This weekend I presented at the 19th Annual GLSEN Boston Conference. My friend and I ran a workshop that we'd done before titled, "Queer History." It is, if I do say so myself, a really fun workshop. At the end of this post I'll copy 10 or so of the events, and you can see if you can guess when they occurred.

But this post is actually about conferences in general, both attending at presenting at them. I love presenting at conferences, and I strongly encourage everyone to present if they are at all interested. It doesn't have to be an LGBT conferences - there are a lot of climate change things happening with Copenhagen coming up, and pretty much any topic you're interested in has a conference happening somewhere.

Attending conferences is one thing - it's more than just going to learn things. It's about being around a community of people who are all involved enough in an issue to want to attend and interested enough in what other people have to say to do more than just read a book or website about the issue. And being a presenter is a really cool experience. People go to your workshop because they think what you have to say is valuable. And it is!

In our queer history workshop it's really neat to hear things like "OH! I just saw Milk, so I know when that happened!" or "Oh my gosh, I never knew that many people had died from AIDS" or "I knew about Stonewall and I love going to pride, but I never knew that June was pride month because of Stonewall. That's really cool!"

Click "read more" in the bottom right of this post to read the rest!

Sometimes when I'm presenting I remember that just because something has been a well known fact to me for a long time there was a time when I didn't know it, and it was neat when I learned it, too. I guess that's why I love presenting. Because I know people will go home and say, "hey, did you know that ___."

Education is essential to a movement.

I also participated in the Transgender Caucus and it was great to meet trans youth who are really excited to work on change in their school communities. Most of us went to different schools, and yet we all shared a lot of the same concerns and issues in our environments.

And if none of that convinces you, you get really neat pamphlets, buttons, posters, books and key chains at conferences.

Ok, here are some of the timeline events for the queer history workshop! The answers are in white below the events - highlight them to get the answer!

The first homosexual rights organization in America is founded in Chicago — The Society for Human Rights. The movement exists for a few months before being ended by the police.
1924

Kathy Kozachenko becomes the first openly homosexual American elected to public office when she wins a seat on the Ann Arbor, Michigan city council
1974

U.S. Congressman Barney Frank comes out
1987

The Stonewall riots occur in New York, and help to ignite the modern LGBT rights movement.
1969

The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down remaining state sodomy laws
2003

The rainbow flag is first used as a symbol of homosexual pride
1978

The first national homosexual rights march on Washington, DC is held
1979

Vermont becomes the first U.S. state to legalize civil unions.
2000

Psychologist Evelyn Hooker publishes a study showing that homosexual men are as well adjusted as non-homosexual men.
1957