A Conference Worth Remembering . . .
February 11th, 2009 by Stephanie Battaglino
http://transadvocate.com/autumnsandeen/archives/3283 (http://transadvocate.com/autumnsandeen/archives/3283)
I just finished reading Ethan St. Pierre's blog on the recently held IFGE conference in Washington, D.C., and I wholeheartedly agree with his characterizations. You can talk all you want about how lighter-than-usual the attendance was, but once the Board found itself locked into a poor time slot (February in D.C., are you kidding me?) the decision was made to make the most of it - and to Denise LeClair's much-deserved credit, the conference went on.
Was it smaller than past IFGE conferences? Of course it was. We can thank, to some degree at least, the economy and the aforementioned time of the year (it was a balmy 14 degrees when my partner Mari and I pulled into the hotel on Thursday morning). Was the hotel less than perfect? Not at all. Actually, the Hilton at Mark Center was quite nice, albeit a bit spacious for a conference of 125 or so. Were there not enough workshops? Hardly. There were well over 60 sessions - the same as at any past IFGE conference - with a wide array of topics and speakers. Did any noteworthy speakers show up? Of course they did, why wouldn't they? Because it was too cold?? Diego Sanchez, Mara Keisling, Phyllis Frye, Kelley Winters, Denise Leclair, Bree Hartlage, Yvonne Cook-Riley and myself took turns at the podium during the conference. As did the very-deserving Trinity Award winners for 2009 - Lisa Mottet, Spencer Bergsted and Gunner Scott.