Jordan Gerard/Winonan
For the first time in a decade, the Minnesota OUT! Campus Conference found its home outside St. Paul, Minn.
Winona State University hosted the conference that occured Friday, Nov. 13 through Sunday, Nov. 15. The conference consisted of three keynote speeches, five breakout sessions, a poetry and open mic night, and a chorus performance.
Leah Bentfield, Winona State 2015 alumna and former full spectrum president, worked as a volunteer for the conference this year.
“It’s very stressful, but it’s so much fun and so worth it,” Bentfield said. “I met a student from UM-D last night at the open mic night. This was her first LGBT conference, and she was like, ‘This is amazing. I’ve learned so much.’ Knowing that I helped educate and change a life, that is just fantastic.”
She said coming together, checking in with people, motivating others and leaving to do good things on campus again was the goal of the conference.
She added she hopes people leave the conference with motivation and new tools for discussion and activism.
CeCe McDonald, who visited Winona State in spring 2015, gave the closing keynote speech.
McDonald is an African-American transgender woman who was attacked by a man jeering at her outside of a bar in Minneapolis in 2012. She defended herself, but in the process her attacker was stabbed and died at the scene. McDonald was arrested and imprisoned for two years.
After her release, actress and director Laverne Cox—known by many for her role as Sophia Burset in Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black”—contacted McDonald about making a documentary about her story. McDonald agreed, and the film is in full production, she said.
McDonald previewed “Free CeCe” at the conference, which is set to be released sometime in 2016.
“I have given so much of myself with this project,” McDonald said. “I have really highlighted my life as a person who does not give zero fucks about anything other than liberation of oppressed people.”
She talked about how being charged with manslaughter, her trial and imprisonment made her feel.
“During my trial, the whole time I was in jail and going through the trial process, it was so hard,” McDonald said. “It was just so much of myself left, and I began to question my own exhibitions. I began to question who I am and where I fit in in society, if there was ever going to be a chance for me.”
McDonald said it is important to talk about the fact that she is transgender, because it relates to her case, but a lot of the articles written about her left out the fact that she is an African-American.
“People don’t understand that the struggles of being a person of color, of being a woman, of being trans identified, is a struggle on a day to day basis with society going against me as black woman, as a black person, as a trans woman,” McDonald said. “It’s very important for me to highlight all the issues, all the intersectionalities of oppression that I deal with and that so many other people deal with and don’t know how to navigate through those rims without having to feel confused about one thing compared to the other.”
McDonald also touched on dealing with societal norms and expectations.
“It’s important to love yourself, who you are, without feeling like you have no part in society, that you have no part in what’s supposed to be a social norm. And I’m all about fuck the norms,” McDonald said.
She ended her speech by encouraging people to be an ally and to make the word a verb, not only just a noun.
“Making people feel like they are welcomed in spaces. Making people feel they are loved when they go through bullshit. Making people know that you can understand it even if you have not been through what they have been through,” McDonald said. “Just be an ear, just be a positive motivator, be the force in someone’s life. It’s time we think beyond these false claims of ally-ship, it’s time to be a little bit more radical. It’s time for us all to put our feet down and say that we are tired of the bullshit.”
University of Minnesota-Crookston students Jessie Armstrong, Lina Noyes, Livi Martin and Faith Benassi said they learned a lot of things this weekend, which they plan to bring back to their own campus for their gender and sexuality alliance club. Armstrong and Martin have attended this conference in previous years.
“She [McDonald] made a lot of good points and opened our eyes to a lot of different things and issues,” Noyes said.
Morgan Jacobus, Leah Bentfield and Jax Pugh, Winona State University alunnae and former presidents of Winona State’s full spectrum club presented a breakout session titled, “YOU Belong Here!” The session was a discussion about getting clubs started for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex (LGBTQI) identities, including details like how to distribute the workload, choosing an advisor and duties as an officer.
Many of the attendees thanked the presenters afterward and said it would help them with their own clubs on campus.
Bentfield said the conference was not only important for organizations to gain new tools, but it was also important so people can learn how to have conversations.
“The conference is about creating community and conversations for the LGBTQI community in Winona, outside of Winona, Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Midwest area, on college campuses, bringing it together, so that we can make an action plan to bring back to campuses so that change can continue happening. Because everything changes so fast in this movement, like vernacular and aims and goals,” Bentfield said.
The conference usually has about 100 to 300 people in attendance, and this year it had 215 people registered before it started.
Bentfield said there are many larger conferences around the U.S., but on a local level, it is easier to have small group conversations and bring it back to campuses.