Contact:
to RSVP by monday, June 27
As Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people of color, we live at the intersections of multiple oppressions. From daily media messages to messages from our childhood, we sustain wounds that we carry with us, often going without healing. We do what we need to do to survive, and when we lack access to care and sustenance, we find our own ways to self-medicate.
Many in our community have found the space for healing through harm reduction or 12 step models. Harm reduction counseling and 12 step organizations are welcome tools in our quest for healing—though those tools speak only to a segment of our community and are neither ubiquitous nor effective enough to stem the ever growing tide of HIV infections and substance abuse. The annual numbers released by the CDC speak to this so very clearly.
For many queer people of color those spaces and rooms continue to lack a cultural component that is essential to understanding our healing and well being. When we walk into places of healing but do not see ourselves or our stories reflected in those places, many of us are unable or unwillingly to set our skins aside in order to access a generic cure-all. Indeed, sometimes those places, where racism is sometimes unexamined and methods of communication and engagement are unreflective of the ways in which our communities communicate, our people often times find more harm than help. Yet, when those are the central tools for healing, what about everyone else? Where are the answers they need? Where is the healing we need?
