Summit 2022: Pushing Possibilities
Change doesn’t just happen. It requires force behind it—pressure, momentum. Over the past couple of years, that momentum has been building. Through difficult challenges and disruptions to our daily lives, we continue to push onwards—finding new ways to navigate through a global pandemic and strained healthcare system. Now, as people and systems settle into once-deemed impossible practices, we must ask ourselves: what new and other limitations must we break for 2SLGBTQ+ communities to thrive in this next era?
Time and time again, Two-Spirit, queer, and trans communities have demonstrated that we can be leaders in driving this change—through organization, collaboration, activism, and perseverance. Take Canada’s recent ban on conversion “therapy” practices, or Health Canada adopting a new gender-neutral approach to blood donation. Both were preceded by years of tireless advocacy where we asked ourselves, each other, and those with power and privilege, to keep doing better.
Still, there is so much more work to be done. More than a ban, we need a comprehensive strategy and funding for ending conversion practices and supporting survivors. We need further improvements to the blood donation policy while continuing to raise the alarm on stagnant HIV funding and the ongoing criminalization of HIV – all of which contribute to HIV stigma. There are also clear examples in which the dial is moving in the wrong direction, including increased hate and bigotry against trans people, as well as gender-based violence, racism and other forms of oppression. Despite any recent milestone, there remains so much more change to push for.
It is here, where meaningful progress and the need for further action meet, where we hold Summit 2022. Our collective achievements create pathways toward greater health equity amongst the many intersections we may belong to – queer people of colour and Two-Spirit folks, for example – but there are still many unexplored, overlooked, underresearched and underfunded needs to attend to. Where do we need to go? And with whom?
Summit 2022 will dive deep into strategies for strengthening access and dismantling barriers that impact our health and wellbeing, and explore ways we can build on these strategies to achieve even greater outcomes. As we continue to push for possibilities in and for our communities, this year’s conference will hone in on directions that we can take our research, programs, and advocacy, to critically investigate all the best possible outcomes for health equity while also providing support and care for each other in our own ways.
In our disruption of the status quo, in our reconstruction of systems to better respond to our needs, and in the many ways we show up to support each other, we can and have created better and healthier lives.
We know what is possible. Now let’s push further.
Information on Summit 2022
CBRC’s annual knowledge exchange and capacity building conference on 2SLGBTQ+ health research, programming, and advocacy in Canada takes place online from October 17-26 and in-person on October 27-28. Summit 2022 begins with free online events beginning on October 17, and concludes with a two-day in-person conference held in Vancouver on October 27 and 28.
Summit 2022 events taking place online will be offered free-of-charge, while a daily registration fee applies for participation at the in-person conference. A limited number of scholarships for Summit 2022 presenters and participants will be made available to support in-person participation. Please see the Summit 2022 Scholarship Application Form for more details – applications are due on August 7, 11:59pm PDT.
Additional information on the online and in-person Summit 2022 activities will be made available in August. Please refer to the Summit 2022 information page for details (and join our mailing list to be notified when registration goes live!).
About Submitting a Proposal to Summit 2022
Everyone and anyone is welcome to submit a presentation proposal to Summit 2022, for either in-person and/or virtual conference activities This includes community organization staff and/or volunteers, researchers and/or students, health and/or service providers, community and/or grassroots organizers, government staff and/or policymakers, and 2SLGBTQ+ community members.
We invite proposals for short oral presentations, panels or roundtable discussions, workshops, or an alternative format that you propose. We welcome submissions that identify community need as well as promising interventions or practices in health, social, and community services that support the wellbeing of diverse 2SLGBTQ+ communities. Submissions can be based on research, programming, policy initiatives, advocacy, activism, art-based approaches, grassroots responses, and/or community-based actions engaging 2SLGBTQ+ people in Canada or abroad.
We especially encourage submissions that answer the following questions:
- What programs, advocacy, and/or research are helping to push possibilities for strengthening health and wellbeing for 2SLGBTQ+ communities, such as our ability to access and navigate healthcare systems or services? How can we support, sustain, and scale-up these initiatives?
- What insights from research, programming, and/or advocacy can shed light on how we can push for a more equitable, inclusive, and accessible future for 2SLGBTQ+ communities? How can we leverage these insights to reduce barriers to care and support for HIV and STBBIs, mental health, gender-affirming care, substance use, and chronic health needs within 2SLGBTQ+ communities?
- Who is being left out of current 2SLGBTQ+ health research, advocacy, and/or programs? How can 2SLGBTQ+ community organizations and researchers, as well as healthcare and service providers and policymakers stand in solidarity for community members facing exclusion, marginalization, and/or violence?
The deadline to submit a proposal is August 7th, 2022 at 11:59pm PDT. Proposals must be submitted through the Summit 2022 Proposal Submission Form.
We encourage queer and trans people with diverse lived experience to submit a proposal, and in particular, Indigenous, Black, and racialized individuals, Francophones, and historically underserved and underrepresented people in our communities, including but not limited to people living with HIV, drug users, sex workers, disabled folks, and people who are not “out.”
Never attended or presented at Summit before? Not a problem. We highly encourage first-time presenters to submit a proposal, as well as past Summit presenters. For additional questions or support on preparing your proposal, please contact Darren Ho at [email protected].
CBRC is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible Summit in order to support participation for everyone. This commitment includes offering free-of-charge participation for online events, providing full and partial scholarships for the in-person conference, enabling simultaneous interpretation and captioning services (in-person and online), and offering support to potential Summit 2022 proposal submission authors. Additional information on CBRC’s commitment to accessibility at Summit 2022 will be included in the conference program.
