LGBT Identities, Experience Core of Day-long Conference

The Fierce Visions" conference spotlights UA research on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community issues that has been presented at national conferences.

This hear marks the 30-year anniversary of the first gay liberation marches in the United States, which propelled into the mainstream discussion issues of oppression members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community faced.

To address continuing and contemporary issues while also exploring LGBT identity, the University of Arizona's Institute for LGBT Studies is hosting an interdisciplinary conference, which will bring together some of the foremost scholars on a range of subjects. 

The Feb. 19 conference, "Fierce Visions: LGBTQ Scholarship at the University of Arizona NOW," will be held 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The first half of the conference will be held in Special Collections; the second half will be held in Room 301 of the Modern Languages Building.

"LGBT people face distinct issues, about which we want to educate the general public, and the conference will address those," said Eithne Luibhéid, who directs the Institute for LGBT Studies.

She also noted that those who are LGBT face comparable issues as those who are heterosexual, such as finding work and concerns about family. "Yet, often with additional barriers because of being LGBT," Luibhéid added. 

"This means that mainstream debates need to be reframed to recognize and address the specific concerns of LGBT communities, and our conference will address that, too," she said.

She noted that the UA is "an important site for the production of scholarship" in issues affecting those who are LGBT, Luibhéid said.

 

The expertise of faculty researchers and doctoral students whose will present span issues related to relationships, smoking, activism, immigration and public policy, among other topics. 

"In a sense, the strength of our faculty has been to avoid saying who should be invested in and who owns the field,"  Luibhéid said.

The UA's LGBT Istitute, born out of a committee founded at the University nearly 20 years ago, conducts research and develops curriculum related to the lives of individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT.Luibhéid also noted that researchers are focusing on issues that are emerging. 

"The model of LGBT studies belongs in every discipline and every discipline can contribute to it," she added. "The conference, as a whole, reflects that."

J.P. Jones III, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences dean, will open the conference alongside Mary Wildner-Bassett, the College of Humanities dean.

The conference speakers are:

• Laura Briggs, associate professor in the gender and women's studies department, will discuss transracial adoption and multicultural families, having published a book, "International Adoption: Global Inequalities and the Circulation of Children," last year on the topic. 
• Laura Gutiérrez, an associate professor in the Spanish and Portuguese department, will present her lecture, "Habitual Circuits of Transnational Queer Belonging via an Analysis of Political Cabaret From Mexico City."

• Adam Geary, an assistant professor in the gender and women's studies department, will present his talk, "State Intimacies, State Practices and HIV Risk. Geary has interpreted how the "war on drugs" in the U.S. has influenced HIV risk, particularly in communities of color.
• Jennifer Vanderleest, a clinical assistant professor of family and community medicine, will speak about improving the health of individuals who are transgender, a community of people whose needs are often ignored or not addressed .
• Stephen T. Russell, the Fitch Nesbitt Endowed Chair in Family and Consumer Sciences, will present "Family Acceptance and the Healthy Adjustment of LGBT Young Adults." Russell, who directs the Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth and Families at the UA, also will offer suggestions on ways families can offer support to youth who are LGBT. 
• Russell Toomey, a doctoral student of family studies and human development, will present his talk, "Participation by Sexual Minority Youth: Documenting Involvement and Potential Benefits."
• John Daws, will present his paper, "Smoking Prevalence and Cessation Among LGBT Arizona Residents."
• Elizabeth Lapvosky Kennedy, will present her paper, "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: Reflections on  Writing a New Preface." Kennedy pioneered lesbian studies and will talk about how to study and write about LGBT communities.
• Maggie Warner, a doctoral student of rhetoric and composition and the teaching of language, will discuss Proposition 107, the ballot initiative advanced in Arizona in 2006 that ultimately banned same-sex marriage in the state.
• Erin Durban, a doctoral student in the gender and women's studies department, will speak about the research she has conducted in Haiti involving LGBT migrants.

Luibhéid, also an associate professor in the gender and women's studies department, will present her paper, "Immigrant 'Legality' and Nationalist Sexuality." Her work centers on ways that sexuality shape who opts to move to the U.S. and how one is desginated legal or not. 

"The concept is to continue having a conversation between the disciplines and work with each other to build on our own strengths and studies," Luibhéid said about the conference.

The institute's last conference, "Sexuality and Homeland (In)Securities," was held in 2006 after faculty decided that there needed to be a venue to share amongst themselves research that was getting national and international attention.

"We have a faculty that is nationally renowned and giving papers everywhere," Luibhéid said. "We can't fly to see each other present, but we can engage each other and build a model that also brings graduate students together."