MONDAY: Join the Planning Efforts for the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit - in Chicago

THIS Monday - November 10!

Chicagoans - here is an opportunity to participate in the local planning efforts of this national event. Folks outside of Chicago - organizers will be reaching out with opportunities to include your input and energy! Stay tuned....

In the meantime, join us:

This Monday, November 10, 2008
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Center on Halsted
3656 North Halsted, Chicago


The National LGBTI Health Summit is a collaborative, grassroots effort of local and national organizations working together to improve our health and wellness. Chicago will Host the 2009 event (August 14 - 18, 2009), and we need your input to make it a success!

Themed, “LGBTI Health Through the Life Course,” the summit promises to be a powerful and exciting display of how we preserve and improve the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, and environmental health and wellness of our community.

The 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit in Chicago, in collaboration with the BiHealth Summit is a grassroots organizing effort with very ambitious aims. Dedicated volunteers are working on logistics, program planning, fundraising, publicity, and housing.

We hope you will join us in organizing and attending in August 2009.

So... let’s plan the 2009 LGBTI Health Summit!

A defining objective of the Summit is preserving and improving the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, and environmental health and wellness of LGBTI people, who continue to experience significant health disparities because of sexual orientations and/or gender identities.

We invite you to spend a few days next summer working intensively with colleagues from all over the nation and world who are grappling with similar challenges; engage in deep thinking and extended discussion about new responses and innovative programming responding to the theme of “LGBTI Health Through the Life Course.” 2009 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, whose raucous spirit we carry on.

We create activities where we ask everyone to reach out across sexual and gender identity, ethnic/racial, generational, and socioeconomic differences and begin to talk and work toward common goals. We avoid a focus on celebrities and big names, and we take plenty of time to relax, have fun, and make contact with other participants in meaningful ways.

You will find this summit is different from traditional health conferences. LGBTI Health Summits (previously in Boulder, Cambridge and Philadelphia) have been described as nurturing retreats, exciting, intense think tanks, and moments of great enlightenment. Participants commonly feel "energized and inspired to do this work for another year."

We need to hear from those who face daunting questions and formidable challenges as well as those who have succeeded in creating effective programs and campaigns. We welcome activists as well as researchers, doctors as well as holistic health practitioners, religious and spiritual leaders as well as sex workers. Most of all, we welcome all members of the LGBTI community (no previous health experience necessary) who will share their experiences, questions, and energy as we build a movement around community health and empowerment.

While the summit will include speakers, panels, workshops, pre-summit institutes and organizing meetings, it will also include interactive exercises, experiential education activities, yoga and other forms of self- and communal care , as well as creative festivities. We tackle a range of topics that includes, but is not limited to:

-LGBTI history and its health impacts
-Wellness for all of our communities
-Bisexual visibility & well-being
-Health leadership
-Youth Organizing
-Healthcare Access
-Community health online
-Frontiers in HIV/AIDS and STD prevention and care
-Elder health issues and strategies
-Tobacco and LGBTI health _ Alcohol and substances in LGBTI communities
-Universal Health Care and other paths to good LGBTI health
-LGBTI Spirituality & its role in individual and community health
-Mental health research and programming
-Self-care for the community organizer
-Marriage equality as a health strategy
-Addressing racism, sexism, and heterosexism to enable healing
-Diversity of family structures as a part of LGBTI health
-Understanding our bodies: what does it mean to be L,G,B,T or I?

2009 National LGBTI Health Summit and BiHealth Summit
August 14 -18, 2009
Chicago Hilton & Towers

For further information, please contact
Cat Jefcoat
catj@howardbrown.org