II. CONFERENCE '99 OUTLINE

The conference began Saturday with a welcome from the organizers and a youth speaker who energetically and passionately encouraged the participants to mobilize to create change. Participants then chose streams and were encouraged to remain in their stream throughout the conference. A great deal of networking took place over lunch. In the afternoon, participants returned to their streams. On Saturday evening, the local LGBT/GLBT organization held an entertainment event designed to help youth relax and network.

On Sunday morning participants returned to the streams while the Spirituality stream, decimated by car breakdowns and other events, disbanded and the stream participants joined other streams

A number of queer youth, mostly young lesbians, organized an impromptu theatre workshop that was held during the latter part of Sunday morning. This interactive workshop, "The Black Sheep of the Family," encouraged youth to join conquerors, Lindsay and Victoria, for a fun and informative workshop about fitting in and being a freak. This workshop was attended by almost all of the participants. The presenters hoped to accomplish group building and networking as well as sharing ideas about fitting into certain stereotypes and where that desire comes from in the queer community. The workshop was intended to highlight the strengths of youth when their energy and resources are channelled. The interactive workshop began with a name game and then participants shared thoughts about what fitting into the gay community means to them.

This was followed by a small group exercise where participants described their own perceptions of various queer stereotypes. The final segment was a costume-making exercise combined with a dance and modelling show of the various 'freaky' costumes. Everyone agreed that this was a very entertaining, fun, and thought-provoking workshop - it was exactly what was need to blow off the steam generated during the intense discussions that had occurred during the '99 conference.

A final plenary, held on Sunday afternoon presented the four stream recommendations.

A. Post Conference Debriefing

There were a few problems, which were identified, post-conference, including the relatively low attendance of queer youth (approximately 20 out of the 50 participants) and the difficulty in trying to get youth to focus on 'government speak' and making 'legal' recommendations. Participants in the post-conference debriefing discussed gaps from the Kelowna conference, in particular what problems youth might encounter with regards to the violence they experienced from other queer youth.

Questions came up, such as, "How can LGBT/GLBT youth that experience violence best be served - through government, queer community agencies or through other agencies?" Although we couldn't completely answer these questions it was pointed out that there is a rural/urban difference. In Vancouver, LGBT/GLBT youth can be served through LGBT/GLBT agencies that deal with specific needs, while outside the lower mainland, queer youth are served by agencies that provide services to a variety of communities. Rural agencies are especially in need of sensitivity training and resources so they can better support queer youth in rural areas.

Queer youth made recommendations for future conferences. They recommended that:

• Funding be given to queer youth organizations to organize the event;
• A community-building model be used where queer youth go to a number of rural communities and actively encourage participation in the upcoming conference;
• Fun, interactive workshops are included at the outset at the conference;
• Facilitators concentrate on getting the 'raw voices of queer youth' and the writer of the report to work together to translating the 'raw voices' into 'government speak';
• The date and location be arranged around queer youth needs not necessarily around adult desires (e.g. no family or religious holidays as conference dates);
• Ensure that queer youth networking take precedence over all other priorities.
• Pre-conference planning be completed soon enough to ensure sufficient time for province-wide advertising and logistics such as transit details to be worked out.

At the Rainbow BC 99 conference, we examined safety and the prevention of violence in the context of a very broad definition of violence. This range included everything from murder to suicide to dirty looks, from physical/sexual bashing to public views that LGBT/GLBT persons are sinful or immoral and therefore abuse is appropriate because it fits the public's morality.

We included financial violence including the indirect effects of discrimination where circumstances and environment create a higher risk of violence, as well as violence related to negotiating around safer sex and including peer pressure from some queer communities. And finally, we also included other indirect violence such as threats of outing and, therefore, possible exposure to discrimination, insults as well as feeling silenced by hearing derogatory comments toward others.

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