PA Youth at Nationals!

PSEC Leaders attend NGLTF’s Creating Change Conference

Baltimore, MD: Last week from January 25-29, 2012, 22 PSEC youth leaders from across the state were in Baltimore for the 24th National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference. Over 2,700 organizers and community leaders attended the primer national conference on LGBTQ equality – including 60+ Pennsylvania youth from nearly a dozen colleges and universities. PSEC sent the largest delegation from Pennsylvania – with each student representing PSEC hailing from a different county. Every PSEC delegate was selected for extraordinary leadership in their communities. The group included a high school GSA President who supported a screening of Out in the Silence last week near York, Nina Santiago of Indiana University of PA – who made national news last fall when her professor made homophobic comments in class, and youth members of organizations including GLSEN Pittsburgh and the Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia.

On Saturday, PSEC joined GLSEN and other statewide LGBTQ safe schools advocates (from MassEquality, Empire State Pride Agenda, Fairness West Virginia, and GLSEN CT) for a panel on safe schools legislation. Later in the afternoon, PSEC held its own session on building a youth-led movement. Over 60 youth and adult allies attended for an engaging session on historical and practical frameworks for youth-led work in the LGBTQ equality movement. While the LGBTQ equality movement is seen as currently dominated by adult leadership – the session focused on youth driven work from the suffrage and civil rights movements – and how the LGBTQ equality movement should embrace authentic youth leadership. PSEC presented the only session of this kind at the conference on youth-led organizing – as PSEC is only of only a few youth-led LGBTQ organizations in the nation at this time. PSEC also hosted a Pennsylvania Youth Caucus as a safe space for youth from Pennsylvania to meet and network on Saturday.

Creating Change is a highly enriching and educational experience for leaders in the LGBTQ equality movement and communities. Jason Landau Goodman, PSEC Executive Director, said that sending the PSEC delegation to Creating Change was “a highly important investment in Pennsylvania LGBTQ youth leadership.” Creating Change has not taken place in the northeast United States in over a decade. Next year, the conference will take place in Atlanta, Georgia.

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About Jason Landau Goodman

Jason Landau Goodman is a law student at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Youth Congress. A recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Jason is a fifth generation Pennsylvanian from Lower Merion, PA.

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