2018 Schedule | Affect Conf

Thurs, September 6

9:30am Thurs

Registration opens / caffeine available
10:00am Thurs

Welcome announcements
10:30am Thurs

In the mid-2000s, a medical diagnosis led me to seek answers about my family background. As an adoptee with an active imagination, I had concocted my origin story when I was just a young girl. It turns out that my origin story was a noxious view of Black motherhood based on societal stereotypes so entrenched in my soul that I didn’t even know they were there until reproductive justice gave me a framework for understanding them. Reproductive justice gave me the tools to understand how I could have internalized such a toxic view of Black motherhood and to resist those stereotypes not just for myself, but for all Black women.

Imani Gandy
11:00am Thurs

This year, we've seen successful films and television shows where black women were warriors, heroes, engineers, and royalty. "Representation matters" has become a common refrain on award show stages and yet, I feel left out. As an autistic and chronically ill black woman, where are the characters that look like me or experience the things I do? Is it pity, fear, ignorance, or the strong black woman trope that keeps us out of narratives? I’ll talk about how a line can be drawn from the lack of representation to the fact that our conditions aren't taken seriously and how we go without diagnosis because we don't have the aha moment of seeing someone like us struggle with the same things, then getting their very special episode dedicated to treatment.

Mallory Thomas
11:20am Thurs

Short break / Attendee Spotlight signups open
11:40am Thurs

Sick and disabled folks want to participate in activism, but what happens when activist activities aren't accessible for them? I am a disabled activist who has dealt with both internal and external shame for not being able to participate in certain events, and this talk explores various ways that sick and disabled folks are cut off from activism and how both movements and individuals can make their activities more inclusive. Since disability is different for everyone, it will include a survey of experiences within the community at large.

content warning: ableism, related discussion of classism
Diane Murray
12:00pm Thurs

Lunch break
1:30pm Thurs

Attendee Spotlight

We want to shine the spotlight on you, fellow attendees! If you'd like to share a 5-min story about your work or experiences in social change, you can sign up on the day of (via Twitter or onsite) and take the stage (first come, first serve).
2:00pm Thurs

On September 5th, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of the DACA program. This created expiration dates for 800,000 recipients of the program, who were suddenly having to deal with the very real possibility of deportation from the country they call their home. We the Dreamers was formed to change the way immigrants are seen in this country and explore the undocumented narrative through art. Heldáy will discuss building community in the current political climate and share ways that you can show up for the movement.

Heldáy de la Cruz
2:30pm Thurs

Half-hour break
3:00pm Thurs

Marginalized communities—particularly BIPoC and queer & trans folks—have been pushed out of sex ed. Most mainstream/available resources lack engagement and centering on how identity impacts our work, failing to respect the interconnected non-hierarchical grouping that make up who we are individually. In the process of obtaining my sex educator certification, this has greatly informed my approach to sex education, sextech research, and leading workshops. We’ll explore how millennials are now utilizing social media and digital platforms to create the community-centered sex ed that audiences crave and deserve.

Cameron Glover
3:20pm Thurs

The push for marginalized people–especially Black and queer people–to seek mental healthcare has not always considered the very issues that lead us to these services. We so often face inadequate, if not absent, resources, police presence, and under-educated physicians, all of which contribute to violences and exclusions that shape our resistance to seeking help. In this talk, I will walk the audience through my experience with my hometown’s psychiatric ward as a fat, Black, queer, disabled, non-binary poor person. With this, I intend to discuss, in detail, the history between mental health institutions and the criminalization of multiply-marginalized people within them. As a result, it is my hope that the audience will leave the conference with a zeal to push for a mental health reform that prioritizes the most vulnerable in our society.

Da’Shaun Harrison
3:40pm Thurs

Short break
4:00pm Thurs

There’s not much research out there about the health and wellness of Black queer, transgender, and nonbinary (NB) people, but we know that the average life expectancy for a trans woman of color is between 30 to 35 years. Black LGBTQ folks know from our lived experiences that, in the words of Audre Lorde, “we were never meant to survive,” but we're still here and thriving despite the violence and systemic oppression we face. I will connect my own chronic health problems as a Black queer NB woman to historical and current health issues within Black trans, queer, and NB communities and explore how organizers across the country are building movements for healing justice, transformative justice/community accountability, and housing justice to ensure that all humans have the resources we need to be healthy, safe, and whole.

content warning: systemic and physical violence against Black LGBTQ+ people
Neesha Powell-Twagirumukiza
4:20pm Thurs

