WORKSHOPS

Facilitator: Rene Couret

Theater has long been a tool for resistance, healing, and transformation. In this interactive workshop, participants will explore how storytelling, performance, writing, and creative expression can be used to challenge injustice, process personal experiences, and inspire social change.

Whether you're a performer, writer, organizer, or someone who simply wants to find new ways to use your voice, this session will help you identify your unique gifts and explore how creativity can become a powerful form of activism. Through the lens of theater and psychodrama, participants will learn how artistic expression can transform grief into action, build community, and create lasting impact.

Facilitator: Tiana Taylor

The trans community is beautifully diverse, but our experiences, identities, and perspectives don't always align. This workshop invites participants into an honest conversation about the divisions, assumptions, and misunderstandings that can exist within our own communities. Together, we'll explore how empathy, respect, and curiosity can help us move beyond stigma and build stronger connections with one another.

Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the diversity of trans experiences, practical tools for navigating difference with compassion, and new ideas for fostering unity without demanding sameness.

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Kimi Floyd Reisch

What becomes possible when faith is no longer controlled by those who decide who belongs? This transformative workshop introduces Transversal Theology, an emerging spiritual framework rooted in connection, liberation, and collective becoming. Drawing from trans, two-spirit, queer, Indigenous, and womanist wisdom traditions, participants will explore how spirituality can be reclaimed beyond systems of exclusion and theological harm.

Together, we'll imagine faith beyond binaries and discover new ways of understanding ourselves, our communities, and the sacred.

Participants will gain language for naming and resisting spiritual harm, tools for creating meaning beyond gatekeeping institutions, and a deeper trust in their own sacred wisdom.

Facilitators: Nia Clark, Rhys Chambers & Rebby Kern

Stories have the power to change hearts in ways facts alone often cannot. In this interactive workshop, participants will learn how personal storytelling can build understanding, reduce stigma, and create more welcoming communities. Through guided exercises and reflection, attendees will practice crafting authentic narratives that connect personal experiences to broader social change.

Whether you're speaking in a congregation, classroom, workplace, or community meeting, your story can be a powerful tool for advocacy.

Participants will develop storytelling skills, increase confidence in sharing their experiences, and learn how collective narratives can inspire change and strengthen LGBTQ+ communities.

Facilitator: Kayla Earley, ViiV Healthcare

Every person carries a constellation of identities that shape how they move through the world. Through interactive exercises and group reflection, this workshop explores the many ways our identities intersect and influence our relationships, experiences, and sense of self.

By recognizing both our differences and our shared humanity, participants will develop greater empathy, strengthen connections with others, and discover how identity awareness can support personal and community wellness.

Facilitator: Brother Merrick Moses

Healing, transformation, and spiritual growth require tools. Drawing on traditions of ancestral wisdom, prayer, reflection, and sacred practice, this workshop invites participants to explore spiritual resources that can support them through life's challenges and transitions.

Together we'll reflect on the power of remembrance, the role of prayer as a transformative practice, and the importance of documenting our journeys toward wholeness. goes here

Facilitator: Nate Esparza

In times of uncertainty, our bodies often carry the weight of fear, stress, and vigilance. This workshop explores how gentleness, predictability, and intentional care can help us navigate systems of harm without disconnecting from ourselves.

Participants will learn practical, adaptable strategies for grounding, co-regulation, sensory support, and nervous-system care while honoring the realities of structural injustice. The session centers survival, access, and compassion while offering participants the opportunity to create a personal "Gentleness Vision Board" to take home.

Facilitator: Valerie Ames

In a world that constantly demands our attention, mindfulness offers a path back to ourselves. Through guided meditation and reflection, participants will explore practices that cultivate peace, presence, and compassion.

The workshop will cover foundational meditation techniques, mindful consumption, and ways to approach difficult people and situations with greater patience and perspective. Whether you're new to mindfulness or looking to deepen an existing practice, this session offers practical tools for everyday life.

Sometimes healing happens through conversation. Sometimes it happens through song.

Join us for a shared musical experience designed to foster joy, reflection, connection, and collective expression. Whether you're listening, singing, moving, or simply being present, this session offers an opportunity to pause, breathe, and reconnect through the power of music.

Gather with fellow retreat participants for an evening of storytelling, reflection, and community. Our featured film offers an opportunity to explore themes about joy and acceptance while creating space for shared conversation and connection afterward.

Sometimes stories help us see ourselves. Sometimes they help us see each other.

Throughout the retreat, participants are invited to contribute to a collective altar dedicated to memory, intention, healing, and hope. Bring an object, a written reflection, a prayer, a photograph, or simply your presence.

This evolving sacred space will serve as a visual reminder of the wisdom, grief, joy, resilience, and possibility that we carry together.

Stories have always been how communities pass down wisdom, preserve memory, and make meaning of the world around them. As the day winds down, gather around the fire for an evening of storytelling, reflection, laughter, and connection.

Participants are invited to share personal stories, moments of transformation, lessons learned, spiritual insights, or simply listen as others offer pieces of their journeys. Whether profound, funny, healing, or unexpected, every story contributes to the collective tapestry of the retreat experience.

There is no pressure to speak. Your presence is enough. Come ready to share, listen, and be reminded that our stories have the power to connect us.