2019 Let’s Get Better Together AZ session topics range from beginner to advanced discussion material. This range is indicated here to ensure you and the speakers can have a productive, educational session. June 28 workshops include:

Workshop series 1, 10:45-noon

• Access to Justice for Transgender Survivors of Interpersonal Violence Intermediate - This workshop will address the efforts and unique challenges transgender survivors of interpersonal violence in accessing justice. Attorneys from the Safe To Be You! LGBTQ+ Legal Access Program of New Mexico Legal Aid will present a training model on holistic advocacy developed in partnership with the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico which is tailored toward the needs of transgender survivors of domestic and dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault. Presenters will discuss how legal services programs can provide access and avenues to justice for LGBTQ+ survivors of violence by advocating for equal access to legal services. Presenters will speak on the preliminary results of the holistic advocacy model with particular emphasis placed on client outcomes for historically disregarded communities such as sex workers, homeless and homeless youth populations, immigrants, people of color, those with mental health disabilities, and those struggling with drug addiction and substance abuse. The workshop will dialogue the challenges, setbacks, and successes faced by the holistic advocacy model as adapted from use in an urban center to the ongoing challenges of replicating the model for LGBTQ+ people living rural areas and tribal communities which lack resources generally found in cities. Specific outcomes will contrast legal access in western New Mexican jurisdictions that include Navajo Nation and Zuni Pueblo to outcomes in larger urban areas.
• Unlocking the Nuances of Language in LGBTQ Youth Advocacy Beginner/Intermediate In this interactive workshop, participants will learn the importance of implementing inclusive language when communicating with the youth they are serving. Through the lens of BLOOM365, a youth-centered education, advocacy and activism organization, this workshop will focus on teaching participants ways to effectively use accessible and inclusive language when communicating with marginalized populations of any age including LGBTQ youth. Emphasizing the importance of being intentional with their language, we will focus on the barriers that language has the power to build up or break down and the ways in which inclusive language can aid in ensuring advocates are communicating in a way that is culturally competent and creates a safe space that honors and empowers all youth.
• Stand up/ Stand by: Addressing youth health disparities across the spectrum Beginner - LGBTQ+, or “Queer” youth, experience homelessness, mental illness, and sexually transmitted infections at a much higher rate than their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts. This interactive workshop will present baseline health and identity data of participants, enrolled in an HIV prevention and education project in southern Arizona and offer workshop participants opportunity to engage in a sexual health education activity. The presentation will focus on the Spectrum Project and how the project seeks to address LGBTQ+ youth health disparities. Spectrum is a five-year HIV prevention grant funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. This project partners with the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation (SAAF) and Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health. These three agencies offer inclusive sexuality education, linkages to mental and behavioral health services, HIV testing, and prevention navigation for LGBTQ+ youth, ages 13 to 24. Spectrum uses two age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education curricula that encompass sexuality education essentials like anatomy and physiology, STIs and HIV, and safer sex protection. They also include expanded lessons on communication and relationships, and four supplemental sessions addressing media literacy, body image, sexual and reproductive health services, and hookup culture.
• LGBT Inclusion in the Work Place Beginner - What is a safe space for LGBTQ folks? How can you make your workplace a safe space? In this workshop, we will overview basic LGBT definitions and statistics, reviewing what it means to hold a safe space, and how to make your workplace safe for LGBT folks. Attendees will participate in discussions and activities centered on understanding gender and sexuality, and how this affects the workplace. We will overview best practices for making the work place a safe space and attendees will walk away with tangible short term and long term action items that they can implement when they return to work.
• Tobacco Harm Reduction: Addressing Tobacco Related Health Disparities within LGBTQ Communities Intermediate - Harm reduction approaches to tobacco use and tobacco use cessation are not widely practiced and data on tobacco harm reduction approaches is lacking. This workshop will provide a space for discussion on how harm reduction approaches can be applied to tobacco cessation services. Existing evidence-based approaches that include nicotine replacement therapies will be examined from a harm reduction perspective bringing in research from the UK and Europe. The distinction between tobacco and nicotine will be explored in the context of envisioning a harm reduction approach. LGBTQ identified individuals smoke at double to triple the rate of the general population. Unique barriers related to tobacco cessation will be analyzed as well as socio-economic factors that perpetuate this disparity. The need for new approaches in addressing this disparity will be highlighted. Tobacco harm reduction will be defined and misperceptions will be examined. Methods to support tobacco use cessation and harm reduction with LGBTQ patients, clients, and community members will be reviewed. Multi-level strategies to improve efforts aimed at reducing the persistent disparity in rates of smoking in LGBTQ communities will be offered.
