Workshop Cycle 1:

Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling: Breaking Down Sexual Barriers for Queer Trans Women, with Morgan M Page

Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling will explore the sexual barriers queer trans women face within the broader queer women’s communities through group discussions and the hands-on creation of visual representations of these barriers. Participants will work together to identify barriers, strategize ways to overcome them, and build community. Open to all trans women and MAAB genderqueer folks.

Dirty Dancing: Nobody Puts You in a Corner, with Kristine Maitland

This is an interactive dance class of physical self-discovery – here you will learn to seductively move your body in ways you did not think possible, using hips, hands, arms, shoulders and, indeed the entire body without the use of poles, chairs or props – just you and the music. Attendees of all body types and physical abilities will work together and  shake that “thang” drawing from Latin, bellydance, swing and Kristine Maitland’s own brand of sensual freestyle, including chest slides and the full body ripple, two of her signature moves: you will free yourself… with style. Suitable for all levels from proto-beginner to long time social dancer – bring your sexiest songs on your IPod.

It Turns My Crank and That’s Okay, with Karen B.K. Chan

With a roomful of queers, you get asked dozens questions exploring your desires, fantasies, and kinks. You get a clicker to log in your anonymous answer. You see how other people answered, too, instantly (and anonymously). Then, we’ll talk about the experience, plus the politics, feelings, and meaning behind all that desire. The questions will be about things that folks may fantasize about, who they desire (and who they desire to be). We will tread, with care, into ideas of power, violence, trauma, and other sites of potential contention, struggle, and growth. The goal of making a safe(r) space like this, and spending time like this together as queers, is to know and grow our selves, our desires, and our pleasures, while acknowledging fear, guilt, shame, sadness, pain, contradictions, injustices, and so on.

Fucking Across Difference: Negotiating Power and Privilege in Intimate Relationships, with Kate Klein

Anyone who has ever navigated a relationship that traverses the bounds of race, class, ability, survivorship, gender history, citizenship, age, or any other identity/history will tell you that fucking across difference can be hard. Real hard. But when we get over the idea that relationships between women are equal playing fields, this hard work can have such sweet rewards. This workshop will be organized as a facilitated ‘skillshare’ – participants will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and learn skills from each other (rather than the facilitator), exploring questions like… what does it mean to be accountable for our privilege in relationships? In sex? In play spaces? How can women of vastly different histories come together and make it work? What are some common pitfalls and barriers that come up when fucking across difference that can lead you, as a person of privilege, to cause harm? Come prepared to share lessons learned from past/current relationships, to ask for advice on things you struggle with, and to explore issues of intimacy and accountability in an environment of peer support and empowered knowledge-sharing.

Workshop Cycle 2:

Pick [Me] Ups for Hungry Virginz: How to Initiate Luv Connections (Or At Least Not Die While Trying), with Ashling Ligate

This workshop is for hungry virginz – those of us who have been told or made to feel that we’re too much, not enough, too needy, devoid of desire, or beyond salvation. (Thanks to friends at the blog Glitter Politic for fiercely reclaiming this term!) Maybe you know exactly what you want but you just don’t know how to get it. Maybe you have no idea what you want or where to start looking. Maybe you feel too anxious to ask someone out or you can’t get into that dance club to meet hotties because it’s down three flights of stairs. For whatever reason, you’re coming up against barriers and road blocks in your quest to connect with others – whether that’s for one-night stands or lifelong partnerships or fuck buddies. Through a mix of discussion, creation, and idea-sharing, we’ll talk about how you can begin to initiate relationships and get what you want!

Knowing and Owning My Sexiness, with Karen B.K. Chan

This workshop explores our conceptions of ourselves as sexy, whatever that may mean. With a roomful of queers, you get asked dozens of questions exploring contexts, identities, personalities, physicalities/embodiments, and so on. You get a clicker to log in your anonymous answer. You see how other people answered, too, instantly (and anonymously). The group outcomes are not as important as the process that you go through in answering the questions. In the process, you get to ask yourself about things you may or may not give yourself permission to be (or even to desire to be) sexy in a certain way. The ways of sexiness in the questions will cover ones that are centered in the self, ones that are relational, and ones that are completely out of left field. Self-awareness and self-knowledge are the focus. Discussion will revolve around participants’ experiences, and strategies for owning your sexiness when and how you want to.

Sex for Survivors: Getting our Freak-On with Self-Love, with deb singh 

A workshop about sex for survivors.  Come and talk about the ways we can negotiate our sexiness through exploring the links between sex and survivorship. Open to folks of colour, folks living with disAbilities, LGB and trans folks, two-spirited and allies to learn about negotiating with our ourselves and partners in ways that are sexy and how we can love ourselves and our bodies.

This workshop will include deconstructing myths, a simple drawing exercise, discussions and a simple writing exercise. The facilitator is very flexible and willing to conform to the needs of the group.