CHICO, Calif. – One of the biggest complaints about K-12 and college sex conferences is they’ve moved beyond simply teaching protection and are advocating abnormal and sometimes dangerous behaviors.

The Gender and Sexuality Equity Center at California’s Chico State held its second-annual “The Trans* Agenda” conference last weekend. (They didn’t explain what the asterisk is for.)

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According to the event’s website, the conference included “speakers, workshops, and a panel dedicated to celebrating and honoring the diverse identities and experiences of trans* people.” (Again, the asterisk.)

The Orion, the university’s newspaper, reports, “Pat Cordova-Goff, who prefers a female pronoun, spoke about feminism and the many misperceptions people have regarding it. She stressed the importance in learning to include transgender and gender nonconforming people as part of the feminist movement.”

“If the people in my audience are trans, I hope that they just realize that their stories are valid and valuable,” Cordova-Goff told the audience.

“If my audience members are cisgendered, I would like for them to just have a different perspective. My biggest message is that your life is valuable. In general, I think this conference is a great thing for Chico, and I think it should definitely be continued.”

A “cisgendered” person is one who, “for the most part,” identifies as the gender they were “assigned at birth.”

In Dylan Pugh’s workshop, titled “The Ins and Outs of Sex: A Radical and Inclusive Sex Ed,” audience members were taught how to put a condom on by using their mouth.

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The session also included the basics of sex education, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, orgasms, masturbation and safe sex materials, according to the newspaper.

Another workshop was titled, “Queering Care” by Cameron McCaughtery.

The group posted several photos from the event on its Facebook page.


“We just wanted bring that to the trans community in Chico just to bring awareness that we shouldn’t forget the T in LGBTQ+ — that was the main thing,” Art De La Torre, one of the organizers, says. “We wanted to address their issues and also celebrate them. I came into it thinking that I knew a lot, and I actually had no idea about how bad the issues were that trans people face.”

Other events by the university group include a sale of “vulva cupcakes.” They even made a video.

Stop by Trinity Commons tomorrow to pick up a vulva cupcake! And don’t forget to buy your tickets for The Vagina Monologues this weekend! Happy #vday!

Posted by AS Gender and Sexuality Equity Center on Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Why anyone would want to eat that is anyone’s guess.