• Queerness In Action: An Exploration of Identity Beginner/Intermediate - For many within our community, our queerness is one of the defining characteristics that shape us and the way that we experience the world around us. However, we are all more than just our queerness, and our identities are shaped not just by the sum of our parts, but by the way those traits interact to form our own unique identities. We are rarely given the opportunity to explore not just the parts of ourselves, but the specific messages we receive from those parts of ourselves that influence the way we interact with the world. This workshop will utilize psychodrama to explore the pieces of our identities in action, and gain a deeper understanding of how we are both our queerness, and more than our queerness.
• Supporting health in the transgender/gender nonconforming population Intermediate - This interactive workshop is based on the results of two qualitative participatory action research studies. The first study, the LGBTQ Patient Study, gathered the post-discharge narratives of self-identified LGBTQ people who had received treatment at an acute care facility in north central Arizona. The primary objectives were to assess whether these patients felt welcomed and safe, to identify aspects of care perceived as supportive or unsupportive, and to seek opportunities to serve this patient population better. Research participants reported examples of supportive behaviors by caregivers such as utilizing preferred pronouns, serving as advocates within the organization to promote feelings of safety, respecting confidentiality and privacy, and recognizing the importance of partner/family relationships. The second study, Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People Who Are Managing Well; Resilience, Social Support, and Other Factors That Contribute to Good Mental Health, is a narrative inquiry with adult participants who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming, or gender queer (TGNC) who are managing well without severe psychiatric symptoms. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, approximately 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide at least once, compared to only 5% of the general population. This study sheds light on what critical events in their life stories help TGNC people manage well and have good mental health despite the risk factors imposed on them by society. In both studies, social support and respect for gender identity emerged as crucial factors contributing to the mental health of TGNC people. Furthermore, consistent with the emerging theme that transition is treatment of psychiatric illness in TGNC people, study participants suggested that the criteria that mental health professionals use to determine readiness for gender affirming medical treatments be reexamined. These studies call for Improvements in education of health professionals regarding TGNC identities, education about the health needs and risks for this patient population, and ways of providing respectful care. The electronic health record must be designed to accommodate preferred names and identities outside the gender binary and/or heteronormative frame, and the need for exceptional confidentiality.

Workshop series 2, 1-2:15 p.m.

• The Underground Black Market of Pumping Parties Among American Indian Two Spirit Women Advanced - In mainstream American with the advertisements on television and/or social media of enhancing one’s body with silicon injection has become a most sought-after remedy in altering one’s body. Most private practice of body argumentation portray before and after pictures that show some form of improvement to produce one’s dram body. This presentation will address American Indian transgender women residing in Phoenix, AZ and Albuquerque, NM between the ages of 18 to 35 years of age. Data analysis will include Tribal Epidemiology Center (TEC) such as the Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center and the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. which use secondary data sources that only include binary gender of male and female, as transgender women are not included in data collecting and reporting. The 2017 National Transgender Discrimination Survey shares, “50% of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) respondents who saw a health care provider in the past year reported having at least one negative experience related to being transgender, such as being refused treatment, being verbally harassed, being physically or sexually assaulted, or having to teach the provider about transgender people in order to get appropriate care, compared to 33% in the US Transgender Survey sample overall” (James, Jackson, Jim, 2017).
• LGBTQ Homeless Youth: Sex Trafficking Victims Beginner/Intermediate - I will be going over the intersectionality between LGBTQ+ Homeless Youth and Sex Trafficking Victims. We will be going over a brief overview of LGBTQ+ competency as well as defining sex trafficking victimization. Then we will be diving into a few different research studies that highlight the direct correlation that homeless youth who are LGBTQ+ are victimized at much higher rates than their straight and cisgender peers.
