we can?

Danielle:
I think, seeing, in the next 30 years, that sounds like such a long time. Seeing, like more, even more centering of our most marginalized groups within our community. Seeing even more, like content around that more knowledge, more, I guess even like generational knowledge. Seeing, I think it would be so cool if students who are going to this conference now or have been to this conference, later are advisors and bring their students, and they bring their students and they bring their students. How cool is that? Would that be for the next 10, 20, 30 years in the future of this conference?

Nick:
These attendees, the future advisors, they can go on to consult in their own communities, at their own institutions, what they've learned today, and make their campuses and their communities better places for young queer and trans kids. Make the places that make young adults want to grow into old adults.

Justin:
What I'm thinking about right now is that part of me wants to say that I envision a future in 30 years where MBLGTACC isn't necessary. But I also think that it's always going to be necessary for the community building aspect. And as I'm sitting here saying this out loud, I'm also thinking that, like, there's never cause to be complacent. We're seeing that in today's political environment where things that we thought were solid have been struck down. All right.

RB:
Check out episode two.

Justin:
There we go. But I want us to be in a place where we are flying to the moon in order to have these really complex deep conversations and not necessarily be reacting to political attacks and attempts to score cheap points, right, but like having some complex conversations about continued improvement for the material needs of queer and trans people, right? I want us to be in a place where we are debating theories about how to get all queer and trans people housed. Get everybody housed. Not to be debating about how to combat this slew of right wing attacks on our community.

Nick:
Or find out what the bail funds are so that when people are traveling to our conference they have any issues getting here because of arcane, bigoted state laws based on where they're traveling through.

Justin:
Yeah, I don't have to have that database.

Nick:
We don't need to be focused on survival. We want to be focused on thriving and expanding and understanding so much more in more human terms.

RB:
When I think about 30 years from now, I'm like forced to contend with my own mortality, but like, when I think about 30 years from now and that being probably a significant majority of our lifetimes, the literal four of us sitting here lifetimes, right? Like I want to feel immersed in the community that I feel now. I don't want to lose that by nature of aging which we've discussed in the show before, right? This really complex reality for queer and trans elders. I don't want it to be a matter of, you have to be connected to campus or be a student leader to have access or immersion in community, in resources, in connectivity, in all of this, right? I want to be in whatever bodily state of being I am sitting around a table making beaded bracelets. I want to be somewhere comfortably sitting around reading whatever books, in whatever format books exist at that point in time, chatting about big ideas and concepts related to whatever language exists for our communities at that time, right? I want to still feel like I have space and there's still invitation to contribute and play a part in the big ideas and ways of knowing and knowledge creation that we have already talked about manifests at this conference with the brilliance of young folks and not exist in a culture or climate where our old folks are kind of lost in the ether, right? I think about Miss Major, I think about the names of elders we don't know. I think about the life prospects of trans folks, especially trans folks of color and when I think about 30 years from now and what it means for Midwest connectivity, community relationships, knowledge, right? Wanting this more thrush and well connected and less ageist multigenerational scaffolding of folks who are continuing to just create and travel in whatever spacey aircrafts exist and just having some ease to being, and being together in all of. I don't know what the landscape looks like, but as far as the vibes and the fields, I don't want to be lost to the disparateness that can come from kind of the fractures.

So to actually wrap up right. So next year we are headed to Lexington. And we can talk about Lexington, Kentucky and the complexity of whether or not that's the Midwest and why that is in a future episode. But very briefly, in just a little snippet, let's give folks a little teaser of what is to come, right? So let's go with, knowing what we know from this conference, what is one thing you're hoping for or you're excited about for next year?

Danielle:
I'm just excited to have more people. Each year, since the pandemic, we slowly built up our attendance and I'm just excited to hopefully have a larger amount of attendees just to create more of that community, more of that space.

Justin:
As we're working with the team in Kentucky to lay the groundwork for this conference. Right, we've done some of the logistical components and signed a rental contract for the space. Right. But every time we work with the folks on the ground in Kentucky, I learn just a little bit more about the queer history that's already there and I am so excited to personally learn even more of that history. But for our community to learn that history. Also horses.

RB:
And bourbon. I've already really pitched this to the upcoming planning team and I'm so eager to do some bridging between midwest movement work and southern movement work. And I know there's going to be some significant overlap. I think there's going to be some significance to resource sharing and saying what's present here based on the dynamic of the south versus the Midwest, what is some crossover in ways that each geographical region, because borders are fake, can merge and support each other. Because I think in the grand scheme like the south and the Midwest experience a lot dismissal and erasure, of course, the Midwest is our reference. I'm really eager to figure out what kind of conversations can take place in that space that really haven't had the same room, with being in a technically southern state. So I'm really excited.

Nick:
I think you all, everything that you have said are things that I'm really looking forward to. So I won't repeat what you said. But one thing that also I think deserves a little bit of attention is we haven't been to Kentucky before and not every time that something or someone is a first necessarily is the most important fact about it. But I am excited by the fact that we and this group of student planners and advisors decided it was a priority to go somewhere that we have not seen before. Not only was their bid high quality, and not only did we select them for all of the reasons we would have selected any other hosts that we selected. It meant that there are going to be students in Kentucky. There are going to be students in Tennessee, in Mississippi, in Alabama, maybe in Florida, again, certainly in Texas. We know already that there's going to be a delegation coming from there. That they haven't they haven't felt maybe paid attention to. They didn't even know that MBLGTACC existed or that it was within reason for them to come. I felt really similarly when we went to Kansas.

I think of Kansas as the Midwest, certainly because of MBLGTACC, but also because it just sort of fits very tidy in my idea of how that geographic chunk sort of pulls out of America.

Justin:
Using that graphic designer brain.

Nick:
Yeah, exactly. It certainly allows us to reach more students, maybe on an ongoing basis beyond just that one time by introducing ourselves to them, saying, hi, we're actually where you live. This is for you.

Participant #1:
Yeah. There's going to be so much possibility as we go to Kentucky and just riding off of the things that we were able to build this year and more learning and lessons extracted from yet another planning year. So, you know, I'm very eager about it. I know we're exhausted, and I am glad that we were able to capture this in current time. Right, instead of waiting a week, we waited a day, where everything is fresh. And I think this will really help us process and give ourselves some grace and kudos to ourselves. Obviously, this is not the full team. This is just a fraction of all hands on this and played a role, but I just wanted to name that. I appreciate you all immensely, y’all are gems, and this would not be possible without not only just the literal labor, but just all of the reflection that we just shared and intentionality and heart that goes into this.

Nick:
I love you all.

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R.B.
Our inbox is open for all of your insight, feedback, questions, boycotts, memes and other forms of written correspondence. You can contact us at [e-mail]. This podcast is made possible by the labor and commitment of the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity staff. Particular shout out to Justin, Andy and Nick for all of your support with editing, promotion and production. Our amazing and queer as fuck cover art was designed by Adrienne McCormick.

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