Yesterday I submitted three workshop proposals to the LGBTI Health Summit team! Let's hope for the best! Here they are:

UPDATE: Erik reminded me that -- oh yea -- we also submitted a "Bottom Monologues" proposal. It's added below now!

Title: Circuits of Power, Circuits of Pleasure: Sexual Scripting in Gay Men's Bottom Narratives
Presenters: Trevor Hoppe

Public health scholarship on same-sex male sexualities has tended to focus on the acultural category of "men who have sex with men," and their abilities (or lack thereof) to make rational decisions to prevent HIV transmission. But what about identity? In abandoning the use of identity categories as sites of inquiry, I argue that Public Health has evacuated a critical site of social meaning from their research. This presentation explores the meanings gay male participants attributed to their identity as "bottom." Based on focus group and interview data with 18 HIV-negative self-identified gay male bottoms living in San Francisco, this paper explores two dominant “sexual scripts” attributed to bottoms: first, that bottoms are men who desire to produce pleasure for their partners; and second, that bottoms are men who desire to submit sexually to their partners. I will conclude with a discussion concerning a minority of participants for whom these pleasure/power scripts for bottoms conflicted directly with public health scripts concerning safer sex behavior -- what I term "pleasure/risk dilemmas."

Title: P-Values, Regressions, and Correlations, Oh My!: How to Read, Interpret, and Critique Scientific Research on LGBT Populations
Presenters: Trevor Hoppe & Jason Mitchell

Our newspapers are filled with new reports on scientific studies that claim to have discovered something new about LGBT people’s health. Gay men are spreading MRSA. Lesbians are more likely to get breast cancer. LGBT teenagers are suicidal. But rarely do newspaper reports interrogate or reflect critically on the science behind these claims, and too often they misrepresent or overstate the researchers’ findings. In this interactive “how to” workshop, two Gay Men’s Health scholars will present first an overview of typical research methods and their potential pitfalls, as well as a glossary of the often confusing terms used to report new findings. Participants will then split up into small groups to analyze and critique some recent LGBT health journal articles.

Title: Destroying Public Health for the Good of LGBT Health: Critique. Alternatives. Discussion.
Presenters: Trevor Hoppe & Bill Jesdale

In the words of the late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." We are desperately need in a radical restructuring of Public Health, the kind of change that rejects and reformulates the very basic assumptions that underlie the way Public Health frames the social world. What are those assumptions, and how do we want them to change? And when the dust settles, after we have successfully destroyed Public Health as we know it, what do we want to be left? In this workshop, Gay Men's Health activist-researchers Trevor Hoppe and Bill Jesdale will briefly present their critique of Public Health and methods for resistance, leaving the bulk of the time to facilitate a discussion on the pain inflicted on LGBT people by Public Health and how we might envision its reshaping to our needs. Various viewpoints are welcome, but we will begin with one key assumption: Public Health as we know it needs to go. Now.

Title:Tales from the Backside: Bringing “The Bottom Monologues” to Life
Presenters: Trevor Hoppe & Erik Libey

Inspired by conversations and work presented at the 2008 National Gay Men’s Health Summit in Seattle, “The Bottom Monologues” is a play, in the spirit of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” that will use the narratives of gay/bi/trans/queer men to explore the complexities of bottom identity. This workshop will give a brief overview of the development of the project, which is still in progress…and then offer participants a “sneak peek” of the show through a dramatic reading of excerpts from the draft script. Participants will then have an opportunity to share their own reactions and thoughts through a facilitated exploration of questions that will touch on issues like stigma, choices, power & identity. Join us for this entertaining and interactive session as we address our core question: What does it really mean to be a bottom?