• Examining Sexual Violence through an Anti-Oppression and Intersectional Lens Intermediate - This workshop will examine sexual violence as a form of oppression. People who are experiencing violence are often subjected to multiple forms of oppression, such as heterosexism, racism, cissexism, ableism and face multiple barriers and challenges in achieving safety and peace in their lives. Each form of oppression reinforces the other. It is therefore imperative we examine different forms of oppression in order to prevent sexual violence. Objectives: Attendees will understand how sexual violence is a form of oppression. Attendees will be able to recognize some of the ways sexual violence intersects with other forms of oppression. Attendees will gain an understanding of how sexual violence prevention is part of a larger social justice movement. Attendees will learn skills to address sexual violence as a form of oppression
• Plural Loyalty: Queer, Crazy, and Confident Intermediate - First is “Authenticity.” I see this as being authentic to who one is (related to Mead’ s First Task of Peer Support), and being authentic to calling reality what it is, for example, talking about youth homelessness, about drug use, and at the same time about supports, whether they are lacking or in abundance. Additionally, I wish to talk about stigma as is associated with both attachments of identity, and being in a minority on both levels. Authenticity means that we practice non-judgment, which I will develop in deeper detail, and be open-minded to others’ realities, with the aim of not just understanding, not just embracing diversity, but going to the point of actually speaking, acting, and advocating on others’ behalf, as if one is doing so for themselves. Second is “Intersectionality.” I see this as a merging of identity and an abandonment of labels. The merging of identity is about the co-existence of mental health challenges/substance use, and identity, which encompasses choice over sexual expression, truths associated with orientation and preference, and whole person wellness. This segment is about “Identity.” Additionally, does belonging to the LGBTQ community increase the chances of having mental health challenges and/or addiction struggles? Do those in a community already marginalized and shrouded in stigma have more understanding and compassion for their brothers and sisters in another stigmatized community? What in society makes these people who identify in these ways feel different when they are just as human as anybody? Third is “Wellness.” This includes whole-person wellness. SAMHSA’s “Eight Dimensions of Wellness” will be referenced. Once one establishes a rejection of stigma, an adopting of non-judgment and open-mindedness, and is decisive of what actions he or she will take on behalf of themselves and others, that person can move into recovery as they see fit. I bring up “minority status” because it must be celebrated and cherished, for otherwise there is oppression instead of education. Whole-person wellness focuses on education and self-reflection and self-awareness. In this segment, I will present the idea I formulated that to get to recovery, which is a journey above all, one must go through several steps, which are not necessarily in the same order for everyone, and which may not be comprehensive for all, but are still worth mentioning. First, there is the trauma. Second, there is vulnerability. Third, there is awareness. Fourth, there is empowerment. Fifth, there is recovery. Once this individual is working on the self, this person can focus on communal health and wellness.
• Understanding the Disease of Domestic Violence in Rural and Tribal Communities: LGBTQ+ Legal Case Studies Advanced - This presentation aims to reframe issues surrounding domestic violence prevention and prevelance by using the models of symptoms, transmission and contagions developed by the health sector. Conceptions of morbidity and violence can make use of epidemiological tools to quantify and understand violent behavior as contagious. Existing tools from legal and law enforcement frameworks have largely failed to accomplish necessary prevention of violence in vulnerable populations such as the LGBTQ+ community. This presentation theorizes that existing tools used by first responders would benefit from medical frameworks such as expansion of existing lethality assessments. This presentation will also follow specific LGBTQ+ case studies to contrast the legal and epidemiological responses to violence in rural communities. Violence as a health issues opens the conversation around violence prevention and services for victim-survivors of violence. Although the overall prevealance of violence remains a topic of national and local study, the combination of health, legal, and law enforcement data to examine long term impacts remains an emerging field of study.
• Helping Your Intersex Clients Live Authentic and Healthy Beginner/Intermediate - This is a workshop. Presenter is Intersex with Master’s Degree in Social Work. Participants will learn Intersex 101 Basics, natural variations, breakout into 3 groups each with a different narrative written by an adult intersex individual with a different intersex variation and experience with medical field followed by group discussion and watch a video by Human Rights Watch I Want to be Like Nature Made Me featuring a two year old girl born intersex & interviews with her young supportive rural parents as well as supportive doctors. “I” is not invisible. No stigma. Q & A throughout. Participants receive intersex 101 handout, state, national and international resources for professionals and peer supports, brochures by intersex youth such as What We Wish Our Doctors Knew & What We Wish Our Parents Knew. Q and A throughout and discuss how living authentically helps us feel good about ourselves is powerful, energy releasing, your role as advocate and support.

Workshop series 3, 2:30-3:45

• Love, [Insert Name Here]: Talking to Youth About Coming Out Intermediate - Has a youth ever approached you with questions about their gender identity, sexual orientation, or coming out? Did you know how to respond? Do you wish you responded differently? When youth trust us enough with these concerns, we need to be prepared to support them in the most effective ways possible. This interactive workshop will address multiple aspects of coming out while offering tools and resources for attendees to use in their own work and lives. Attendees will: (1) hear about the coming out experiences of former participants in the ANCHOR Project, a program for homeless and unstably housed LGBTQ+ youth; (2) participate in an activity to promote empathy for those who come out; (3) be introduced to and practice using a tool for preparing youth to come out; and (4) learn and share best practices for supporting youth as they come out.
