This piece originally appeared in the Windy City Times.
With more than 4,000 people in attendance, the 26th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change finished up in Houston, Texas, after running Jan. 29-Feb. 2.
Hosted by the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force ( NGLTF ), it pulled people from around the country—and world—to offer activists, organizers, students, elders and all other folks across the LGBTQ community a space to share knowledge, get energy and collaborate.
Programming started, as usual, with two days of daylong institutes, offering attendees 25 options for intensive training on issues such as racial justice and college campus organizing. The foci of this year’s conference centered on HIV/AIDS and ending violence against transgender women.