Annual Utah gender conference seeking presenters for 11th run

The Utah Pride Center will once again present its annual genderevolution 2019: TRANSCEND in November.

Utah’s only gender conference, genderevolution celebrates the trans, non-binary and gender creative community for the 11th consecutive year. Intersex activist, visual artist, and public researcher Saifa Sean Wall, and queer intersex artist, writer, and intersex advocate Hans Lindahl will be coming to Salt Lake City to be the keynote speakers.

“The 2019 theme, TRANSCEND, signifies transcending our own unconscious bias, stepping out of our comfort zone, bypassing preconceived gender identity binaries and representing the ostracized identities within our own marginalized community,” said Nick Arteaga, genderevolution Planning Committee chair.

In addition to keynote speakers, genderevolution features lectures, workshops, caucuses and panels offered by community members and renowned professionals from across the country who focus on body positivity, health, youth/elders and family, QTPOC, PolyQ, self-love and more.

Employees, healthcare mental wellness providers, educators, students, families, allies, and community members are all welcome.

“We honor the courage and compassion it takes to nurture ourselves and each other. We gather to thank all whose love and support keeps our trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming community healthy and prosperous,” Arteaga said.

The conference has space for over 30 vendors to table at the event. For those who cannot attend but want to support the conference’s efforts, you may help others attend through a scholarship donation. Annual Utah gender conference seeking presenters for 11th run

SEAN SAIFA WALL is an intersex activist, visual artist, and public health researcher. Born and raised in the Bronx, he attended Williams College and after a short stint in New York City, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he lived for nine years. He now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his dog, Justice. He is the former board president of InterACT, a legal advocacy organization protecting the human rights of intersex young adults and is a co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project, a project whose mission is to #endintersexsurgery.

Saifa’s story has been featured in Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics journal, the Washington Blade,

The Guardian, and The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Healthcare. He is a TEDx speaker and has been a guest on Huffington Post Live, ABC News Nightline and Afropunk: Solutions Sessions. Recently, IJP was highlighted in the Google/Stink Films documentary, Stonewall Forever.

You can learn more about him as well as the documentary he is making about his father called Letters to an Unborn Son at unbornson.com.

HANS LINDAHL (they/she) is a white, queer intersex advocate, artist, writer, and YouTuber. Growing up in the intersex community as a teen, she started out in advocacy by joining interACT Youth, an international collective of intersex activists under 30. Since then they have spoken to doctors, families, sex educators, and state legislatures about intersex issues.

Features include them, OUT, Cosmopolitan, and The Washington Post. Hans aims to bring humor, light, and connection to intersex representation, while uplifting multiple marginalized voices within the community.

You can see her work via Twitter and YouTube @hiHelloHans. Before intersex activism, Hans worked for years in web accessibility, building a platform making textbooks accessible to blind students. After later experiences in organizing, nonprofit leadership, and event planning and facilitation, Hans decided their skills could best be used in service to the intersex movement.

2019: TRANSCEND is Saturday, November 9, 2019, 8:00am – 6:30 pm at the Horizonte Instruction and Training Center 1234 Main St., Salt Lake City, UT. More information at utahpridecenter.org/events/genderevolution/