• How to Parent a Transgender Child/Youth: The Importance of Parent Involvement and Modeling in creating a safe and affirming home Intermediate - As a parent facilitator of a parent support group for gender expansive/trans youth I have discovered the power in parent modeling is in ensuring that parents become safe, affirming and understanding parents. Parent modeling has occurred through shared stories, and as well as advocating in schools and doctor’s offices through parent effort in ensuring that their child is getting their needs met in these public spaces. It has been our community experience that when a child first comes out the parent is many times fearful and worded that they will not have the resources to help their child along, and that parents have helped each other navigate these unknowns through shared experience, resources, and efforts. Parent modeling reminds the parent that they are not alone, and tends to help the process to social transition occur faster. This panel would share how this has helped parents along their journey and best practices that we have picked up along the way.
• Cultivating Inclusive Practices – LGBTQ Clients Beginner - This workshop is designed to equip
  professionals with the basics of inclusive practices. Includes an overview of terms and the nuance of gender identity and sexual orientation. These topics can be complex – talking about them doesn’t have to be. We’ll also cover potential barriers to effective engagement and how to more authentically cultivate inclusion. Using a framework of ecological systems theory, we’ll discuss unique challenges and experiences faced by LGBTQ+ individuals – setting the ‘why’ that supports the ‘how’. This workshop is interactive, and questions are encouraged. Attendees will have an open and confidential space in which they can learn supportive approaches for LGBTQ clients or colleagues. The workshop encourages frank discussion and provides a place to ask questions about sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and gender expression. Attendees will engage with each other, as well as the instructor, to gain a deeper understanding of providing inclusive care. This content applies beyond exchanges in providing care. Once people understand the barriers – however unintentional – created by biased language, it’s difficult to “unsee” negative influences. Attendees can carry this new perspective into all aspects of their life (community, family, etc.). Attendees also have the option to complete a brief assessment of inclusion at the start of the session and close-out action plan at the end. Both documents are intended for the attendees’ personal development only and are not collected by the facilitator.
• The Price of Trans Health: Implications of Economic Injustice in Arizona Intermediate - The gay rights movement has brought about much change in the LGBTQ+ community, however, more needs to be done to address the health disparities experienced by gender minority and transgender members of our community. Studies have shown that transgender individuals experience more discrimination, homelessness, and health disparities compared to both their LGB counterparts and the general population. These results point to a need for providers and society to increase their awareness and competence surrounding the unique life experiences of trans individuals while living in a rigid, gendered world. Join this workshop and add to the discussion or learn more about how we can provide more comprehensive and competent services to this underserved community. This workshop will include the results of two needs assessments and discuss resources and interventions in place in the Arizona trans community.
• LGBTQ+ Youth in the Context of Schools: Insights for Health Care Advocates Intermediate - This workshop connects to the conference theme, “Strengthening Our Lives: Authenticity, Intersectionality, Wellness,” through an examination of issues and conditions facing queer youth in school contexts. As community health advocates and professionals act to offer recognition and support to LGBTQ+ youth in a variety of settings, schools are all too frequently sites of non-recognition and non-support. In fact, research (Kosciw et al, 2016) clearly suggests that: LGBTQ+ youth often experience schools as dangerous and hurtful places; Teachers themselves – while potentially having supportive and positive impacts on LGBTQ+ youth in schools – often contribute to or fail to resist school cultures that convey contempt for LGBTQ+ youth; School curricula and school policies and traditions generally operate through, and reinforce, the gender binary and heteronormative assumptions. In order to fully support LGBTQ+ youth, health and wellness advocates must develop an understanding of the dynamics this population encounters in school contexts, including an understanding of the culture of schools as constructed by school structures/policies, traditions, and the intersectional identities of professional educators.
• The Convergence of Identities: Stories of crisis, transition, and life adjustment Intermediate - Entering into college poses unique challenges for the average individual transitioning into a level of independence that they are unfamiliar with. When the LGBTQ+ student transitions into the college culture a myriad of challenges can occur. This workshop will introduce participants to the unique issues of the college-age LGBTQ+ individual, with the intent of enhancing assessment and intervention foci. Further, this workshop will provide the attendee with commonly used resources to attend to the needs of the LGBTQ+ college student.