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“The Cathedral Hill Hotel is more than just a conference location… Within a few blocks of the hotel you will find movie theaters, a drugstore, a hospital, a grocery store, and eateries of various price ranges. For those with a sense of adventure, the Mission District (great food and local shops), Union Square's shopping area, Fisherman's Warf [sic], and the historic Castro District are a quick cab ride away.”
– femme2006.com

 

WHERE IS THIS THE TENDERLOIN
IN THE femme UNIVERSE?


Femme 2006, which claims to highlight “the intersection of queer Femme identity with issues of race, class, age and body,” willfully omits any mention of the Tenderloin, the vibrant neighborhood in which the conference is located. The Tenderloin is arguably the neighborhood where femme identity intersects with race, class, age, and body in the deepest and most dramatic, desperate and defiant ways. In this neighborhood, transgender women, queens, strippers, hookers, masseuses, brothel workers, waitresses, psychic readers and seniors prance, dance and romance. In fact, a central place for these fabulous femmes to strut and stroll is exactly one block from the Cathedral Hill Hotel… Polk Street, a legendary meeting ground of femmes, drug dealers, runaways, freaks, welfare cheats, hustlers and homeless people deliberately left off the Femme 2006 map.


There’s a conference happening everyday on Polk Street—no registration, plane ticket or cab fare required. Here people plan strategies for survival and celebration without the resources to stay at—or even attend a workshop—at the Cathedral Hill Hotel. The $20,771 spent to hold Femme 2006 might have been better used to foster femmeininity on Polk Street. Instead of connecting the conversations at the conference with the conversations in the neighborhood, Femme 2006 perpetuates cultural erasure.

 

How to Start a Non-Hierarchical Direct Action Group

The following are suggestions for direct action organizing.  These are meant as guidelines—feel free to improvise process as necessary.

Direct action utilizes hands-on intervention to directly challenge hierarchies.  By using spectacle to expose hypocrisies, direct action terrorizes the status quo and revitalizes public space.  In the process, it builds a delicious and defiant culture of resistance.  Direct action encourages people to push the boundaries of acceptable behavior in order to create new possibilities for organizing, self-determination and activism.

Why non-hierarchical organizing? 

In this country we are encouraged to think that voting is a participatory act of “democratic” choice, when in reality it means that a majority controls the agenda.  Non-hierarchical organizing means that everyone participates in the process.  Though there may be other models for non-hierarchical organizing, we have found consensus to be the most effective. 

Consensus Process

Consensus means everyone comes to agreement before any decision can be made. In order for meetings to run as smoothly as possible, at the beginning of each meeting, someone volunteers to facilitate. The facilitator compiles a list of agenda items at the start of the meeting, keeps track of who wants to speak, calls on speakers, makes sure speakers stay on topic and keeps the agenda moving.  After a proposal for action and a discussion of this proposal, the facilitator calls for consensus when a decision seems imminent; this involves asking who is in favor, who objects and who abstains.  If there are any objections, the group formulates alternate proposals until consensus can be reached.  Some groups have a formal process for tallying abstentions in order to decide if a proposal should be revisited.  In the case of GAY SHAME, we have found that consensus occurs remarkably easily, since we have worked through our common politics and we discuss issues extensively prior to calling for consensus.  We only use the more formal consensus process in the case of extreme disagreement. 

If someone believes that a decision close to consensus is contradictory to the goals of the action or group, that person can block consensus. In the case of GAY SHAME, this has only happened one time in our four-year history. Of course, consensus decisions may always be revisited in the future. Usually, though, it’s all flower power and SSRIs here at GAY SHAME.

There are many different effective models for creating consensus-- feel free to share your strategies with us.

Working It Out

  • If you know people who share common goals, politics and strategies then contact them to arrange a time/place to meet and brainstorm ideas for a call to plan an action.  If you don’t know anyone else who shares your politics, skip to step 2. ... (CONTINUED)

 

Creating Change or Creating Chains?

With the dismantling of the “welfare state” in the 1980s, many non-profits have Reagan to thank for their now booming business. At $1.3 trillion dollars in the United States alone, the non-profit industrial complex is larger than most countries. What was once commonly understood as the “job” of the government was then forced back into the public sector. Through this shift....(CONTINUED)

 

A 'CREATING CHANGE' SURVIVOR STORY

by Natalie Newton

I attend the Creating Change Conference as a UCLA Queer Alliance representative in 2003.  The new executive chair of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force explained in a paranoid fever pitch that all queers should vote to prevent the gay-marriage-wedge-issue from granting Bush another term of tyranny.  No one at the conference challenged the electoral system itself...(CONTINUED)