09 Mar SXSW 2022 – The Complete LGBTQ List
SXSW has always been gay. But never has it been as easy as it is today to find LGBTQIA+ programming across the entire festival. From SXSW EDU to SXSW Music and every place in between, queer viewpoints abound. Fortunately, this year, I had the opportunity to work closely with Kevan Irsch, from SXSW, to learn more about everything LGBTQ+ at SXSW 2022. The Chamber and SXSW teamed up to host a Community Meetup to dive into the extensive amount of programming centered around our LGBTQ+ community. It was a fun night!
Of course The Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce is hosting two official events during SXSW. Click on each of those events listed below to learn more.
The Big Gay Kickoff Party at Rain on 3/11
A day of LGBT Business Panels on 3/12
Advocating for Equality: How Businesses Can Authentically Contribute to LGBTQ+ rights
Learn how to make your LGBTBE Supplier Diversity certification work for you!
The Small Business Trifecta: Finance, Insurance and legal 101 for LGBTQ and allied self employed/small businesses
Finding Your Why – Empowering Employee Resource Groups
Developing a Better Brand – Focusing on a 360° approach to building a brand. From Research, Branding, Digital Marketing & Website Experience.
For additional programming during SXSW EDU and SXSW, take a look at the list below. (Don’t have time to read through all this? Scroll to the bottom to watch the presentation from our Meetup which includes lists of programming, films, music performances, and everything else. I’ve also included my personal playlist of bands not to miss this year.)
You can always search the SXSW schedule for LGBTQIA programming using the #lgbtq
SXSW EDU
Talks
When Culture Wars Come to School | NBC News’ Antonia Hylton & Mike Hixenbaugh’s #1 hit podcast, Southlake, tells the story of how an idyllic Texas city became a symbol of a new national reckoning over race & education. The journalists will be joined by author George M. Johnson & school librarian Carolyn Foote to discuss the next front in the classroom culture war: The movement to ban books on race, sex, gender & sexuality.
Harmonizing DEI, Free Expression, and Academics | Gen Z students are the most diverse in our history but are arriving from “think-alike communities,” unskilled in discourse across differences. For them, DEI seems to be in direct conflict with free expression. How do presidents and administrators create a welcoming and respectful learning environment for all students that upholds commitments to open intellectual inquiry? This panel will explore this tension, analyze the contributing factors, and provide a strategic framework for addressing it.
Workshops
Out Youth: Be a Beacon for LGBTQIA+ Youth | Research shows that when LGBTQIA+ youth view school personnel as supportive, they feel safer, have fewer absences for safety reasons, report fewer school-related problems, and have higher grades. Join us as we dive deeper into the research, why we developed our online LGBTQIA+ Competency Training for K-12 Staff, and how you can make your school and your curriculum more inclusive for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
Teaching Creative Authenticity | This workshop is an introduction to the process of recognizing, activating, and supporting students’ unique creative identities so that they may create work that is original, authentic, and identifiably theirs. Activities will include useful exercises and discussion frameworks to model leading students through acts of self-reflection and exploration. It will also help us as educators be more authentic in bringing our whole selves to our teaching.
Mentor Session
Heather Ashley Hayes | How do we think about disability in relation to educational settings and larger conversations in the public sphere about education? Especially as disability, and neurodiversity, relate to gender, race, and LGBTQ+ concerns? Join Heather as she talks about inclusion and equity in education, how to balance research, teaching, and public facing work, and building a public facing profile in education.
Meet Ups
It Gets Better: Queer Educators & Allies Meet Up | It’s official – 2021 was the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history due to the sheer number of anti-LGBTQ measures – particularly anti-trans measures – that swept through state legislatures across the country. Join this Meet Up hosted by the It Gets Better Project to discuss how we can push back against these attacks and better support our queer students in every school and every classroom across the country.
Your Opportunity to Empower Trans/TGE Youth | This meet up explores how to have an open conversation about pronouns, how to create avenues for conversation between trans youth and their parents, the importance of autonomy for youth in their coming out process, and how to advocate for an inclusive environment in the classroom. Participants will leave with resources and activities to implement in their spaces.