End of day remarks

Fri, September 7

morning Fri
Group volunteering (off-site)
- Venue: Prism Health (accessible, carpool available) 9am - 12pm: Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) is the oldest community-based provider of HIV services, housing, education and advocacy in Oregon and Southwest Washington. They’ll be holding their annual AIDS Walk on Saturday, September 8 and since each donor receives a thank you postcard afterwards, CAP could greatly use our help prepping and writing them out in advance.
- Venue: Call to Safety (partially accessible, location confidential) 9am - 12pm: Call to Safety works to end domestic and sexual violence, providing confidential support services and education, including a 24/7 crisis line, follow-up advocacy for survivors, support groups, and sexual assault medical advocacy. They’re in need of extra hands to take on a variety of tasks around the office, including sorting cell phones, cleaning, and yard work.
- Venue: Prosper Portland (accessible) 10am - 12pm: PDX Alliance for Self-Care (PDX ASC) is a grassroots organization led by a black woman and a diverse board of PoC, trans, genderfluid, and queer folx. Their mission is to connect marginalized and vulnerable communities with self-care resources, practitioners, education, and events. PDX ASC will soon be incorporating self-care kit-making into events and would love help putting together laminated bookmarks, resource materials, and skills cards for distribution.
1:00pm Fri

Doors open / caffeine available
1:30pm Fri

Welcome back announcements
1:40pm Fri

Everyone has a story to tell, but getting people activated, mobilized, and engaged around those stories is no easy feat. Writer Erin Ryan will discuss how she uses storytelling to make complicated, controversial, or delicate social issues accessible to mainstream audiences without over-simplifying them. Bring real issues to life for people outside your activist community by incorporating these easy tips into your websites, videos, articles, and elevator pitches.

Erin Canty Ryan
2:00pm Fri

Muslims have been in the Americas since before Columbus. With Islam projected to become the US’s second largest religion by 2040, why have Muslim Americans been painted as outsiders and removed from their own past? Aïdah Aliyah Rasheed will recount her journey in finding identity and historical connection as a Black Muslim in the US and striving to tell and preserve the community’s stories through online resource Sapelo Square.

content warning: discussion of historical violence and death
Aïdah Aliyah Rasheed
2:30pm Fri

Half-hour break
3:00pm Fri

Online safety has become a huge problem in the world of oversharing. Real-name policies, automatic geolocation tracking, and photo tagging increase user adoption rates, but these features can be quickly abused by bad actors. Danielle Leong explains how to apply a “consent filter” to products to create a safer user experience and help protect your most vulnerable users from harm.

Danielle Leong
3:30pm Fri

Online platforms often create rules that, in the service of making a particular type of user more comfortable, require marginalized users to only talk about a subset of their lives. I call this "digital gentrification", and when understood as such we can start consistently identifying / un-working / resisting its effects. I'm going to talk about a few vectors of digital gentrification, relative to their effect on marginalized communities. Those being: whorephobia (ex. SESTA / FOSTA), transphobia (ex: real name policies), homophobia (ex: word filters). With knowledge of how these vectors manifest, there are many different types of things you can do to lessen their effect.

Lynn Cyrin
3:50pm Fri

Short break
4:00pm Fri

From coming out in a Latinx household, learning to love her body within the context of Body Dysmorphia Disorder recovery, and losing abilities due to a degenerative disease called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Annie's life experiences have directly led to her advocating for equal rights, equal access, and intersectional activism. What does accessibility mean beyond our first thoughts of ramps, captions, and audio descriptions? Annie discusses her journey to launching the "The Future is Accessible" campaign and how you can get involved and take action.

content warning: discussions of body dysmorphia, discriminatory attitudes or actions
Annie Segarra
4:30pm Fri

Closing & final wrap-up

Thurs, September 6

Registration opens / caffeine available

Welcome announcements

Keynote I Am Not a Crack Baby: Reproductive Justice and the Politics of Resistance

Is Wakanda Accessible? And Other Questions from the Intersection of Black Womanhood and Disability.

Short break / Attendee Spotlight signups open

Activism Is Not Accessible: How To Include Disabled and Chronically Ill Folks in Your Movement

Lunch break

Attendee Spotlight

We the Dreamers

Half-hour break

By and for Us: How Marginalized Communities Are Redesigning Sex Ed Online

Queering Mental Health: An Analysis on the Criminalization of Black People and Mental Health

Short break

Grassroots Organizing Strategies for Healing Our Black Trans, Nonbinary & Queer Bodies

End of day remarks

Fri, September 7

Group volunteering (off-site)

Doors open / caffeine available

Welcome back announcements

Write Wrongs: Changing Minds With Great Stories

The Personal is Political #BeingBlackandMuslim

Half-hour break

Consensual Software: Prioritizing User Trust and Safety

Patterns of Digital Gentrification

Short break

Keynote The Future Is Accessible

Closing & final wrap-up