Pulling Off the Con: Methods of Mobilizing Queer Joy in a Student-Centered Conference

Abstract: QT-Con is a grassroots queer and trans conference and convention featuring research, creative works, and passion projects that center LGBTQIA+ perspectives. Made up of three days of presentations, programming, and performances, QT-Con was developed and executed by a team of queer staff and faculty. Working with a capstone class in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, we aspired to involve students in all aspects of the conference, from planning and marketing to presenting and facilitating sessions. Within this article, we outline the genesis of QT-Con as it evolved from student-need assessment to student-centered practice. We detail how the planning team came together to actualize this program through our shared desire for connection, knowledge, and joy. Examining the behind the scenes scaffolding necessary to support an event of this size and scope, we discuss the methodologies that make QT-Con a useful case study in creating sites of feminist and queer community and resistance that originate within rigid, vertical academic institutions only to confound that rigidity. The goal of this article is to empower readers to create their own versions of QT-Con. The work of bringing together queer community and knowledge, and of celebrating queer joy, is work that is larger than one event at one university. QT-Con, a conference about queerness that queers hierarchies of knowledge and power, is an ideal conduit for this work. Over the course of this article we walk readers through how to pull off their own con.