Insights to Empower Sexuality Professionals

Dismantling Traditional Teen Pregnancy Prevention Approaches: Moving from a Risks to a Rights-based Approach

Sofia Jawed Wessel

While teen pregnancy prevention has traditionally been framed as a solution to a problem, it is important to consider the impact this perspective has on young people, especially when programs do not address trauma or disparities. The messages we choose have the power to support, or impede, the wellbeing of youth. We will consider these alternatives and how prevention programs can integrate with justice frameworks to reduce judgment and shame-based tactics while supporting the health of all young people, including young parents.

Trans, Just For The Fun Of It: the compassionate practice of gender in four dimensions

Kate Bornstein

Description: Gender—broadly considered a two dimensional phenomenon described as male-or-female—is both the site of and cause of great personal and cultural suffering. The reason for this is that multi-dimensional understanding of gender by an increasing number of people has reached a cultural tipping point resulting in a painful clash of belief systems. The resolution lies in the analysis and compassionate application of the complementary wisdoms of postmodern theory, Mahayana Buddhism, and quantum mechanics: three fields which, in a Venn diagram, overlap at slapstick comedy.

Sexual & Social Liberation: Connecting our Pleasure to our Power

Dalychia Saah

Description: As we work to imagine and build a more liberated world, we are tasked with deconstructing external and internal oppressive ways of being. We exist in a culture that sends us daily messages that we are less than, should feel ashamed to be our authentic selves, to operate in competition instead of collaboration, that institutional violence and exploitation are the norm, and that we are not powerful enough to actualize liberation. These messages are also internalized, normalized, and perpetuated through our intrapersonal and interpersonal interactions. Through unpacking and challenging the ways that we’ve been separated from our authentic selves, our most loving and erotic selves, our most liberated selves, we will begin to identify how pleasure can serve as a pathway to sexual and social liberation.