Presenter biographies will be linked below as they become available. Final program subject to change.
This roundtable is focused on the importance of queer friendships, grounded in the shared experience of living in Las Vegas, through auto-biographical remembering. Today, LGBTQ activists are growing up with marriage equality, whereas we were advocating for Domestic Partnerships in the Nevada State Legislature and were so proud when it happened in 2009. Marriage was not necessarily “our thing,” but rather, one of many aspects of queer activism in our city & state that helped solidify our sense of “qmmunity.” This roundtable recentralizes queer friendships (rather than activism) as survival, resistance, and visibility—in a heteronormative city in a conservative red state. The presenters are friends who met in Vegas 10+ years ago (we named ourselves “Blasian Jew”), and continue to be friends across long distances (NYC, DC, Tennessee). Our friendships/relationships were central to surviving Vegas; being queer, dealing with sexism, racism, heterosexism and homophobia.
Desirée Duncan (full abstract)
Crystal Jackson (full abstract)
Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes (full abstract)