Future20
Centering Youth Voice in DEI Training | Founded in 2017, Diversity Talks specializes in providing youth-led professional development grounded in diversity, equity, and inclusion, guided by the PERM Framework, a unique method for measuring cultural competence, which was developed by Dr. Butler herself in 2019. In this session, Dr. Butler will speak on her experience in the DEI world over the past 4 years and why Diversity Talks’ unique methods are crucial to their success in shifting mindsets across the nation.
Performance
Drag Queen Story Hour | Drag Queen Story Hour celebrates reading through the glamorous art of drag. Our chapter network creates diverse, accessible, and culturally-inclusive family programming where kids can express their authentic selves and become bright lights of change in their communities.
SXSW - Sessions
We’ve highlighted a few sessions you won’t want to miss. They offer LGBTQ+ creatives a chance to discuss relevant issues, build and strengthen the bonds within their community, and celebrate the inspiring group of individuals they have found connection with.
TRANSforming Comedy
TRANSforming Comedy is a conversation centered around transgender comedy creatives in the world of film and television. In the face of disproportionate and divisive debate, comedic writers and filmmakers with the lived experience being transgender challenge the reflexive overrepresentation of dramatic treatment of trans stories through the radical genre of comedy. Audiences will hear and learn how comedy can change culture, inviting connection through shared humor and catharsis through laughter.
Addressing Our Transgender Health Crisis
Few groups face more daunting health challenges than transgender and gender non-binary Americans, more than 52 percent of whom, according to one recent survey, have seriously contemplated suicide. Making matters even worse, physicians and health care providers too often lack the sensitivity and education required to offer their transgender patients the best care. This panel of experts and advocates will survey the landscape and propose concrete ways in which health systems, policy makers, and other interested parties can work together to make sure at-risk transgender patients receive the care they need and deserve.
LGBTQ+ Rights and Politics
From 2015 to 2022, we’ve seen LGBTQ rights take center stage in Texas politics with an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ measures. After suffering a devastating loss with the repeal of the Houston Equal Rights ordinance, LGBTQ political organizations and advocates have mounted a strong defense against insurmountable odds. This panel will break down our response to defeat and how we’ve built our model of advocacy to push back on those efforts.
Tech and the New Fluidity of Male Sexuality
Queer is cool, and the rigidity around male sexuality is crumbling. Now more than ever attitudes around sexuality are more liberated, mercurial, and permeable. 1 in 6 Zoomers identify as something besides “heterosexual,” and expressions of gender and sexuality are becoming more accepted into the mainstream every day. Queer stories are more visible than ever in media, social media stars are capitalizing on queer trends to garner clout, and A-Listers are publicly celebrating their queerness — everywhere you look the restrictive tradition of heteronormative masculinity is quickly becoming outmoded. Our panel of sexual educators and experts will discuss the wide acceptance of a new kind of amorphous sexual expression, the simultaneous importance and triviality of labels, and the way technology
Unlocking Inclusive Media with Intersectionality
Do you ever wake up in the morning and pick up your phone to tune into a YouTube series, TV show, or even the morning news? What do you see? Does it make you think differently or provide a new perspective? For years, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic & gender inequalities have run rampant in the media. Today’s media & entertainment landscape play an integral role in setting the tone for the future of inclusion. Creators & businesses globally are elevating underrepresented voices through an intersectional framework from the beginning of their production process through their premieres. In this session, you’ll hear from members of the Black, Queer, Lesbian, Gay, Latino & Transgender communities on how to connect with your audience & avoid blindspots using the concept of intersectionality.
Film
Queer people are telling their own stories and taking control from behind the scenes as their visibility continues to grow on-screen. The SXSW Film Festival features LGBTQ+ films across a wide range of genres, formats, and screening sections. Diverse filmmakers and actors come together to present compelling work that draws inspiration from its creators’ personal experiences.
Artists
The SXSW Music Festival features a number of LGBTQ+ Showcasing Artists that are not only diverse in identity, but in their individual approach to production as well. Finding self-expression through music, these artists each have something unique to offer and share with the SXSW audience.
Explore the Schedule
Dive into additional LGBTQ+ programming at SXSW 2022 by browsing the LGBTQ+ tag in the SXSW Schedule, or searching the schedule for relevant events.