The co-founders of GIFT, Lyle Blake and Logan Grimes, will be at the Gender Odyssey/Family conference in Seattle, WA, facilitating workshops on Saturday and Sunday, and participating throughout the weekend.
This conference is where possibility became tangible for me back in 2004. At that time, the conference was called FTM 2004: A Gender Odyssey. It was September and wet. The workshops took place in four different venues in the Capital Hill neighborhood, which gave you a chance to breath the clean, rain-washed air between workshops. It was overwhelming, exhilarating, exhausting, and amazing. It was specifically geared towards FTMs and they were there in every shape and size and color. They were dressed up, dressed down, inked, clean-cut, shaggy, with partners, alone, looking for partners. Being there was a feast for the spirit and the heart.
I met many of the men who support, encourage and sustain me to this day. Men who showed me that my fledgling self would mature and out-grow the boyishness; that looking like a teenage boy did not require adolescent actions and thinking. And while the focus of the conference was on FTMs, men like me, it also provided workshops for partners and family members.
FTM 2004: A Gender Odyssey was my second conference for transgender people. Unlike my first conference, it fostered and encouraged amazing conversations that pushed me beyond my reservations and fears into sharing and community. These conversations were deep, dense, fulfilling. I wanted to share them with as many people as possible, to be part of creating conversations that were thoughtful, engaging, challenging, and supportive — that created community and belonging.
As Gender Odyssey celebrates 10-years of existence and creating communities that are broad in their representations of gender, I am proud to have been able to contribute to the conversations and to the communities that have formed. The seeds for GIFT were planted at Gender Odyssey and watered and nurtured through the friendships formed at the conference. Gender Odyssey continues to be fertile ground as it grows, supports and embraces transgender communities.
Come meet us this weekend if you’ll be in the area. I will be facilitating “Healing Touch: An Introduction to Queer Tango” and “Father Stories”. Logan Grimes will be facilitating “How Do You Measure Up” (POC-only) and participating in a Gender Odyssey Family conference panel. Find out more at http://www.generodyssey.org/ and http://www.genderodysseyfamily.org/.
Lyle Blake, GIFT Co-Founder
